Promoting breastfeeding is about policing women’s bodies in the exact same way that promoting continuing unwanted pregnancies is about policing women’s bodies.
It is a sad fact of history that men have spent a tremendous amount of time policing women’s bodies. And an even sadder fact is that women have often been the prime enforcers in this effort.
Consider female virginity. From shaming to chastity belts to genital mutilation, society has considered a woman’s virginity a husband’s property. It is a practice designed by men, for men, to preserve men’s privileges, yet women were often willing enablers.
[pullquote align=”right” color=”#a3dfe9″]Under the guise of what’s best for babies, lactivists feel entitled to tell women how to use their breasts.[/pullquote]
You might think that the time of women as enforcers of policing other women’s bodies has passed. You’d be wrong. There are now entire movements devoted to policing women’s bodies: one of them is the anti-choice movement.
Another is the lactivist (breastfeeding advocacy) movement.
Consider:
Under the guise of what’s “best” for babies, anti-choice advocates feel entitled to tell other women how handle their pregnancies.
Under the guise of what’s “best” for babies, lactivists feel entitled to tell other women how to feed their infants.
Why do the same women who believe fervently that women have the right to control their own bodies, and that no one should be condemned for choosing abortion ignore the fact that women have the right to control their breasts and shame them for formula feeding?
Does the right to control one’s own body get expelled with the placenta? I don’t think so.
The benefits of breastfeeding are trivial as the chart below demonstrates.
It’s a chart showing the impact of widely fluctuating breastfeeding initiation rates (70% dropping to 22% rising to 75%) in the last century on infant mortality. As you can see, breastfeeding has had no impact on the single most important measure of infant health.
Public health campaigns ought to be reserved for major public health risks and benefits. A public health campaign against smoking makes sense because lowering the smoking rate saves lots of lives. A public health campaign promoting vaccination makes sense because increasing vaccination rates saves lots of lives. A public health campaign to promote breastfeeding makes no sense because in first world countries the benefits are so small.
So why do we have public health campaigns to promote breastfeeding when the benefits are trivial?
Because there is an entire industry that makes money only when women breastfeed: the lactation consultant industry.
And because some women simply cannot mind their own business. Under the guise of what’s best for babies, they feel entitled to tell women how to use their breasts.
On Twitter, journalist Tara Haelle posted the image about breastfeeding on the left side. She promoted it as “normalizing” public breastfeeding and I’m confident that she is entirely sincere in that belief. But I don’t see that image as normalizing public breastfeeding; I see it as promoting breastfeeding as “best.”
I created the image about pregnancy on the right to explain to Tara why I feel the way I do.
I suspect that many women would be offended by a group that felt itself entitled to comment on women’s pregnancies and whether or not they choose to continue them. The not-so-subtle hectoring at the bottom “every life counts” reflects the group’s religious beliefs and the belief that they are entitled to police pregnant women’s bodies.
I don’t think we would consider it “normalizing” pregnancy.
We should be equally offended by a group that feels itself entitled to comment on women’s infant feeding choices and how they are using their breasts. The not-so-subtle hectoring at the bottom that “every drop counts” reflects lactivists’ personal beliefs and the belief that they are entitled to police the bodies of new mothers.
What’s the difference between promoting breastfeeding as superior and promoting continuing unwanted pregnancies as superior to abortion?
Nothing that I can see.
