Feminism and breastfeeding

[SnuggyBuggy]

Just curious as to people's opinions here as I haven't seen these two things discussed a lot. Is promoting breastfeeding compatible with being a feminist?

Of course it is! Why do you ask? Do you think that people who promote breastfeeding aren't feminist because they don't respect a woman's right to choose whether or not to breastfeed?

The problem is that breastfeeding discussions often get very heated and sometimes get decidedly un feminist.

But IMO breastfeeding and feminism are absolutely compatible.

Hope you meet your deadline.

Eh?
Woman's body = woman's choice. Like anything to do with her body really. And it's not really anybody else's business.

Weird question

I'm not a journo , I'd be way more goady than that if I was

Seriously it's just that in the last year or so and since having a DD its made me realise I need to wake up and get myself more informed on feminist issues so I've been reading. It's also sent me into the world of breastfeeding and I've joined groups both online and in real life and it's kind of occurred to me I've not seen much overlap between the two spheres. I guess it strikes me as odd as obviously breastfeeding is something only women can do and yet it's not something that seems discussed much from the feminism standpoint.

Sorry if that's a bit muddled

I apologise if I maligned you- you get a bit suspicious on here!

I agree that bf is not talked about much in feminist terms. Neither is mothering/parenting generally. In my opinion it’s an area where us old time feminists really dropped the ball and need to apologise to younger women. I can’t actually remember it coming up at all in the early days except that there was an assumption that there would be free crèches from birth- many of us looked to the kibbutz idea of communal baby care. But it honestly didn’t cross our radar in those contraceptive-happy days. There is certainly an important debate to be had.

I'm sure there is stuff if you look for it.
Becoming a mother turns a lot of women into feminists.
Breastfeeding is one aspect of the physical experience of mothering that gives our bodies an important purpose that is NOT being a sexual object for men's pleasure.
And that's just the first thought that came into my head, there's lots more than could be said about this topic.

I can remember reading stuff on here, stating that breastfeeding was actively anti-feminist. Particularly regarding promoting or encouraging it. Put me right off the feminism board.

Breastfeeding needs to be normalised and desexualised first and foremost.

I thought the feminist aspect of it all is that we have a right to breastfeed. It is what our breasts were made for. There is no should or should not breastfeed, but doing so is certainly not disgusting because some people have dirty minds.

I think this is a great topic and not at all obvious.

A few years ago there was a feminist writer, from France I think, who argued that women should not let themselves get tied down with breastfeeding because it tends to make them dependent on men, as it compromises their participation in the workforce. The same sort of perspective that would like to see gestation somehow outsourced for similar reasons, and says women should not take maternity leave etc.

@Betrand It's fair enough, we all know these boards are plagued by trolls and lazy journos.

I guess I'm a bit surprised not to have found a lot of feminist discussion around the issue. I do agree it's not an easy thing to discuss, in my experience it usually gets hijacked by people trying to debunk the research by talking about their 6 foot never ill FF children and the discussion taken off track.

Bertrand, I thought it was an essay question too

I'll be breastfeeding #5 when he/she arrives later this year. I'd love to see far more support for working mothers who want to breastfeed, particularly lower working class women whose employers might not have the resources and know how to accommodate a breastfeeding mother, compared to say, more professional organisations who have quiet rooms and a sympathetic HR department.

I also think there needs to be more education around health and breastfeeding, a lot of women I know suffered due to poor hydration and nutrition whilst breastfeeding, which might not seem a big deal on paper, but when it includes hair loss, teeth loss, dangerous weight loss, excessive bruising etc it can have long term consequences. One woman I know looked (and by her own admission) felt like a drug addict after dedicating a year to feeding her daughter.

Definitely a feminist issue - particularly as it's a stick that is used to beat women with and to make us constantly feel like we're not good enough, whichever feeding method we choose.

The absolute lack of support for women in this area is terrible. Lots of posters but no health visitors or midwives with more than a couple of hours training. In the major city where I lived after giving birth, women would travel miles to attend the only good breastfeeding support group, run by two amazing women.

For the majority of women, breastfeeding would make life a lot easier, and can be compatible with working full time if that's what the mother wants or, in my case, needs to do.

So yes, definitely a feminist issue, but how we manage to get a discussion going without people feeling the need to defend their choice, or attacked for the choice they made, I don't know.

Like all choices made by women, the choice is never made in a vacuum. Perhaps we could talk about the influences rather than the actual act of feeding?

"The food of love" is a cool book about breastfeeding that's feminist in tone.

I do think the way in which we promote breastfeeding seems all about guilt and blame and I sometimes feel I managed to breastfeed in spite of the pressure rather than because of it.

There is lack of support and its depressing how poorly informed healthcare professionals who work with postpartum women can be, mine was on NICU for a bit and I was almost made to feel like my wanting to attempt to BF was an inconvenience. They preferred to keep her or regular amounts of formula at regular intervals.

Obviously it's a choice how you feed your baby but I think we should be demanding better for women who are making that choice.

You may be interested in this www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/26/is-motherhood-the-unfinished-work-of-feminism

Also the Politics of Breastfeeding book

Thanks for the reading suggestions, I want to learn more about this

Each to their own but I personally could never be arsed identifying myself by the method I chose to feed my kid for six months ten years ago.

Why it's such a big bloody deal mystifies me. Do it or don't do it. It'll take up a miniscule portion of your conscious life, and none of your kids.

We've definitely had threads on the Politics of Breastfeeding before.

I don't think I've ever seen a thread where the majority opinion has been "breastfeeding is anti-feminist" (and I've been hanging around here for donkeys' years). Yes that French book got discussed, but I think the general consensus was she was wrong.

I think two feminist issues jump out at me (I'm sure there's more, but these spring to my mind). One is class analysis versus individual choice. So often breast feeding is cast as an individual choice without looking at the structural factors around that choice (lack of support for mothers, the general devaluation of motherhood, financial constraints, the need and/or desire to work outside the home).

The other is the way women's bodies (and specifically breasts) are hyper sexualised, simultaneously to be gawped at and kept covered, not to be used for the function that makes evolutionary sense. Which adds an extra layer of complexity to women's relationship with breastfeeding.

I think it’s an issue that the lactation system isn’t taught in biology in schools. We learnt about all these systems: nervous, respiratory, digestive, circulatory, reproductive, skeletal, excretory, homeostasis (and probably more I’ve forgotten).

Why is lactation left out? Probably because only women can do it and breasts are seen as slightly embarrassing sexual things rather than really amazingly clever organs.

Breastfeeding and feminism are a chewy subject together.

In my opinion breastfeeding is anti feminist, unfortunately. It reinforces the position as the primary caregiver. And it is difficult to combine with working.

Yes, there is plenty of academic feminist work on motherhood. But most people don’t, sadly, read that. There is very little mainstream stuff or public discourse. Particularly not directly related to employment and career prorogression.

In my opinion breastfeeding is anti feminist, unfortunately. It reinforces the position as the primary caregiver. And it is difficult to combine with working.

I don't think it's the breastfeeding which is anti feminist in that, it's the structural sexism which sticks us with 'primary carer' , fathers not taking paternity leave, working practices not having sufficient flexibility which are anti feminist.

I agree, Errol. It’s all part of the devaluing of women’s work- whether outside or inside the home. Anything which is predominantly women’s stuff is lower status than men’s, whatever it is.