June 23rd, 2012 around 2:55pm
Permalink | wanna Reblog?
I want to say something important here as someone who works in the field of economics. Some of you seem to me to be failing to understand all the obstacles holding mothers back. They are not entirely about the patriarchy, they’re also about capitalism. That is not to say that I think we should all drop out and live in a commune, but it is saying that if you are promoting some of the most exploitative elements of capitalism as part of your feminism then you will be missing the mark. If you do not understand how capitalism survives on (not just benefits from, but in its present form could not survive without) the unpaid caring work of women (that this isn’t just ‘lip service for mummies’, this is an economic truth), then your feminism is missing the mark. Self-ownership through wages has been an incredibly important development in feminism but it has not made unpaid caring work disappear – 50% of all hours of work performed in the USA are UNPAID.

You have some of the most inflexible workplaces in the Western world, with or without children, you have it tough in the US. But workplaces can change. We can focus feminist efforts on changing institutions of power to be less exploitative of unpaid caring work instead of just saying women must somehow ignore the realities of their lives. (Because how much real ‘choice’ about work does a mother get who has a severely disabled child? How much real ‘choice’ is there for a mother when the only job is a full-time job with long hours? Why are mothers supposed to think anything apart from raising their children is a worthy pursuit of their lives? And anyway, how many women are actually stay-at-home mothers for their entire lives? It is surprisingly low, so, do we need to suggest stay-at-home mothers are behaving like ‘indulged children’? Could we instead talk about how and when they return to paid work and what are the vulnerabilities involved? And, stay-at-home parents are not homogenous either, some of them are even fathers).
source: The real reason why you should be careful in your discussions about mothers « blue milk
October 6th, 2011 around 7:18am
Permalink | wanna Reblog? | reblogged from: jessicavalenti

Scare Quotes Don’t Make for Good Posts

jessicavalenti:

“In an era when many feminists are (in my opinion rightly) dismayed by the suggestion that a woman’s right to an abortion should be subject to conditions, I have been shocked by the high level of acceptance when it comes to the notion that women who formula feed should be forced to justify their choice, not only to medical staff, but to pro-breastfeeding women. While I have never seen anyone claim that formula is better than - or even equal to - breast milk, a large number of women are vociferously and uncompromisingly against a woman’s right to choose formula milk. I have witnessed a sizeable number of women, some of whom are self-declared feminists, debating on one another’s social media profiles and calling for formula to be made illegal.”

—

Lorrie Hearts, at the f word.

This whole post - which is about a hospital ceasing to provide free formula to the women who give birth there in an effort to be “baby friendly” - is a great, important read. I just want to add one thing, though. Hearts writes that she’s never seen anyone claim that formula is better or the same as breastmilk.  Well, for me, formula feeding was absolutely, 100% better than breastfeeding. Like, life changing better. I wrote a column earlier this year about it, so I won’t rehash the whole thing here. But truly, refusing to give mothers access to formula is not “baby friendly” or helpful - it’s shaming and in some cases could be very dangerous. Enough already.

Yeah… no.

If you’re going to put scare quotes around “baby friendly” without trying to find out the basic information about what the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative is, that it’s a global program (because formula feeding in industrialized nations is a “choice” but in developing nations can be a death sentence) or who runs it (UNICEF) you’re just being lazy and pejorative.

If you’re not willing to make the effort to find out why the Baby Friendly Initiative is important, or to know that giving away free formula samples is a violation of the World Health Organization’s code of marketing for human milk substitutes (a code the US refuses to adopt because it would hurt big pharma) because it’s been proven to undermine breastfeeding success for parents who want to breastfeed, or comprehend that when it’s hospital staff who are giving free samples to parents, giving the impression of medical recommendation, it undermines breastfeeding even more, then you’re not interested in actually having a dialogue about this issue.

And yes, women who don’t succeed in breastfeeding are shamed. (As are women who never try it.) But the answer to the former, at least, is giving women the resources for breastfeeding success. Free formula is the exact opposite of that. But it’s cheaper, easier and more “convenient” for hospitals to throw a no-cost sample at a mother and tell her “it’s okay, breastfeeding doesn’t always work” than to have a trained lactation educator available 24/7 as an important medical para-professional who can help when it’s needed, and to have an IBCLC on call for the harder cases, and to treat breastfeeding as something valuable, important, and worth putting effort into.

It’s cheaper and easier for pediatricians, who have, on average, 2 hours of breastfeeding educations across their careers and offices full of growth charts, scales, measuring tapes, posters and other paraphernalia from Abbott Labs, Mead Johnson and Nestle, to pat a mom on the head, tell her she did her best, and tell her formula doesn’t make “that big a difference” and remind her that the store brands of formula are made by the major manufacturers too so she shouldn’t feel badly buying generic and saving a few bucks.

There will always be women for whom breastfeeding is not a good choice, or for whom it is not an option for their physical or psychological wellbeing. But that will never, not ever, justify allowing massive multinational corporations to push their way into hospital rooms to treat all women as potential breastfeeding failures who need to be equipped with wholly misleading “educational” literature (written by formula marketers) and a supply of formula around for when everything goes wrong.

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