Re: Pat Gima’s post
The most disturbing and revealing aspect in the
excerpt is her penchant
For demeaning and labeling. We know that such labeling
comes from our
Weakness and desire to garner applause from others who
feel equally weak.  She
Will get applause, but her choosing to condemn LLL
with cheap name-calling
degrades and detracts from whatever she is attempting
in writing her
book.
You will note that she didn't call the AAP
"Breastfeeding Fanatics" for
their recommendations for the health of infants.
People who want to use
labeling to shore up their weakness choose subjects
that they perceive
to be easy targets in their own support community
("that my friends and I
came

I want to say that Pat has made a fantastic point here
in drawing a parallel between Wolf’s treatment of LLL
and AAP. Of course Wolf didn’t get stuck into the AAP
– they are a powerful organization. They might, in
fact, even think of suing her. Or at least take her
publicly to task – scary prospect that when the
evidence to support breastfeeding is so overwhelming.

This realization was undoubtedly part of what is a
calculated attack.

With regard to LLL, she would quite rightly have
estimated that due to goodwill and lack of political
and economic  resources, there is probably little
likelihood of retaliation of any kind. Moreover, who
cares about LLL? They are mainly volunteers (ugh) and,
even worse, women (double ugh). Forget, of course,
that Wolf portrays herself as feminist - and
everything that involves. This usually covers things
like upholding the importance of traditionally
undervalued/ underpaid/unpaid work, especially when
done by women,  as well as valorizing community
involvement. Forget that LLL does all that and more.
Its so easy to take a potshot at LLL … Its been done
before a million times with little repercussion, even
good payoff for some.

And payoff is the point. It is a feminist audience who
is, after all, her main book buying market. Therefore
we need to see her approach to LLL as a rather
predictable and cynical signaling to “the girls”,
although clearly not the girls of LLL.

Wolf is not the last author who will take this line.
Bashing LLL is such an easy, efficient and safe way to
be provocative - the quality required to sell books!

Judith Galtry


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! GeoCities - quick and easy web site hosting, just $8.95/month.
http://geocities.yahoo.com/ps/info1

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html