Is the AlphaParent anti-feminist?

[ifyourehoppyandyouknowit]

Was pondering this earlier. AlphaParent on FB, if you don't know, is a very pro-breastfeeding page. It's sort of hard to describe what they post, but it's mostly links to other articles and then they rip apart formula feeding and people's reasons for it. This grates on me a bit, as while I do think BF is the biological norm and women should be given as much support as they want/need, at the end of the day it's a choice.

There was a link today to an article on '15 Good Reasons for Formula Feeding Every Mom Can Agree On'. Some of the listed reasons included FF helping with their PND, lack of resources to pump at work, having cancer treatments, finding it incompatible with a demanding carer. These got ripped to shred on the AP, posters saying 'well, did you want a career or a baby' and lots of people saying things along the lines of 'how selfish are you for wanting to do anything other than what is best for your baby'. My favourite included someone pointing out that if she could carry on breastfeeding while having a brain tumour removed, then anyone could carry on during their cancer treatment. Obviously.

So does this count as anti-feminist? I just find the tone of the whole thing incredibly judgemental and anti-women. As if, by not breastfeeding, we are somehow failing as women and mothers and if only we had tried harder and not wanted to do anything other than parent and feed then we would have succeeded rather than failed at infant feeding.

I'm feeling a bit grim today, so sorry if this is a bit obtuse. I'm sure I've got a point in there somewhere if someone can help me unpick it?

ZutAlorsDidier yes I agree, I think its partly a good strategy because in a sense it proves that women can take some power and can earn independently and make different choices.

Zut - if you honestly think there are no power issues within feminism, I am not sure what else to say to you.

Many, many times I've heard feminists deny any such issues and claim that within feminism all women are equal and that feminist theory is untainted by any other prejudices and privileges, but in reality this is never the case.

You've put forward something that is unworkable at best and actively harmful at worst, just saying "because feminism" isn't a valid response.

Sounds pretty anti-feminist to me.

'well, did you want a career or a baby' is their mantra when it comes to mothers and careers.

GoshAnneGorilla, I do not equate feminism with the bunch of people practising it any more than Christianity = self-styled Christians. I don't get your point, you seem very keen to inform me that groups of people are prone to power struggles etc but I can't see what that has to do with feminism as a school of thought.

The larger issue is, that just because some decisions are made by abuse of power (sadly), it is stupid and wrong-headed therefore to say no decisions can be taken except by polling everyone with some sort of nonsense attempt at "fairness". some things are wrong, some are right. In some cases, sorting out which is which, should not be done by some waffly "taking it all on board and finding a balance" process, because then what you get is just a consensus based on the popular, unexamined view of the moment. There are various different ways of making different kinds of decision. If the question is "where shall we have our summer picnic?" then fine, open it up to everyone to have input, maybe it doesn't matter that much that it is a bit of popularity contest with certain people having disproportionate sway in making it somewhere convenient for them; and putting that issue aside, and pretending for the moment that there is no such lobbying and power groups, then the right answer is the one that most people support. If the question is "What is the patriarchy, and how does it affect me in my life?" the answer is not a matter of concensus because the power of the patriarchy is so great you will get a majority view of "the patriarchy does not affect me" and "I like women to be feminine" and "well she did go home with him so it was not real rape".

What I am getting at is that properly structured thought protects us from the powerful and oppressive hegemony of the moment (patriarchy, neo-liberalism). Some people aren't going to like it. They're either wrong, or confused. Sorry if that sounds harsh. But taking care of people's feelings is a different job from analytic political thought. I think feminists are unfairly and disproportionately expected to pander to people's feelings because they are women, and pro-women, and this makes everyone think of cosy kindness and collectivity. Not every woman is a feminist and not every thought expressed by every woman deserves a place in feminist discourse. Every person deserves the space to think and speak, as a person, of course, and to be listened to respectfully. But a lot of what a lot of people say will be wrong.

Zut - such a lot of words yet you still haven't explained:

Who will be deciding what is or isn't sufficiently feminist?

Where will this discussion take place?

What if other feminists disagree?

It sounds like you want a Mao's Little Red Book of Feminism, an endeavour that is doomed to failure.

I can see both sides of this argument, is it possible to be fair or to have democracy over decisions and actions unless everyone is involved in the debate without an unequal balance of power. But I agree with Zut that not all statements can be feminist just because the one who makes the statement claims to be feminist or claims that what they say is feminist.

Its often argued that feminist thinking is dominated by white middle class intellectuals and academics who take no account of the struggles facing working class women and women of different race and cultures. These women have privilege because their statements are listened to and their opinions respected. But I do think it is necessary and part of a process that we have women studying women's history, culture, gender politics etc,. These women do not make pronouncements and rules we must all follow and their work is peer reviewed and read and critiqued by the rest of us. Just as we discuss and debate and we often don't reach a consensus.

GoshAnne Am I right in thinking that you are very interested in intersectional theory???? If feminism has been dominated by the concerns of middle class white women and if you believe that feminism doesn't pay enough attention to working class/women of colour & different cultures, why are you attacking anyone and everyone who mentions capitalism? because it seems to me that if you want to

A) understand how cultural imperialism works and who it benefits, one should try and understand the link btw economic imperialism and cultural imperialism. How does cultural imperialism sideline the concerns of different women and why?

B) If you want equality for ALL women then you would also want ALL women to have equality with ALL women. The only way this can be achieved is by undermining the material differences, ie ironing out class differences.

I'm just interested in how you think that women are not equal and why you think that is and what in your opinion can be done to ensure we overcome it?

Mini - I am certainly not attacking anyone and everyone who mentions capitalism. I understand that you are a Marxist feminist, hence your primary focuses will be on issues such as class and labour inequalities and how they influence impact women. I am not a Marxist feminist , so my viewpoints will differ.

So I would disagree with B) because ironing out class differences does not eliminate racism or disablism, to name but two factors.

In a simple response to your last paragraph, all women suffer from inequality, but we suffer differently, in different ways, for lots of different reasons. There is no one universal solution to overcome this. .

Also, while I absolutely support having feminists in the academy, much academic work is not accessible to the general public.

It is frequently only available via costly subscriptions and is often written to be read by fellow academics, not the general public.

It depends what you mean by accessible, if you mean that some of the work is incomprehensible I would agree. I'm trying to read about language and pragmatics and some of it seems pretty odd and not really grounded in a way that people might think it relates to the realities of their lives. But there lies the real problem with academic work or with politics in general......liberalism creates a narrow discourse itself whilst engendering this idea that we are all somehow very individual, disconnecting the individual from any statement or propositions that are abstract or general. I believe liberalism and neo-liberalism is particularly fertile for theories such as intersection. In the last 30 years I think we have seen lots of cultural changes and we have liberalism spewing forth politically correct language (which itself is discriminating against the working class) thinking must be shaped by the language we use.

And I would disagree with you, doing away with class will absolutely level the playing field for people of colour and those with disabilities. Racism is a product of material exploitation. We exploit and we must find vindication that exonerates us. No one got off a boat in Africa, surveyed the locals and said "ooh must make them work for nothing because they look a little dark" no we exploited slavery and robbed those countries of their resources because we could and we wanted to, the racism came after the fact. Cultural imperialism is used to extend Christianity and Western ideologies compatible and useful to the system of capitalism. The same could be said for disabilities. At the moment social value is mediated through capitalism. As an example motherhood has no social value because it goes unrewarded financially, the same for people who can't work. The discrimination towards people with disabilities is growing because the economic situation of scarcity and austerity means we must create also the cultural/social thinking that justifies the material exploitation and hardship we inflict upon them.

I think (if she's who I think she is) that she posted on here while in the throes of PND and has a horribly unsupportive husband.

I think it#s fair to say the woman has some issues.

The blog is horrible stuff, and I say that as a 'hardcore' BFer.

It's not just anti-feminist tripe, it's anti parent.

I can just imagine my younger self, when having dramas BFing DS1 doing a Google search for BFing advice and coming upon that blog. The messages that if you can't do it, you're just not trying hard enough? Not helpful.

GoshAnneGorilla, how do you think feminists should decide what is feminist? By poll? (seriously. this seems to be what you are saying. Look at our govt, we got this at the polls, does this represent the People?) or - ????

I don't get the problem with specialists or experts. when the shower is leaking I don't poll a group of well meaning randoms as to how to fix it. I call in someone qualified.

Mini - you are positing what you think getting rid of class would do as if it is undeniable fact. It isn't.

You're trying to imply that intersectionality is somehow an outgrowth of liberalism. It isn't and Kimberle Crenshaw (who coined the term) would strongly reject such labelling or her theory.

What on earth do you mean by saying "politically correct language (which itself is discriminating against the working class)" -this is patronising rubbish of the worst kind.

As if not being an offensive arse (which is what being politically correct ultimately means) is something working class people can't quite grasp?!

As if working class people (who can also be ethnic minorities, disabled, etc) don't themselves prefer people not using offensive language about them.

And you claim to be some kind of class warrior?

Now that is interesting WayHarsh