This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I was saddened this morning to read of the resignation of one of the founders of La Leche League from that organization.
La Leche League was founded in 1956 to improve breastfeeding rates in the United States. Many people are unaware, or do not fully grasp the implications of, the fact that the mid-20th century was an era of hyper-medicalization and scientific interventionism. Probably most college students today know how to make the proper noises concerning the historic exclusion of women (or racial minorities) from medical studies, but few could tell you why in 1965 Robert Bradley made waves by arguing that childbirth shouldn't be such a medicalized process. It would be a good half century before skyrocketing c-section rates persuaded the AMA (etc.) to take seriously the idea that medicalization was harming mothers at least as frequently as it was helping them.
Breastfeeding has not received quite as much cultural attention as childbirth, for reasons I can only guess at. One is probably just that breastfeeding does not typically present quite the same "life-or-death" questions that childbirth sometimes can. Another is that, historically, not all mothers have been successful breast-feeders, whether by chance or by choice; relying on other mothers to feed one's own infant, at least for a time, is attested cross-culturally. Breastfeeding has well-established health benefits for babies and mothers both (in particular, nothing else is more decidedly protective against breast cancer), but between the availability of adequate (if not really optimal) substitutes, psychological difficulty some have treating breasts in non-sexualized ways, and a sometimes steep learning curve, many mothers find the whole proposition... unpalatable.
La Leche League's most visible influence (at least in my experience) has been their gratis lactation consultants. Some mothers, and some babies, take to breastfeeding like the proverbial ducks to water, but many, maybe most women have at least a little difficulty. Will the baby latch, will the latch hold, how to avoid painful latching, how to deal with chafing, what if I don't produce enough milk, are there foods I need to avoid, etc. are things women once shared with their daughters, or learned from their midwife, and aren't necessarily things your average OB/GYN has any grasp on. (It's not unusual for full-fledged OB/GYNs to spend 6-8 weeks (or less!) in their entire training learning about normal pregnancy and childbirth; their job, after all, is to fix such problems as may arise.) For women who are willing to accept input (and, I suppose, for women who capitulate to the sometimes, er, zealous lactation consultants), La Leche League has filled the gap left by the steamrolling of familial bonds by cultural "progress."
So why, as a 94-year-old woman, would Marian Tompson denounce decades of work brought about, in large measure, by her own efforts? Here is what she wrote:
Helen Joyce of British women’s rights charity Sex Matters commented:
Conquest's Laws win again. La Leche League has been profoundly nonpartisan, but it was not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing, and so "another previously innocent activity" heads toward "World War I style trench warfare."
How exactly do men wanting to breastfeed cause a problem here? Are they doing big group lactation sessions and don't want men to see their breasts? Is it a budgetary issue? The article just assumes this is Clearly A Bad Thing because Men, but it never actually articulates any specific objections.
It may not be good for the babies. Hormones around childbirth and breastfeeding are fairly complex, and show up in the milk.
Wouldn't learning more about that be a good idea, then? If it's a bad idea, it would be valuable to know that and be able to explain to these men how they're potentially risking the kid's health. And if it turns out to be a good idea, then cool, more people to help with breastfeeding
To the extent that there are breastfeeding trans women willing to participate in a study, then yes, someone should do the study. Not necessarily LLL.
Right, but what's wrong with LLL being the ones to do it, if they so choose?
If the article was "law requires LLL to admit male members", I could see why you're upset, but this seems to be the organization voluntarily changing. Not once does the article suggest anyone is forcing their way in.
They can. But it's kind of against their core mission, which is about less reliance on medicalization and corporations for childbirth and feeding. So they'll advocate for things like placing the baby on the mother's chest immediately after birth, without taking them to weigh or clean first, starting breastfeeding as soon as possible, because it's way harder to breastfeed when starting later, and babies get nipple confusion, slow flow bottles so mixed fed babies don't get impatient with the breast, being patient with growth spurts and cluster feeding, and so on. This is related to breast milk being a better food, immunological interactions, and not being reliant on formula (I was very glad to not be trying to buy it during the shortage a few years ago, for instance).
(I am currently doing mixed feeding, about 1/3 formula, 2/3 breastmilk, both because baby was in the ICU a few days his first week of life on formula, and the hospital was making me do some terribly depressing triple feeding, and because I'm working full time. I am not a breastfeeding purist, and have found some lactation consultants press too hard and have caused problems for my babies when I returned to work.)
On the other hand, modern formula isn't all that bad, actually. Adoption and surrogacy at very young ages are central examples of times when donor milk or formula are good choices. LLL has a video on their homepage showing someone who's face is cut off (unusual in their materials, which usually feature an entire mother and baby), a "baby" with a full head of hair, and something about dripping milk down the breast from a syringe. It is an extremely non-central example of breastfeeding. Then there's an article about non-gestational parents breastfeeding, which admits that it's quite hard, and most parents who do it are not able to do exclusive breastfeeding.
The whole regime of taking hormones, pumping, getting a partial supply, trying to get an adopted baby who's more than a few days old and not previously breastfed to go along with it, but still supplementing a lot, maybe more than half... sounds terrible, exhausting, expensive, and just probably like a bad idea for most people. I do not think it's a good idea to be advocating for breastfeeding among parents who are not the birth mother for "bonding". Babies bond with caregiver fathers just fine. Formula is fine. They look like they've lost the plot with breastfeeding extremism.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link