Harpers - The Tyranny of Breast Feeding

[REP]

I think this essay makes some very interesting points, especially this one: "It has become the defining feature of a philosophy in which motherhood, and only mother-hood, determines a woman’s status and her role in society."

Here's the first part of the essay (the line breaks are weird because Harper's does not provide plain-text versions):

It began with a picnic in a
Chicago suburb in the sum-
mer of 1956. Two mothers,
Mary White and Marian Thompson, were sitting un-
der a tree, breast-feeding
their babies. Several other
women came over to express
their admiration, because
they themselves had found breast-feeding so difficult. To
Mary and Marian, the prac-
tice epitomized womanliness
and should be possible for all mothers. Along with five like-minded friends, they be-
gan La Leche League to help,
mother to mother, women
who wanted to breast-feed
but were discouraged by fear
or difficulty. Several of the founders were Catholic and
active members of the Chris-
tian Family Movement,
known for its traditionalist views. They took inspiration from its model of small discussion groups that offered their participants mutual support.
The first meeting took place in Mary White’s living room in October 1956. Every three weeks, mothers
Elisabeth Badinter’s most recent book, The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Un- dermines the Status of Women, from which this essay was adapted, will be pub- lished in April by Metropolitan Books.
came together to talk about the ad- vantages of breast-feeding, share ad- vice, and help one another succeed. League meetings were so popular that more and more groups were set up, spreading throughout the United States: 43 in 1961, 1,260 in 1971, near- ly 3,000 in 1976. There were 17,000 group leaders by 1981, and the breast- feeding rate in the United States rose from 38 percent in 1948 to 60 percent by the mid-1980s. The group leaders
these needs are fixed by nature, and we have come to understand them better over time. Four major themes are also prominent in LLL literature: the moral authority of nature, the advantages of breast-feeding, the superior status of the mother in child-rearing, and her es- sential role in the moral reform of soci- ety. Although the last two, being more political and polemical, were mostly downplayed, they seem to reveal a great deal about the league’s purpose.

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