Breastfeeding and Feminism

[WidowWadman]

Someone mentioned it on the Patriarchy Thread, but I think it deserves a thread of its own.

Breastfeeding is getting a lot of positive coverage with "breast is best" and similar slogans, and I think anything which encourages access to support is great.

At the same time, there's no doubt about it, breastfeeding is tying women down, at least for the initial months, in a way that bottlefeeding doesn't.

Now I've BF'd my first child for 18 months, and have been BFing my second for a year now with no idea how long I'll continue.

Once established, I find it harder to quit than to keep going, even though I seriously wish sometimes she'd just wean herself. I felt the same with No2.

I'm a bit ambivalent about it - I like the fact that it's free, helps to shed weight, and that it means less washing up and sterilising. I'm just really not sure about the ideology thing.

I think women should be getting support if they want it, and that includes access to space for pumping while at work, but I don't like how mothers who choose not to are being made feel guilty. And I'm seriously not sure whether the benefits aren't overstated by the pro-BF lobby.

In a way, a woman who doesn't breastfeed can enjoy freedom much earlier than one who does, so the overzealous promotion of BF (as shown in the endless breast vs bottle arguments), seems sometimes a bit anti-woman to me. It all points into the whole essentialist gender role crap again, doesn't it?

So what is the 'proper' feminist stance, if there is one?

i think there is something lovely and natural about BFing, but the pro BFing lobby has been discribed as overbearing a tyranical, making women who cant BF feel guilty, like most things it's down to the individual, and others shouldnt judge so much.
no idea what the feminist stance is on this.

Obviously there are pros and cons to breast feeding, as you have pointed out.

I suppose it depends on how much you want to be around your child and how you personally feel about breast feeding. It is one of the most enjoyable things I have ever done (perhaps the most enjoyable thing, but then there's rollercoasters also...) and sometimes I really miss it. So I never viewed it as being tied down, anymore than women who go on a gap year to Australia are tied down by being in Australia. I understand that some other women don't like it, and it is of course their choice to do what is best for them.

The feminist stance I suppose is to look at the structure around why women do or not want to do it, and try and make the context around women and their bodies as positive as possible, so that women are able to make a choice in the best possible situation.

I personally think it has nothing to do with feminism. Feminism should be about women have equal rights. Men can't breastfeeding, it's irrelevant. Breastfeeding is a natural part of being pregnant, and giving birth. If you can't do it, fine, you shouldn't be made to feel bad, but it is beneficial for the child over formula as scientifically proven. I don't understand how this has anything to do with feminism?

Well in Scotland it is a criminal offence to stop somebody from breastfeeding in a place where the public could reasonably expect to be, and in England it is a civil offence.

So I suppose there are various laws around it, and discrimination against somebody breast feeding would be protected as part of sex discrimination, because generally only women breast feed.

I think Zoe Williams has a book about this out at the moment.

Having done both I sometimes think the benefits can be overstated. Shared night feeding was definitely a plus for me.

In terms of feminism I would have thought it would be the support in either choice that would be important.

I don't agree with you. Having a child, no matter how you feed, is what loses you your freedom.

I don't know if there is a feminist stance on breastfeeding. I breastfed ds1 for 8 months and ds2 for 12 months and personally felt very proud that I'd done that. With ds1 I found it difficult at first and very tying, but everything else was difficult and tying too! Feeding ds2 was much easier; we were out all the time and I just fed him where ever we were.

Certainly the Boycott Nestle campaign was hugely supported by feminists, and that is about breast and bottle feeding.

current event in US around feminism and breast feeding:

www.uncg.edu/hhs/cwhw/symposium/index.html

rainbow - obviously a child loses you your freedom. But my non-breastfeeding friends have been down the pub or even away over night from their offspring much quicker than me. My husband just spent a week away on a walking holiday, which is something which only will become possible again in the future for me, so it loses me more freedom. A bottlefed child could be dropped with the grandparents and I could have gone too.

eclectic - I think it's a feminist issue, or a women's issue, as women are being pressurised into giving up their freedoms when it is claimed that breastfeeding is inherently so much better than formula feeding. The whole attachment parenting lark to me seems like an approach to tie women to the home, by claiming that that's natural - and is it interesting or not that big proponents of this, such as Dr Sears or Oliver James are men. Who aren't tied down by their promoted parenting style in the same manner as their wives are?

It all points into the whole essentialist gender role crap again, doesn't it?

Only women can breast feed, so I don't agree with this statement.

As a woman, being able to feed my child without having to purchase more commodities from the patriarchal capitalist system definitely felt like a feminist act. Using my breasts to feed the child I loved, rather than have them reduced to decorative objects, felt like a feminist act. When I had hard times BFing, the women on MN really helped and supported me, which I saw as a feminist act. I also had the choice - to BF, to BF out and about, to take extended ML and not stress over weaning - something for which I felt privileged and for which I have generations of previous feminists to thank. So, for me, it felt empowering I guess, and gave me self confidence - after a difficult birth, at least my body was able to do something I'd been told it could do.

Having a child doesn't mean sacrificing yourself for that child... I really can't see how you can infer that bf is anti feminist.

I don't agree either. The fact that almost all people who breastfeed are female is a matter of biological sex, not gender.

Sorry my phone... Does mean sacrificing.

Vashti wasn't the boycott Nestle campaign due to the aggressive marketing in developing countries were the benefits of breastfeeding can be the difference between life and death for newborns?

Bf is a biological fact, most mammals do it, to see it as oppression is complete rubbish.

Sorry where.

Widow Wadman - not necessarily true. Who's to say that you can't get out and do stuff with a babe-in-arms? In some ways, BFing makes travel and going out simpler (less to cart about). Once BFing is established, if your child will take a bottle of expressed milk, you can go away from time to time. I had to do a couple of 48 hour trips with a 6 mth old BF baby - which was managed with a breastpump and bottles of EBM and formula. Generally for me, it wasn't a huge sacrifice to cry off some social engagements for a while - I knew I'd get back into them eventually.

Yes, there is a link about Nestle here:

boycottnestle.blogspot.co.uk/

It was the first feminist campaign I was involved with as a teenager.

eclectic - but you can't exclusively breastfeed without giving up some of your freedom. It's physically impossible.

And I haven't said that breastfeeding in itself is anti-feminist, I'm firmly for enabling access to better breastfeeding support, and the right to breastfeed anywhere and everywhere (and that's what I do myself). I'm more talking about the ideology that a good mother must breastfeed, and the thing about how it's natural and therefore must be better.

Basically, when the enabling of one choice tips into the attempt to remove another choice.

I can see that is something that could possibly happen WW, but I think we are a long way in the other direction at the moment.

I found it very empowering as a woman, in a look at this thing I have grown completely on my own type way. It gave me a lot of confidence and regard for my own body. Especially after I had very shit births.

I don't find it ties me down at all, I see it part of the commitment, a lot of partners don't get up in the night even with ff, it is a complete fallacy that you can't have 50/50 child rearing from the start if you bf and not a very helpful one as it is yet another excuse for partners to not pull their weight.

And you don't have to buy into the attachment parenting thing to bf, I quite happily got both of mine into a loose routine early on as that was what felt right and useful for me, it enabled me to wfh for a start. I think part of the problem is that women are told what to by men ie dr sears or socalled experts without children and so feel that they have to do it all one way or another, to fit into one camp or the other in terms of childbearing, yet another way women are pitched against each other.

I feel a bit like legoballoon. Bf is what my breasts were made for, it makes me feel proud to use them for that rather than only for them to be decorative and sexual.

If anything bf should be a reminder of the power of women, I mean we can grow a human to 6 months!

I also think that yes, bf can lead to loss of freedom that ff might not but I think that if we did not live in such a patriarchal society them our lives would accommodate bf much more easily.

WW I think it still comes down more to social / economic factors. You're right that if you're BFing but have the support / resources to get out and about, there's nothing about BFing per se that disempowers a woman. The whole ideological thing about what constitutes "good" mothering or parenting is more complicated than BF = good, formula = bad, but I've had too much shiraz to try and unravel them now