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 it should be completely up to each individual woman but there's pressures on both side, your damned if you do your damned if you don't. You have people telling you your a bad mum who doesn't care about your baby's health if you don't bf and other people telling you that boobs are for sex and breast feeding is gross and something to be hidden if you do. It's all about controlling women's bodies,

Child rearing tsk, bloody iPad autocorrect.

Vashti yes I remember now. It would definitely be a feminist issue in that instance but would it be as obviously feminist in a developed country where newborns will generally thrive with either method of feeding?

It was a phone typo, yes it can be restricting. I think all women should have a choice and be informed as to the pros and cons. I don't think it can be labelled a feminist issue. Or are you saying men force women to bf, from what I've seen in the uk, it's women who create the pressures on other women to breastfeeding. I honestly don't see bf as any different to carrying your unborn baby or giving birth, they all have their pros and cons but they are intrinsically part of motherhood. I feel Very blessed to be a woman and be able to be pregnant, give birth and bf. I'm sure some men would like to be able to have these amazing experiences.

Breastfeeding isn't tying women down. Lack of understanding and provision for breastfeeding mothers makes breastfeeding an add on rather than understood necessity for which society should properly provide for.

Surely it is a feminist issue if breasts are only to be seen in sexual terms by the wider society to be gawped at on p.3?

YBMS, I agree with you. There is a lot of pressure to conform to expectations that a certain type of women breast feeds and another type doesn't, and if you do breast feed, you are then assumed to do 1,001 other things that have nothing to do with your breasts and nursing at all.

lego - I've done the expressing thing with my first child when I returned to work. Instead of enjoying a nice lunchbreak with my colleagues I was sitting on my own in the first aid room attached to a pump as I was anxious to give my baby the best food possible. I was relieved when after a few weeks it became clear that she wasn't interested in ebm.

Second time round I decided not to do that to myself. I'm still breastfeeding my 1yo, but the main reason to do so was being lazy and a cheapskate. The benefit of ease to me is lost when it means spending the precious time when the baby is not attached to my breast attaching to a milking machine, so I bought formula. And I felt really weird when I put it into the shopping trolley for the first time. Almost ashamed. And that's wrong. I shouldn't have felt ashamed for buying formula for my then 9 months old baby who was already happily munching all kinds of food.(As it is, like her sister, she refused any kind of milk during the day, so I didn't have to buy it for long) And come to think of it - noone should ever feel ashamed for buying formula at any age, but still it's happening.

And the lines of "oh, but it's only a short time", and "but it's not a big sacrifice" are still reinforcing that it's a "must", not a "can".

Surely there's a POV that buying formula (in the sense of being 'sold' it as a choice not as a necessity) is buying into the idea that your body is not good enough to feed your child and that something created by men is far better for that child than what you can produce? In the way that our bodies are not good enough because we sprout hair on our legs or have periods i.e. it is the controlling that is erotic not the actual physical feminine traits themselves. There is a power in BFing - not in the 'male' sense of getting pissed or being able to leave the home - but in that it is something that a man cannot do and which many get jealous over (not only because it takes the breasts away from him sexually but also because it makes him feel inadequate on some very deep level because he cannot provide).

This appears to be a bf v ff debate, not a feminist debate.

EM, I think that is quite a difficult question. The behaviour of formula companies in the UK does seem now to be well regulated by the government, so I don't think it is possible for Nestle to act particularly badly here. I would consider Nestle to be a feminist issue in the UK because we should be supporting women's well being in other parts of the world, and as consumers we can make a difference. It is a campaign that has been incredibly well supported by the public in developed countries (Canada particularly) at various times since it started up.

Agree Electricshock.

eclectic - but why do you think it's not a feminist issue? I didn't intend this to be a BF vs FF debate, because frankly they're boring. I'm more interested in the reason why it always leads to big rows and debates and how that does affect women.

Of course bfing has been used by the patriarchy to control and keep women down.

Women have started to fight this by denying/refusing to be 'tied' to bfing.

It's the wrong way round IMO.

Certainly my response was intended from the feminist (albeit beginner feminist) perspective - that female bodies are intrinsically flawed and we must be improved. Also that any success we enjoy must be in defiance of our physiology and not parallel to it.

Is formula something which has been created by men or is that a myth which is used in order to hammer home that breast is best?

I don't think that formula means that breastmilk is inadequate and I'm fully supporting the ban on advertising formula, and also had complained to the ASA when cow&gate were doing their iron cobblers).

starlight why has it been used to tie women down?

starlight it may have been used as such by the particarchy but then again the fact we have vaginas has been used against us. It does not mean that we start denying our own gentialia.

duh 'genitalia' of course.

I think Palmer's 'The Politics of Breastfeeding' explains why this is a women's issue (and therefore a feminist one).

It isn't a feminist book as such but it really makes you think.

www.pinterandmartin.com/the-politics-of-breastfeeding

My personal opinion is that it's each womans choice and some women make you feel bad for not doing it as it is supposed to be so natural. I bf and it doesn't feel natural, it can be very hard and Painful but it was my choice to persevere.

Why do you think it's a Feminist issue? Is giving birth a feminist issue? I'd have periods a feminist issue?

And what Starlight said.

But it's not patriarchal society which makes it impractical to take a baby to a punk gig or a drinking session, or a week long walking and wild camping trip away from civilisation, is it?

I can see both sides, but it is undisputeable IMO that BF gives men an 'out' in terms of childcare.

Lots of my friends DHs started off providing almost 50/50 childcare with their DWs. Then it lessened ("well there's no point both of us getting up for night feeds"). Then the Hs start having more 'time off' - "whilst you're feeding the baby I'll pop to gym/pub/shops". Then nights away/out - "X&Y have invited us out. I know you're going to have to stay home to feed baby, but I can go and catch up with them if you like".

And that's not to mention to the old "I think baby wants you not me, she's bound to be hungry" cop out.

My DH didn't get away with most of the above, cos I won't have it, but its amazing the amount of women who do. And it is just a slippery slope, ingraining the fact that it is a womans job to meet the needs of the baby.

I don't think that this should be about which is better or that women should be pushed towards one 'choice' or the other. Women have been pushed in both directions over the last sixty years. It certainly isn't a myth that many women were encouraged for decades not to breast feed - my own family have memories of this.

The reason why all this is a feminist issue is because it is about a lot of people telling women what they should and should not do with their own bodies, and the idea that a woman's body has a meaning to other people that is far greater and odds with what it means to that woman. My body, my choice I suppose.