It's fascinating to me that making decisions based on a biological relationship (i.e. one's baby) is trumped by the needs of a couple/relationship.  Does that not also reject the gains of the 21st century?   I'd find an argument about the individual needs of the mother much more convincing than the needs of the couple from a feminist perspective.  

Morgan Kennedy Henderson, IBCLC

On Apr 18, 2012, at 12:00 AM, LACTNET automatic digest system wrote:

> Date:    Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:55:03 -0400
> From:    Jasmine Beaudoin <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Objectionable Marie Claire Magazine Interview
> 
> Some of you, like myself, may remember being bombarded a few months back
> with talking heads on television and online articles that discussed a new
> 'parenting' book called, 'Bringing Up Bebe:  One American Mother Discovers
> the Wisdom of French Parenting'.  The author of that book, Pamela
> Druckerman, has now interviewed Elisabeth Badinter for the May edition of
> the US version of Marie Claire Magazine that I received in the mail today.
> In it, she interviews Badinter, who is a French philosopher and has just
> written a book herself, 'The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the
> Status of Women'.  In this interview, Badinter (being in the US, and having
> never heard of her, some quick online research showed that she's a French
> historian and philosophy professor whom a French news magazine's
> poll named as France's "most influential intellectual") describes how
> "naturalist" acts such as breastfeeding on demand 'makes the female into an
> animal again' and is a rejection of the 'gains of the 21st century' (ie:
> bottle feeding).  She goes on to mention how by breastfeeding 24 hours a
> day, a woman is 'reduced to her role as a nursing animal' and that the
> child 'becomes a factor in the separation of the couple'.  Continuing, she
> mentions, "Breastfeeding a few weeks, sometimes a few months, OK.  But when
> it's recommended that you breastfeed your child for one year - six months
> exclusively, with nothing else, day and night, on demand - there are
> obvious consequences for the couple".  There are a lot more additional
> quotes that may get your blood pressure to rise, but I'll stop there.  With
> a little more Internet digging, I also found it interesting to see that
> Badinter's late father was the founder of Publicis Groupe (a multinational
> French advertising and communications company), which had connections
> with Nestle.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Jasmine Beaudoin, RN, BSN, IBCLC


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