Being in a room recently with two breastfeeding women - two gorgeous, glowing, healthy, happy moms - brought back memories of breastfeeding my own children. Not all warm and fuzzy. Cracked nipples (remedy: lanolin). Leaky boobs (remedy: get that babe sucking). Fear of falling asleep and crushing nursing baby (remedy: try to get more sleep?). At what age to stop (remedy: lots of people staring in disbelief). So it wasn't all milk and honey, although it was cheaper than canned formula, did seem to calm the colic, and aided in weight loss (mine). Didn't seem to affect the all-important breast shape much, either.
Some of the talk in that room was about the "normalcy" of breastfeeding. According to historians of the practice, it fluctuates, like the stock market - sometimes there's lots of women doing it, sometimes not. It's related to socioeconomic status, too - sometimes better off women favor it, sometimes poorer women do. Go figure.
A real shocker for me was a feminist friend who just had a baby - I asked if she was breastfeeding and she replied, "Do I look like a cow?" I thought for a feminist, breastfeeding would be natural. It's not. For this lady, who is devoted to her children, it's an imposition on her body and perhaps her life.
Breastfeeding has benefits. I fervently believe it contributes to lifelong health. I don't care what science says - or if it says anything at all (I have no idea.) It's nice to cuddle the baby, at least it was for me. I didn't have to hold up a bottle or prop one up (which I didn't like doing). I could doze off without fear. Less gas and burping than with a bottle. I didn't change my diet (although I didn't have a spicy diet to begin with). I never had to run out to buy more formula. I didn't have to buy anything - the milk was free (and how cool is that). I had two hands free (a bottle required using one hand).
Apparently contemporary disadvantages to breastfeeding (my children range from 25-36) include that many women are at work and can't spend so much time with their babies and that women want to have a life besides baby. For me, having a baby pretty much was a life. Breast pumps of course keep the whole breastfeeding enterprise flowing - or to be more accurate, they enable babies to have breast milk and mothers to have a job and a life.
And this was where the conversation in that room got interesting. Is it breast milk or breastfeeding that is important to baby and mom? I maintain you shouldn't separate them - except during the work day as necessary and occasional outings. But I'm out of step with the times, it seems. More young women consider the pump to be part of their breast - not an occasional respite or work-related necessity.
So many things are mechanized. Women's lives changed radically when automatic washers and driers became available - so, too, with frozen food and other labor-saving devices. And so, too, I guess, with the breast pump. Simpler - and removed from the human touch.
I prefer the old way, and I'm glad I did it and fortunate I could. I don't think it made me less of a feminist or disempowered me. I felt connected to something primal and universal - kind of earth mother-y. Feminine and a feminist. I think breastfeeding can make you happy.
(Note - One of the worst things that can be done to any woman is to make her feel guilty or unnatural or unfit because of her choices about how to give birth, whether to breastfeed, etc.)
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Women Deserve Better Than Bob - Better Than Theocracy
Today's Washington Post (Sept. 2, page B 1-2) reports on my actions Sunday morning when I read the Post article about GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell's "thesis." The Post said - correctly - I read the article at 11 am and was soon on my way to protest at a Women for McDonnell event in Fairfax, homemade poster in hand. (Just so you know - I also took a shower and had to pay $8 to get into that park.) They did not mention the insults and pushing and shoving of the pink tshirt-clad "Women for McDonnell" and one of their male companions to block my sign when the McDonnell van arrived. (And here I thought Republican women prided themselves on being lady-like.) Here's the article and the specific part about me:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103492.html?hpid=moreheadlines
"Countering McDonnell's efforts are those of women such as Arlington County resident Marjorie Signer, who serves as president of the Virginia chapter of the National Organization for Women. Signer said she read about McDonnell's thesis in the Washington Post at 11 a.m. Sunday and immediately left home to picket a Women for McDonnell rally at Lake Burke Park in Fairfax.
"Signer stood on the side of the road with a sign that read 'Women Deserve Better than Bob.'
'It is not a comfort to me that he has women in his staff or in leadership of his campaign or his daughters are working women,' she said. 'That is not comforting to me. I'm concerned about who he truly is in the sense of his worldview.'"
That image of me standing at the side of the road makes me seem like the lone, inevitably disshelved malcontents at the park by the White House, fighting for an obscure lost cause. Lesson: you talk to a reporter, you take your chances.
Nevertheless, they did quote me saying "worldview." What does that mean?
It helps to read the thesis
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/29/AR2009082902434.html . The whole thing. It's long.
About 5-8 pages in, I realized that this was a worldview consistent with that of theocratic Christians who want a religious state that abides by biblical principles (as they define them). I’ve done some research on this and also saw it in the Mark Earley campaign for governor, as well as in several other instances in Virginia. They are all consistent with Christian theocracy – which is hostile to modernity, pluralism, equal rights, women’s autonomy and of course hates homosexuality.
Reproductive rights is critical in this worldview because of the importance to Christian theocrats of male control of the family - and the state. Virginia has actually been a hotbed of Christian theocracy - and I'll be writing about that in future posts.
For now, it's sufficient to say that McDonnell is the antithesis of the freedom, equality and justice that NOW and our social justice allies stand for. He may have changed his opinion about a law or a specific policy position since he wrote his thesis but his worldview remains what it was - that of a Christian theocrat with a specific worldview based on biblical principles (as defined by theocrats) that put men at the head of the family and the state. Don't take my word for it - read the thesis. Anyone who believes in equality in any way should take this very seriously and should work to defeat McDonnell.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090103492.html?hpid=moreheadlines
"Countering McDonnell's efforts are those of women such as Arlington County resident Marjorie Signer, who serves as president of the Virginia chapter of the National Organization for Women. Signer said she read about McDonnell's thesis in the Washington Post at 11 a.m. Sunday and immediately left home to picket a Women for McDonnell rally at Lake Burke Park in Fairfax.
"Signer stood on the side of the road with a sign that read 'Women Deserve Better than Bob.'
'It is not a comfort to me that he has women in his staff or in leadership of his campaign or his daughters are working women,' she said. 'That is not comforting to me. I'm concerned about who he truly is in the sense of his worldview.'"
That image of me standing at the side of the road makes me seem like the lone, inevitably disshelved malcontents at the park by the White House, fighting for an obscure lost cause. Lesson: you talk to a reporter, you take your chances.
Nevertheless, they did quote me saying "worldview." What does that mean?
It helps to read the thesis
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/29/AR2009082902434.html . The whole thing. It's long.
About 5-8 pages in, I realized that this was a worldview consistent with that of theocratic Christians who want a religious state that abides by biblical principles (as they define them). I’ve done some research on this and also saw it in the Mark Earley campaign for governor, as well as in several other instances in Virginia. They are all consistent with Christian theocracy – which is hostile to modernity, pluralism, equal rights, women’s autonomy and of course hates homosexuality.
Reproductive rights is critical in this worldview because of the importance to Christian theocrats of male control of the family - and the state. Virginia has actually been a hotbed of Christian theocracy - and I'll be writing about that in future posts.
For now, it's sufficient to say that McDonnell is the antithesis of the freedom, equality and justice that NOW and our social justice allies stand for. He may have changed his opinion about a law or a specific policy position since he wrote his thesis but his worldview remains what it was - that of a Christian theocrat with a specific worldview based on biblical principles (as defined by theocrats) that put men at the head of the family and the state. Don't take my word for it - read the thesis. Anyone who believes in equality in any way should take this very seriously and should work to defeat McDonnell.
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