"Breastfeeding & Feminism"

[LeslieB]

There's a show on our local NPR station (Chapel Hill) called The State of Things. Today's topic is Breastfeeding & Feminism. If you're local, you can listen on 91.5 at noon. If not, there will be links to listen later on today at the website.

A provision in the new health care legislation aims to make it easier for new mothers to return to work and continue to nurse their babies. The provision revives a long-simmering debate in the field of feminist scholarship about the impact of breastfeeding on the status of women. Some say it shackles women to a life of domesticity, some say it is the personal duty of a “good” mother and others suggest both arguments are short-sighted. Host Frank Stasio discusses how something so personal became so political

[Emmeline II]

It wouldn't be a "shackle" if it were illegal to approach a NIPing mom to "relocate" or employers were required to accommodate pumping at work .

[spughy]

The whole debate is a symptom of the root cause of women's inequality - that things women do best (like breastfeeding) are valued less and viewed as a burden and a hindrance to "more valuable" or "more desirable" work like, I dunno, typing. Or nuclear medicine. Or police work. Whatever... the problem isn't that breastfeeding gets in the way of "real work" or that breastfeeding is a barrier for women in the workplace - the problem is that breastfeeding and infant care isn't seen as something that is MORE important than whatever you get paid for. In countries with adequate (ie, a year plus paid) maternity leave, or where it's assumed that the baby is a part of the mother and thus accompanies her at her daily work, this isn't even an issue. It shouldn't be. It's artificially generated by the obsessively capitalist economy we "enjoy" that assigns no value to something that generates no wealth.

[CBall]

Thank you for saying that. I've been trying to express something similar to family and "friends" when they are surprised that I either can't go somewhere or have to bring dd along because I'm breastfeeding and she doesn't take a bottle. It's like breastfeeding is encouraged in theory but not in reality. It is NOT valued by our culture. People talk a good talk about how breast is best, but heaven forbid somebody actually has to nurse or pump and it takes time away from their day!

Sorry, stepping down from my angry soapbox. It's just a huge sore point for me.

A slightly bookish wife to my best friend and mama to sweet little miss goo 12/23/09

[RoseDuperre]

Check THIS out from ABM!

"A choice that is not also a right is not really a choice — it’s a privilege."

And then:

"Breastfeeding is a reproductive right. This is a simple, but remarkably radical, concept. Here’s why: When we frame infant feeding as a choice made by an individual women, we place the entire responsibility for carrying out that choice on the individual woman. Moreover, as Bernice Hausman writes in her essay, “Women’s liberation and the rhetoric of ‘choice’ in infant feeding debates,’ we position the nursing mother as making a consumer decision, rather than exercising a human right. This framework, in turn, weakens legal protections for breastfeeding families."

YES! THIS! ZOMG! THIS!

[mambera]

YES, YES, and YES to all of the four pps!

[mamaofthree]

spughy: that is exactly right! well said!


h

[*MamaJen*]

I was just coming here to post this link. It's so true. Breastfeeding is not a consumer choice, it's a human right.