Breastfeeding and Patriarchy

So how do these things relate in our society? First of all, in other very patriarchal societies, breastfeeding is still considered the "norm", and in fact I ran into this article while searching for a picture of a woman in the Middle east breastfeeding. and yes, I had to read the article about 3 times before it made an iota of sense to me.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/islam/news/article.cfm?c_id=500817&objectid=10442332

All of this only to point out that even in patriarchal societies breasts are viewed in a different manner than they are generally in the West, more specifically North America/Australia, and to some degree Europe, but not to the same extent. Here, they are viewed first and foremost as sexual objects to sell things, and please men. And somewhere floating in a person's brain, is the knowledge that they are also there to feed babies. Though because we have become a bottlefeeding as the norm society, there is a lot of squeamishness seeing a woman feed her baby in public.

Nursing in public is sited as a HUGE reason why women quit nursing in the first place, which only leads to a cyclical effect of women never seeing another woman nurse their baby, or they never leave the house because their baby might have to eat, or if they do leave the baby gets a bottle in public. This of course all contributes to a short nursing relationship because once you start to supplement, generally the nursing stops sometime soon after that. So very few babies, in fact I believe its around 13.5% of the US population of babies at 6 months are still exclusively breastfed. By their first birthday, almost no babies are still breastfed, in spite of the AAP recommending until the minimum of a year, and nursing beyond that is really strange. WHO (the world health organization) recommends until a minimum of two years (just in case you breastfeed past a year, that is the card I always liked to pull).


Anyway, thus far I am not saying anything original. That I know, but I wanted to give a context to what has been running around my head for the past few weeks.

When society was industrialized, men went to the factory and women (at least middle class and up women to be clear) stayed at home. The work that used to be focused out of the home (cottage industry) was now away from the home. and in our society, the value naturally went to "mens work", which was outside the home. Private life and public life became completely separate. Womens labour, because it was generally unpaid, generally unseen, because less valued. Taking care of small children, and keeping a house, though *very* labour intensive in its own right, was not seen as very valuable, because well anyone could do it (cough cough). The things that women do, such as BREASTFEEDING, became something "private" something that just women do in their own sphere. and really *important* things, like building sky scrapers, were left to the men. And the idealised worker, a man, unmarried, with all the time in the world to dedicate to his career. A still useful, but not quite as idealised, would be the man who was married (therefore more stable), but had a wife at home to take care of his needs and his children. He would not need to take any sick days to attend children at home, he might make an effort to get to say, the school play, but only if it really did not inconvenience his work. I am happy to say, that things are changing for men to, as a result of feminism, that men are pushing for more flex time and are unwilling to sacrifice their family at the altar of "success".

BUT unfortunately, that has not changed the problem I still see with other feminists who fight for equal pay, opportunity, and treatment. Frankly, I see HUGE problems with the "male as normal" worker. First of all, I am not a man. Second of all, this treatment does no family any good, except further serve the corporation they are working for, but I don't believe it helps society at large.
So if we *aren't* men, what do we need? Well a paid parental leave would just be really NICE to start with in the US. It is the leading cause for a "poverty spell" in the US. (see momsrising.org) Actually pretty much all industrialized nations have some kind of official parental leave, though they vary in degree and practice. The US has officially nothing, which in my opinion, only hurts society further. I am not exactly an intense libertarian when it comes to helping each other out, though I know I have many friends who disagree that they should be paying *anything* to help another family out if they've CHOSEN to have a child. (of course to me that reads that they are entirely unsupportive of women working after they've had a child, but that is a post for another day).

So if private spheres and public sphere are so separate, then seeing a woman BREASTFEED in public is really an offense to patriarchal senses which has all ready relegated such "things" to the home. This time in the literal sense. and sadly, even feminists have bought into this. When women went back to work in the 70's in droves, formula became the default food for babies (though the breastfeeding rates were a lot more dismal than they are now). In that version of feminism, they were out to prove they were just as capable, just as smart as any man at any job. Which is true, women are obviously just as capable and smart when given the opportunity. So the problem isn't the women, the problem is with a society who still believes, at its core, that the work that only women can do (breastfeed and give birth) must be controlled or relegated to a back room where no one is "offended" by the sight of a breast serving what I would argue is its primary purpose. so what I think these feminists did *wrong* back in the day was demand to be treated as WOMEN. so that meant that YES they DID have a "private life" and one that needed to be attended to as was just as important as making money for the company they were working with. Things that make family life easier for working parents, like flex time and PUMPING ROOMS. I think women shoot themselves in the foot when they demand equal treatment, when they do in fact have different NEEDS, and they generally are uniquely female needs. and guess what? they are NOT bad, they are NOT inferior, they are NORMAL. and they shouldn't need to be hidden because company's would still prefer "male as normal' worker with nothing to interfere with getting "stuff" done, whatever that might be. And yes, I do believe this is a bit of a hangover from patriarchal ideals about what is actually important, versus what isn't.

I do think of breastfeeding became the norm (oh I can dream!), seeing a woman nursing in public covered or not would not even be a blimp on the radar of a persons day. "oh baby eating, on to other things...."regardless of how she does it. and there would also be recognition of a baby's biological need for their mother's milk and their mother, therefore some kind of paid parental leave. and yes, of course I am aware of the millions of caveats to be made to that statement. Some kind of accommodation unique to every situation that would be family friendly, that would ultimately benefit *all of us* in the end.