La Leche League are consulting to remove the words: Womanly, Art and Breastfeeding from their book, 'The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding'

[WomanlyArtOfBreastfeeding]

A global poll has been sent to La Leche League Leaders and applicants which proposes to remove the words Woman and Breastfeeding (as well as Art) from The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, first published in 1956.

The survey states:
The WAB 9th edition Task Force has been asked by the LLLI Board to make a recommendation regarding whether the title of the book The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding should change or not in the next edition.

Then goes on to ask:
If the title is changed, how would you feel about the word 'womanly' being removed?
Pleased
Neutral
Displeased
Please explain your response to the question above (removing 'womanly').
Your answer

If the title is changed, how would you feel about the word 'art' being removed?
Pleased
Neutral
Displeased
Please explain your response to the question above (removing 'art').
Your answer

If the title is changed, how would you feel about the word 'breastfeeding' being removed?
Pleased
Neutral
Displeased
Please explain your response to the question above (removing 'breastfeeding').
Your answer

What a shame. I really liked the biological nursing stuff and when my baby found the nipple like in the book I was amazed!

@Gncq

What, precisely, is the problem with the word 'womanly'?

The problem is gender ideology.

People who adhere to it are aiming to divorce the usage of the words "woman" and "man" from their original meaning, which relates to our biology.

Any usage of the words "woman" including "womanly" in relation to giving birth or breastfeeding or menstruation must be erased.

The ideology demands that "woman" and "womanly" now means something else that people with a penis can be.

So, no thank you LLL.

I agree with everything you say here but I also wonder why feminists are so quick to recoil from the word 'womanly' when it is used in relation to something only women can do.

I don't like the word much myself but perhaps that's because the word is usually used in relation to certain clothing or behaviours which are to do with outdated stereotypes.

Maybe the word needs to be reclaimed?

Maybe the word needs to be reclaimed?

We associate negative air head or worse stereotypes.

We do need to reclaim.

@titchy

'The Personly Craft of Chest-nourishing' doesn't have quite the same ring about it somehow...

I found the language and style dated when I was breastfeeding my own children in the late seventies and early eighties. But good grief - another organisation pandering to the trans lobby!

I agree with everything you say here but I also wonder why feminists are so quick to recoil from the word 'womanly' when it is used in relation to something only women can do.

I don't like the word much myself but perhaps that's because the word is usually used in relation to certain clothing or behaviours which are to do with outdated stereotypes.

Maybe the word needs to be reclaimed?

I'm trying to imagine the word 'womanly' if it used a (my) feminist take on what 'like a woman' actually means. It doesn't quite work as an adjective when your view of that a woman is simply an adult human female and that it's only our adult human femaleness that we have intrinsically in common, does it? So the fact that it is used to describe a particular performance of womanhood isn't so much a thing to be reclaimed as a bit of a distinction between 'woman' and 'womanly', or the word is otherwise somewhat redundant (which I guess is why I don't use it - because I reject the idea that 'womanly' can be a useful adjective).

My womanly vagina? Our womanly oppression?

This is beyond parody

@NellWilsonsWhiteHair

I agree with everything you say here but I also wonder why feminists are so quick to recoil from the word 'womanly' when it is used in relation to something only women can do.

I don't like the word much myself but perhaps that's because the word is usually used in relation to certain clothing or behaviours which are to do with outdated stereotypes.

Maybe the word needs to be reclaimed?

I'm trying to imagine the word 'womanly' if it used a (my) feminist take on what 'like a woman' actually means. It doesn't quite work as an adjective when your view of that a woman is simply an adult human female and that it's only our adult human femaleness that we have intrinsically in common, does it? So the fact that it is used to describe a particular performance of womanhood isn't so much a thing to be reclaimed as a bit of a distinction between 'woman' and 'womanly', or the word is otherwise somewhat redundant (which I guess is why I don't use it - because I reject the idea that 'womanly' can be a useful adjective).

My womanly vagina? Our womanly oppression?

I think that is the whole point about why the proposed name change is so ludicrous. The word womanly is being used in a similar fashion to your proposed womanly vagina. The book is extreme in its view regarding the role of the biologically female birthing and feeding parent, ie the mother, being able to do something it sees as distinctly womanly, ie birthing and feeding a baby. It also talk about how breastfeeding knowledge was passed on from woman to woman through generations, as well as the art of infant care. It has seen biological mothering as a distinct and womanly role, utterly distinct from other parenting roles. Their position, the distinction of a uniquely womanly act, is totally gender critical, albeit not necessarily feminist (but not necessarily anti feminist either IMO, though that's a discussion for a different thread).

A dad can't breastfeed though can he.
Being a breastfeeding woman quite literally IS being "womanly" in the literal meaning of the word "womanly".

It's not trying to say sticking on high heels and wearing lipstick is womanly. I can see why feminists would object to that. I object to that. Pink dresses. Fuck that.

If breastfeeding isn't womanly then what is womanly? Lipstick? Knitting? Nothing at all?

The oed lists "womanly" as refering to characteristics typically of a woman, as opposed to "girly" which would refer to characteristics of a female child.

I don't think I've ever used "womanly". I can't think of seeing it being used other than tabloid-speak "womanly curves" or perhaps in really bad fiction- "womanly wiles". I don't have any particular objection to it if anyone wants to use a rather naff word.

^The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" sounds, to me, twee and smug.

I suppose "art" suits LLL's philosophy of breastfeeding being super and amazing and special - indeed an art- although how they square that with their judgemental attitude that every woman can be "womanly" and do it if only they tried a bit harder and weren't so selfish and/or lazy.

that's because the word is usually used in relation to certain clothing

The OED citation of its use in Bleak House is in relation to clothing but it's justifiable to show the burden of adult responsibilities being imposed on a child.

@KimikosNightmare

I don't think I've ever used "womanly". I can't think of seeing it being used other than tabloid-speak "womanly curves" or perhaps in really bad fiction- "womanly wiles". I don't have any particular objection to it if anyone wants to use a rather naff word.

^The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding" sounds, to me, twee and smug.

I suppose "art" suits LLL's philosophy of breastfeeding being super and amazing and special - indeed an art- although how they square that with their judgemental attitude that every woman can be "womanly" and do it if only they tried a bit harder and weren't so selfish and/or lazy.

I’ve never gotten that from LLL, that’s sad if that’s your experience

@KimikosNightmare

It's a terrible title. It's twee and smug although does convey the sort of unrealistic and judgemental attitudes which according to reviews on Good Reads are in the book.

"Breastfeeding Explained" or "Breastfeeding" would do just fine.

I do agree it's awful. But we all know that that's not why they are changing it.

I do agree it's awful. But we all know that that's not why they are changing it

Oh absolutely we know why. It's spineless- the title is terrible but it always was. There's no need to change it..

I used to know a man when I was in school who had an extremely womanly bum. It was notable because it was so clearly the kind of behind you would expect on a woman, even though he was male. I always wondered if he had some sort of hormone issue.

So in that case it was in fact a male who was looking womanly.

TBH, while I don't like the idea of talking about things like womanly hysterics or being bad at math, I don't have a problem with associating it with things that are culturally specific associations with women, like clothing styles, or even behaviours associated with things like motherhood. I'm not convinced that societies with more established gender roles are always less enlightened either, so in a very traditional society those might be associated with being womanly.

There's a tendency in modern society to be rather suspicious of these things and I don't think it always springs from being woman-positive.

To be fair, it is a completely atrocious title, bad enough that I couldn’t face reading it when I was breastfeeding and went with KellyMom instead.

If they called it “The complete guide to breastfeeding”, or “New Mum’s guide to breastfeeding”, or really anything that didn’t sound like it was going to bludgeon you with claptrap, I might have read it.

(And I BF to almost 2yrs, used cloth nappies and a sling, etc etc, so theoretically I was the target audience).

Well, the OP obviously has access to the survey, so it would have been brilliant if they had not distorted the intention -

Puzzled about the intention behind posting misinformation here.

Well that's rather pendanic.
"Should I change my book title or not?" Is not very different to
"Should I change my book title?".

The intention behind both wordings of the question is to guage whether or not to change the book title.

.

So let's get this straight.

People who breastfeed the babies that they have given birth to are not allowed to be called women.

But a bloke who gets his cock out (oh sorry her cock) and wanks in public should be referred to as a 'woman'?

Great. Just fucking Great.

Correct - whether to change the title or not. The survey is not as the OP states a proposal to remove the words Woman and Breastfeeding and Art. The survey seeks opinion about changing/not changing - there is no proposal for anyone to respond to.

@sharonwalsh

Correct - whether to change the title or not. The survey is not as the OP states a proposal to remove the words Woman and Breastfeeding and Art. The survey seeks opinion about changing/not changing - there is no proposal for anyone to respond to.

The OP has posted screenshots asking for her opinion on:

"If the title is changed, how would you feel about the word 'breastfeeding' being removed?
Pleased
Neutral
Displeased
Please explain your response to the question above (removing 'breastfeeding').
Your answer"

And the same for 'woman' and 'art'

Yes - IF is an important word there. It doesn't say 'we're planning to remove these words, how do you feel about it?' Rather than a plan or proposal it is a seeking of opinion. Of course, with a screenshot people who have not seen the survey cannot judge whether that screenshot is representative of the full survey or not. For the record, it is not.

@sharonwalsh

Yes - IF is an important word there. It doesn't say 'we're planning to remove these words, how do you feel about it?' Rather than a plan or proposal it is a seeking of opinion. Of course, with a screenshot people who have not seen the survey cannot judge whether that screenshot is representative of the full survey or not. For the record, it is not.

But why on earth are they even considering removing the word 'breastfeeding' from a book that is literally about breastfeeding?

What possible motivation could there be?

Please tell us, rather than implying that we've all misunderstood and are overreacting.