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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Women who don’t be believed for their reasons not to BF - a feminist issue?

284 replies

Bluedoglead · 23/01/2018 15:34

Bear with me, I’ve posted this here because I don’t think it’s a feminist issue and I want to unpick my thoughts.

I struggle with my reasons for not BF one of my children.

I was put in a position where the decision was out of my hands.

I do think the comments around “did you try could have tried different should have tried that” are almost victim blaming and they make me very very angry and feel disbelieved.

I attempted suicide due to the horrendous time I had feeding that child. There was eons of support. I did the absolute best I could.

So why am I not just believed?

Please bear with me.My thoughts in this I find distressing and I’m trying to understand and unpick how I feel.

OP posts:
JJPP123 · 23/01/2018 17:18

Or it the start with "Oh but did you try..."
Ask if they tried minding their own business!

SciFiFan2015 · 23/01/2018 17:19

@JJPP123 - that's a far better response!

BertrandRussell · 23/01/2018 17:51

bluedoglead-I honestly don't think you are in a place where threads like this can do you any good at all. You can't start a generalised thread about breastfeeding on the Feminist board and take posts meant generally so much to heart. It's incredibly early days for you and your baby-could you find support on gentler boards?

Looneytune253 · 23/01/2018 17:52

To be fair though if they’ve actually said ‘most women should have tried harder’ then you know that doesn’t apply to you as you did everything you could. Sounds like you’re taking it to heart when they’re not even talking about you. Not that it’s any of their business talking about the other women either but the statistics show only 3% of women physically can’t breastfeed (you’re obv within the 3%) and with the correct support a lot of other women would be able to if they wanted to. Genuinely seems like they weren’t even referring to you personally but you’re taking it to heart.

MyGastIsFlabbered · 23/01/2018 17:56

I couldn't BF either but have fallen foul of the 'should have tried harder' brigade. 8 years on and it still rankles. There's some sort of competitive suffering going on and the mental well-being of the mother is forgotten amongst all the shouting of 'breast is best'.

Looneytune253 · 23/01/2018 18:01

Sorry just read your further posts where you said you didn’t want to breastfeed rather than you physically couldn’t. If you didn’t want to and you made that choice that’s your choice to make and that’s completely up to you. It does seem that you have some severe problems due to this decision though and seems to be affecting you badly. Have you thought about seeing someone about it. A councillor maybe. People stating facts on here are not being cruel or nasty and it’s not healthy for you to be getting so irrationally upset?

BertrandRussell · 23/01/2018 18:04

"To be fair though if they’ve actually said ‘most women should have tried harder’
But nobody actually has said anything of the sort!

MrsFoxPlus4 · 23/01/2018 18:04

My cousin didn’t breast feed due to having no breasts at all from having cancer and a mastectomy previously. She has also been asked at baby groups why she didn’t try harder or if she needed more support leading to her explaining yourself.

You need to be pysically & mentally well to BF your child blue. And I’m sorry you had a hard time, I hope you are both happy & heathy now that’s what’s important. I believe you

Looneytune253 · 23/01/2018 18:06

@BertrandRussell I know but that’s obv what op is talking about

JJPP123 · 23/01/2018 18:09

Urgh isn't it awful that women feel compelled to reveal their private reasons die to people not believing that they cant.

Looneytune253 · 23/01/2018 18:09

Also when I went to baby groups and talked normally and happily about breastfeeding (no Qs asked etc) people would always fall over themselves to justify why they hadn’t etc etc. I hadn’t asked I didn’t really care why or if they didn’t breastfeed but it was often felt that I was judging etc just because I was talking about my own experiences freely.

AccrualIntentions · 23/01/2018 18:15

So is the issue that we need to explore why women feel they have to "justify" not bf? If as suggested on various threads there's no judgement ff mothers and we live in such a pro ff society, that really doesn't fit with so many women feeling they need to have "valid" reasons for not bf. If there's really no judgment and ff is the norm everywhere, why are so many women feeling they must give their reasons? Is it really choice that we're giving women if it's couched as "this is the best, you should do this, these are the reasons you really should do this" "but this thing also exists." Because that's how bf is currently presented. And where women are simply choosing not to (as opposed to trying - however hard - and failing) there are entire campaigns set up specifically to get them to choose differently, whether that's by financial incentive or whatever.

Jon66 · 23/01/2018 18:17

I didn't breastfeed either and he's 27 and doing fine . . . says it all.

lolaflores · 23/01/2018 18:22

My baby was early, in SCBU, jaundices, tiny etc...woman asks, "Yes but really that shouldn't be a barrier.."
No point trying to justify your decisions to a frickin, judgy asshole who has never been in where you are and if they were, they would make sure they were getting a medal for it and probably a parade.

I didn't breastfeed. I tried. I had clusters of very earnest BF experts round me with my tiny baby in the SCBU urging me on and I sat there, weeping with frustration and shame...
"If you just keep going..." and the simpering tone as if I was just being awkward.
Fucked them all out in the end and did a combo of things which worked fine and dandy.

I hate the BF tyrants and what they inflict on other women. Their casual superiority, their idea of themselves as forging paths to some end goal that I don't understand as evidence shows that when all is said and done, BF vs FF babies have little or no differences later in life.
Make your decision for you. Mind you, as an older mother I had enough confidence to do that but I saw younger women struggle with themselves and it was difficult to see.
As a subject it does wind me up.

Bluedoglead · 23/01/2018 18:27

Bertrand no I do not want to go to a gentler board.

Please stop patronising and infantilising me.

OP posts:
okMaybeIAmATERF · 23/01/2018 18:28

Two cases, let's look at similarities and differences.

Woman A: I was sexually assaulted.

Woman B: I couldn't breastfeed.

Similarity: in both cases, the statement could be interpreted in two ways.

  1. As a statement about the woman's perception: her own internal truth.
  2. As a statement of objective truth, that would be recognised by someone else who knew all the relevant hard facts.

In sense 1 we should probably always believe both women. It's conceivable that either is not telling the truth about her perception, but it's so vanishingly unlikely that we needn't really bother with that possibility.

In sense 2 we have to be more careful. We still have a legal process: if Woman A was alone with Man X, and there's no evidence but Woman A's word, we may not go so far as to jail Man X on her word alone, if he says he reasonably believed Woman A consented because blah blah. When we say "we believe you", sense 2 isn't what we mean. That's uncomfortable so we normally brush it under the carpet, but it has to be so.

The reason to be careful about sense 2 in Woman B's case isn't so obvious, but it's still there. The more times a woman says "I couldn't breastfeed" in the company of a group of women, some of whom are ignorant about breastfeeding, and everyone accepts the truth of the statement, the more people who haven't yet breastfed come to expect that they might not be able to breastfeed, and the more people who might have wanted to breastfeed and been able to give up because they were expecting that they might not be able to and so when they hit difficulty they assume that's what's happened. We've come a long way away from that in recent decades, but only because of all the work that's been done to emphasise that breast is best and most women can breastfeed. (The younger among you won't remember before all these initiatives.)

In the present environment, it's more comfortable to say "I couldn't breastfeed" than to say "I chose not to breastfeed", especially if your internal truth is something more like "I chose, but it wasn't a free choice, because the environment around me made it incredibly difficult to go on, and maybe if I had chosen to go on I might have been able to solve my problem, but maybe I wouldn't have been able to, and I'll never know because I didn't take that path, and really this is none of anyone's business". That's understandable, but you get challenged because what you said may not be strictly true in sense 2. If you don't like that, you might want to choose a different formulation, such as "At the time I perceived that I couldn't breastfeed".

OfDragonsDeep · 23/01/2018 18:28

I believe you OP, I had masses of support, people at my house, midwives, phone support and I still couldn't do it. There was no medical reason. Latch was fine.

We got readmitted to hospital as he lost too much weight. Breastfeeding ruined the first few weeks with my baby. I'll never get that time back and there's no way I'm going through that again if I have another baby.

Bluedoglead · 23/01/2018 18:29

Looney. I very desperately wanted to bf. I had bf my other children.

I was told to stop by doctors due to my child being quite literally starving.

Where do you get from that that I did not want to BF?

OP posts:
Batteriesallgone · 23/01/2018 18:35

Is breastfeeding really so prevalent that ff mothers are ostracised? That’s not my experience by I appreciate anecdote doesn’t equal data.

Bluedoglead · 23/01/2018 18:36

I was questioned. Every. Time.

I wouldn’t say ostracised, but I was disbelieved and questioned. Repeatedly.

OP posts:
JJPP123 · 23/01/2018 18:38

Breastfeeding seems far more common place to me amongst the people I know than the statistics would have led me to believe.

AccrualIntentions · 23/01/2018 18:40

@batteries I'm told my experience isn't typical and looking at the statistics for bf across the country it can't be - but I only have friends who successfully bf, and have never seen anyone bottle feed at the baby groups/classes I've been to. There's no one I know well enough to talk to about feeding that formula feeds. I wouldn't say I'm ostracised for it - but it is a bit isolating and I do feel very judged, even if that's inferred judgement rather than overt judgement.

whoputthecatout · 23/01/2018 18:43

Bluedoglead: I understand where you are coming from. Whatever answer a woman gives to a question - doesn't matter if it is "couldn't" or "didn't want to" that should be the end of the questioning. The only follow up answer to persistent questioners is "mind your own business".

checkpotatoes · 23/01/2018 19:04

If one person says to me "I couldn't breastfeed" then I wouldn't ever challenge them, I might assume they had wanted to and therefore ask them in an "oh what a shame, what went wrong" sort of way, but that's all.

If over the years dozens and dozens people say to me "I couldn't breastfeed" then I'd respond to them in the same way individually, but I might look back and suspect there could have been a fair few cases of poor support/not really wanting to in there. But that's a statistical thing rather than any kind of individual judgement.

I wonder OP if having BF other children and knowing stuff about BFing means that you might actually have tended to think the same thing in the past, and now it bothers you to think other people may be thinking that about you? Even though that thought is not really judgmental at all of any individuals?

SoupyNorman · 23/01/2018 19:08

That's a good post okmaybe

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