Well, not my breasts; my breastfeeding days are over.
Hands off the breasts of all women of breastfeeding age!
It’s time wake up to the obvious fact that women have the right to control their own bodies. That includes EVERY body part. That includes breasts. It is amazing to me that in 2013 anyone could believe that they have the right,or even the obligation, to tell women when, how and for how long they should use their breasts.
Yesterday, KJ Dell’Antonia of the NYTimes Motherlode blog published the post Similac’s Dubious ‘No Judgment’ Marketing:
Similac, maker of infant formula, sponsored a “StrongMoms Empowerment Summit” on Tuesday as part of the introduction of its StrongMoms campaign, which the brand describes as a “Call-to-Action to Stop ‘Mom-Judging.’” …
Mothers … find the public-service message “Don’t judge one another for feeding a baby formula” a little laughable when “brought to you by Similac.” We get it. We may not want to judge one another. The very-lovely-I’m-sure marketing people at Similac may hope to help mothers bypass that judgment stage. But Similac itself, in whatever corporate form it has, wants people to buy more baby formula. When the message is from a marketer, it’s never just about the message.
That’s why Ms. Allers is right to encourage us to look harder at what it means when a company with a financial interest in our infant-feeding choices tells us not to “judge” them. That there is a line between judging and talking is something Similac has no interest in our thinking too hard about.
My comment:
You are absolutely correct to point out that Similac has an ulterior motive, but you are remiss in failing to point out that lactivists have an ulterior motive, too.
The truth is that while breastfeeding has real benefits, they are quite small. Why, then, have lactivists become obsessed with pushing women to breastfeed and engaging in ever more ludicrous practices (locking up formula in hospitals) in an effort to enforce the orthodoxy?
Lactivists have a very specific view of women and their bodes. Instead of respecting a woman’s right to control her own body, they insist that mothering be defined by how women use that body. It is no one’s business how a woman uses her breasts, just like it is no one’s business whether she uses contraception, chooses to carry a pregnancy to term, or chooses to terminate it.
Lactivism is not about benefiting babies. In the first place, the benefits are trivial. In the second place, most lactivist efforts are utter failures because they fail to take into account the real reasons why women choose not to breastfeed: the pain, the difficulty, inadequate milk supply, and the inconvenience.
Lactivism is about promoting the parenting standards of privileged white women to an ideal that all women are supposed to follow. It is about deliberately making some women feel guilty so other women can feel superior to them. It is about defining women by their body parts and how they use them, not by their needs, beliefs and desires.
There followed the typical judgmental comments, but my comment is the most popular comment, suggesting that while they may not be vocal, a large proportion of women feel as I do.
And that includes Salon writer Mary Elizabeth Williams. In a post entitled Is Breastfeeding “Gross”?, Williams reports on the views of Playboy Playmate Shanna Moakler. In an articulate response to criticism of her desire to bottlefeed, Moakler explained:
“I understand this debate,” she said. “I’m highly educated on it…. I celebrate breastfeeding. I think women should be able to do it in public. I will stand arm in arm for women’s rights to do it. When I personally tried to do it. It felt wrong. It felt immoral and it felt incestual and it wasn’t a good fit for me. I’m so sick and tired of women who are pro-breastfeeding – which is awesome – putting down other women who either don’t want to do it, don’t like it, have bad feelings about it, or physically can’t do it…. When I tried to do it, it didn’t feel like a wonderful bonding experience. It felt immoral to me and so I chose not to and I chose formula…. You can’t tell me that feelings are wrong.”
Williams sums up her personal view about other women’s choices:
Their breasts are their business.
The sooner we realize that, and stop pandering to the desire of lactivists to shame any women who doesn’t mirror their own choices, the better.
