Lactivists are confused.
We need to learn what nerve fed is best has touched and work out what that is.
I’m not sure why they’re scratching their heads over three simple words that mean what they say: breastfeeding may be (slightly) better than formula, but fully fed is best.
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]In every article, meme and Facebook comment insisting that breast is best, replace the word “breast” with “heterosexuality.” See how ugly it sounds?[/pullquote]
But since they’re still confused I think a thought experiment might help. In every article, meme and Facebook comment insisting that breast is best, replace the word “breast” with “heterosexuality.”
I found the perfect example for this thought experiment in a comment on The Milk Meg’s post supporting the vile Stefania Giraldi piece I wrote about earlier this week.
Brittney has this to say:
The current attitude of the “fed is best” crowd has made me hostile towards them.
It’s not that I think formula is actually the devil, or that there are no moms who couldn’t, or that there’s actually something wrong with simply not wanting to.
The issues I’ve seen are clear:
1. They do not want mothers to celebrate their breastfeeding journey.
2. They sabotage mothers who clearly state they want to breastfeed.
3. They are anti science and argue with facts that do not fit their agenda. (Like WHO recommendations.)
4. Some “Fed Is Best” ladies are not just pro formula. They’re anti breastfeeding. They exploit old stories for their agenda.
5. Formula feeding is not a personal accomplishment like breastfeeding is.
Formula feeding is simply buying a product from a dominant industry. There’s very little trial & error. There’s no skill to learn.
It’s like buying a store bought cake vs a made from scratch cake then telling the person who put in the effort to make the cake that the store bought one is just as good or better. It’s rude. One is a truly personal accomplishment, the other is just normal. Both cakes are usually good though.
You dont need a support group for formula feeding. We don’t need formula feeding advocacy. Women are not kicked out of establishments for formula feeding. They dont need employee protection to work and formula feed.
These advocates for formula are not making an accurate comparison. They’re just retaliating because they want to feel that their choice is superior when its not.
Let’s try the thought experiment.
They do not want women to celebrate their heterosexuality.
See how ugly that sounds?
It’s because we understand that when someone purports to celebrate their heterosexuality, it is meant to at the expense of people who are gay.
Why would you need to celebrate your heterosexuality anyway? It’s a biological function, not an achievement. The fact that you choose to act on the way that you are born is hardly remarkable.
And why would celebration be seen as integral to heterosexuality? Is someone trying to take it away from you or are gay people merely fighting for the respect every human being deserves?
Similarly is anyone trying to end celebration of breastfeeding or are women who can’t or don’t wish to breastfeed merely trying to stop celebration at their expense?
They sabotage women who clearly state they want to be heterosexual.
When you make the substitution this claim also sounds very ugly and rather nonsensical.
Is that even possible? Can you sabotage another woman’s sexuality merely by mentioning the possibility that she might be gay?
The central claim of lactivists — that every woman would breastfeed if she had enough support — is starkly reminiscent of the ugly claims of those who promote so called “gay conversion therapy.” No amount of “support” will turn someone who is gay into a heterosexual and no amount of “support” will turn a woman who can’t or doesn’t want to breastfeed into someone who can or wishes to do so.
Moreover, just as gay conversion therapy is a euphemism for hectoring, berating and bullying gay people into denying reality, breastfeeding “support” is a euphemism for hectoring, berating and bullying women into breastfeeding whether they want to or not.
They are anti science and argue with facts that do not fit their agenda.
Let’s leave aside for the moment that it is lactivists who are ignoring the large and growing body of literature on the risks and costs of promoting breastfeeding and consider another aspect of this claim:
There’s no question that heterosexuality is the biological norm, and there is no question that gay people face discrimination and even violence for openly acknowledging their sexuality. Arguably, gay people face an existence far riskier than straight people. Those are facts, yet those facts don’t justify treating gay people as second class citizens, do they? Indeed, it is no one else’s business who a gay person loves just like it is no one else’s business whether or not a woman chooses to breastfeed.
Some women are not just pro homosexuality. They’re anti heterosexuality. They exploit old stories of gay women harmed by intolerance of their families and communities for their agenda.
How idiotic does that sound? Gay people aren’t opposed to straight people; indeed straight people have nothing to do with the fact that a person is gay. Gay people don’t need to affirm their sexuality by insisting that you have the same sexuality; apparently only heterosexuals need to do that. Gay people who tell stories about the pain of intolerance do so because they don’t want anyone to endure the suffering they have endured, not to scare straight people into becoming gay.
Similarly, Fed Is Best advocates aren’t opposed to breastfeeding; many like me found that breastfeeding was the best choice for ourselves and our babies. We tell stories (and quote scientific evidence) about the harms babies suffer as the result of aggressive breastfeeding promotion into order to ensure that no other babies have to endure similar suffering.
Homosexuality is not a personal accomplishment like heterosexuality is.
The truth is that neither is a personal accomplishment any more than digesting food or breathing air is an accomplishment.
Similarly, breastfeeding is not a personal accomplishment. Up until 150 years ago every mother who ever lived did it and many of their babies died in the attempt. How can doing something that literally every other women in the world could do — give their babies nothing besides the breast — possibly be an accomplishment of any kind? It can’t.
Sure, you are free to pretend that breastfeeding is some sort of accomplishment, but don’t expect the rest of the world to share your self-serving value system.
Brittney says:
[Formula feeding is] like buying a store bought cake vs a made from scratch cake then telling the person who put in the effort to make the cake that the store bought one is just as good or better.
And insisting that breast is best is like telling a woman without an oven that the raw ingredients of a cake made from scratch cake are better for her children than a store bought cake. It’s like insisting that unless she is forcing those raw eggs, uncooked flour and 70-proof vanilla down her screaming children’s throats, she is depriving them of the “benefits” of cake made from scratch. It’s false; it’s cruel; and it’s dangerous!
Another commentor disagrees with her, but Brittney is ready with her retort:
Breastmilk a personal accomplishment. Formula feeding is a consumer choice for the privileged.
Anyone who cant follow the instructions on the can is incompetent.
People like me dont coddle grown women who are begging for validation at the expense of breastfeeding advocacy.
You’re bringing other arguments into the equation because without including medical necessity or mixed feeding you’d have no base.
Fuck Fed Is Best.
No, Brittney, fuck you and the lactivists who think like you.
