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?

beachcomber - I didn't say there isn't value in examining what has eroded the breastfeeding culture, but the kneejerk "women wouldn't have done it" just doesn't make sense to me.

By looking at it as male actions, there's a risk of losing the wider picture. I think it's a woman's issue because it affects women, not because I believe that it has been caused by men.

SarryB - trying to analyse breastfeeding from a feminist perspective, isn't pressuring other woemn to breastfeed.

I formula fed both my DC's (I breastfed my DS for 6 months, I would now describe that as curtailed breastfeeding.) I don't feel remotely guilty about it and I'm not remotely interested in listening to the opinions of anyone who hasn't got empathy and awareness of the political context in which I did that. The very constrained choices I made in the situation I was in, do not prevent me from being able to try and analyse the politics of breastfeeding from a feminist POV.

Please don't feel pressured by anyone, I know that's easier said than done.

One thing I find really sad, is that many women are unable to breastfeed because our patriarchal society has disempowered them and they then start blaming other women who can, for making them feel guilty, because their feelings of grief and sadness when they couldn't succeed in breastfeeding, were invalidated. The crappy "all that matters is she's healthy and happy" is a silencing technique - we're taught to be so grateful that our DC's have their health, that we're not allowed to feel sad about not being able to BF them (those of us who do feel sad - if you don't, good for you) and so often, that sadness, grief, etc., gets re-directed into blaming other women for "making me feel bad", "pressurising me" etc.

So the patriarchy wins again - women's feelings, experiences, voices, silenced and invalidated again and their transferred feelings of anger, disappointment, guilt, etc., directed against other women.

WW I think it's very unlikey that if women historically had had an equal say in the running of the world, breastfeeding and child-rearing would have been defined as incompatible with participating in society.

unlikely even

portofino - "Current society seems to have become very un-childfriendly - why on earth should you not be able to take your baby to the pub, on a walking holiday, to work even."

Pub: nothing wrong with taking a baby childfriendly family pub in the afternoon, but it's less good if you want to go on a proper bender. Nothing to do with the patriarchy, but with what is an adequate and safe environment for a child.

Walking Holiday: Short daytrips alright, but small children are a) more easily susceptible to hypothermia and similar problems, and that's not to mention the practicalities of carrying nappies out (unless you're one of those arses who just leave their offspring's shitty nappies by the wayside.

As for work - as I said earlier - very small babies are portable, but once the first few months have passed, they're not sleepy passive blobs anymore, and therefore make it hard to perform anything which needs a certain amount of concentration. It also seems to assume that all workplaces can be inherently childfriendly. Would you want to take a baby into a lab? Should a neurosurgeon wear her child in a wrapsling whilst operating on the brain of another? Or are these all jobs which aren't for women? And is it actually fair on children to be dragged into a workplace rather than being in an environment which is totally geared towards their needs?

I didn't say 'women wouldn't have done it'.

I explained that Palmer's factual book examines the factual history of how and why BF culture has been eroded. Male dominated institutions such as capitalism, commercialism and medicine played an instrumental role.

I agree with you, it is a women's issue because it affects women. It is also a feminist one because how this issue affects women is directly related (as has been factually observed) to the fact that we live in a male dominated society.

I'm not pretending to have a crystal ball and claiming that things would have been different if we didn't live in a male dominated society. I'm just observing the facts and reality of the system we do have.

But redhotpokers, that's just that some of your friends' DH's are twits (polite version) rather than the fault of breastfeeding. My OH stepped up to the plate and did the nappy changes and other aspects of domestic stuff in lieu of feeding the baby. He knew that if BFing was to be successful, I needed to get my feet up and keep eating the chocolates...

And WRT feeling like I "must" do it, I felt that it was what I wanted to do; I loved the bond I felt with the DC and having spent nearly 40 years suiting myself, it wasn't a big deal to have 6 months where I prioritised someone else.

If I lived in a time or place where I couldn't get out and BF my baby in front of other people, then I would have felt 'oppressed' - but I made a point of feeding in front of the older male members of the family (they soon got used to it and stopped studying the ceilings) and wherever else I was. I was lucky enough not to come across any of the rude aggression experienced by some BFing mothers. Having laws to enshrine your right to BF in public, and having spaces where it is comfortable to do so, are key. I think it's important to normalise BFing within our culture - it's completely insane that breasts are used to sell newspapers, but some people are squeamish about them being used to feed infants.

Interesting thread and a very interesting topic.

I found the "breast is best" message from various sources to be often rather patronising. The prevalent idea seems to be that women need a lot of persuasion to do something which is better for their babies - which is a pretty nasty view of women when you think about it. And it is wrong anyway - the stats show that the vast majority of women aim to BF, and start trying to BF, and it is maintaining it that is problematical for some women. What is needed is practical support post-natally. But that is expensive - so better to chuck loads of pressure at women ante-natally so they struggle on with little support and feel dreadfully guilty if it's not working out.

Also agree that BF is very limiting in our society for the mother - with DD1 I felt very uncomfortable BF "in public" so for the first few months only really went to places where I knew there were private places to feed. She also wouldn't take a bottle so I didn't go out in the evening for ages.

With DD2 I knew the score and so just accepted that I'd be doing sod all really for the first 6 months.

I think there are any issues surrounding BF and of course they are feminist issues. Women have this very strong message about what they are supposed to do and then there is little support to actually do it and society is still not used to the whole idea which makes it even more difficult for a lot of women.

I didn't mean that women pressure other women to BF - I meant that in my limited experience (just had my first child), all the female health professionals that I have come across seem extremely insistent that I continue to BF, even if it ends with me in tears and the baby screaming and finally being given formula. One even suggested that if my LO still wasn't getting it by the 10th day, I was to offer nothing but the breast all day, effectively starving my baby into taking the breast.

For what it's worth, I would have BF in public, and BF exclusively, if all had gone well.

This is a great thread, it is certainly making my Saturday stuck at home with baby much more interesting!

No - you couldn't do most jobs with a baby strapped to you - but you could have more work place creches and the like. Where you could go to bf at various points in the day.

And on the continent whole families go out in the evening. Not to get pissed up admittedly - but it seems that in a lot of European countries it is totally normal to see babies and small children in cafes and restaurants.

Yes Sarry, there is all this lip-service given to breastfeeding and then when it comes to it, no-one in the NHS knows how to support a woman how to BF. (When I say no-one, obv there is the rare exception).

The very fact that a HV is telling you to starve a 10 day old baby, shows how useless she is as a support to a mother having difficulties with breastfeeding. The NHS is riddled with people like this; very well meaning, wanting to help, wanting to be supportive, but not equipped with the knowledge and training to make them so. And so it becomes a vicious circle; they unintentionally sabotage breastfeeding, then because they do it so often without realising they're doing it, they have the experience that bf is incredibly difficult if not impossible for most women and they then approach the next difficult case with a fatalist idea that it's not going to work anyway... etc.

That's interesting Sarry, a friend of mine is a fantastic mum and she has BF all four children, all of them have had to have speech therapy. I'm not saying BF causing speech defects but I can't help but think FF doesn't actually cause speech defects either, it is more probable that some other factors are involved.

Basil, I think you are so right about women not being part of mainstream society, so feeding children is also sidelined to the home or the margins of society. Is this also tied up with the whole nuclear family thing? which seems to have been a product of the capitalist mode of production. Women perform reproductive labour, we create and sustain the workforce whilst receiving little of the rewards.

Whilst I agree with WW that certain jobs would be impossible to perform "wearing" a baby in a sling, I can't help but think that society would be healthier, women would be happier and more children could be cared for in other ways other than within an institutional set up (nurseries) Reproductive labour and raising the next generation, be they workers or otherwise, surely has to be the most important form of labour rather than second and in addition to waged labour.

Portofino I'm all for work creches and improving access to childcare and valuing good quality childcare as a positive thing and as a skilled profession, instead of making it out that unhappy mothers put their babes into a kennel, so they can toil in a workplace that has nothing to offer.

Tethersend, that was a poor analogy, IMO. I am a feminist (i believe in equal rights for men and women) and there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to participate on these threads. I just have a different perspective it seems to most people who post here. I'm sure it sounded good when you wrote it.

Eclectic, patronising put-downs do your argument no favours.

You stated that bfing was not a feminist issue- I disagree.

You implied that oppression could be ended if people 'stopped letting themselves be oppressed'- a POV I find difficult to ascribe to a feminist. You made your views of this board very clear. I am simply trying to understand why you would continue to post on a board you have so little regard for.

I hope you change your mind, and see the same interesting discussions here that I do- and engage with them.

I would like to jump in on what tethers has said there and say that just because I felt sometimes uncomfortable feeding in public it didn't mean I was letting myself be oppressed. I feel uncomfortable whenever I am doing something that lots of people give me the skunk eye about but it doesn't stop me doing those things if I feel that they are right.

I have spent a lot of my life working emotionally and practically to not 'be oppressed' but none of us can escape the culture we have been brought up in and live in, it's always a work in progress of questioning our own feelings and reactions as well as those of others.

It is not a feminist position to believe or imply that people cause their own oppression and if only they were not so obstinate in insisting on being oppressed, their oppression would stop. It isn't part of any liberation thinking for any oppressed group AFAIAA.

It is a position which the media adopted in the nineties as part of the backlash and presented as feminism along with a whole load of other stuff which didn't advance the welfare of women, so that people would be put off the scent of the real thing.

Just because the media says something is feminist, it doesn't mean it is.

And Mini, yes I agree with you re the nuclear thing.

I agree with tethers - the idea that the oppressed let themselves be oppressed is a bit weird.

I've been reading a lot of the posts on Fearless Formula Feeding, and am so stunned at the amount of work some women put into breastfeeding, at a serious detriment to their physical and metal selves.