Hi Lydia,
Again, I don’t think it is helpful to make this personal, engagement with the ideas themselves is what is needed and in that it doesn’t matter who is speaking. However, I very much appreciate you being willing to engage, as you rightly point out, few are willing to do so. The topic itself is challenging and one where people are frightened to speak for fear of saying something that will hurt others or result in them being abused or just because it is confusing and they don’t feel confident to speak. 

Regarding La Leche League, you had some question as to the accuracy of what we wrote in our paper. You quoted from where we wrote about a letter signed by La Leche League leaders asking the LLLI Board to reconsider their language policy. The letter itself (and other correspondence) is here https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/la-leche-league-has-fallen?s=r. You stated that LLLI does not require people to change their language and query how we accessed an internal LLLI policy.

The inclusivity policy that describes a requirement to ‘use a variety of terms’ was public in the ordinary way at the time the paper was written. It is no longer public on the LLLI website but you can find it in the internet wayback https://web.archive.org/web/20210912101204/https://www.llli.org/psr-cultural-sensitivity-in-publications/

On the requirement to change language. I know with absolute certainty that this is occurring from multiple sources. It is alluded to in the letter from the LLLLs (above). I have also been told by Leaders about their experiences of being told to change language- I have no reason to doubt them. And, finally I have personal experience. In early 2021 I was asked to write an article for LLLI’s publication Breastfeeding Today on the importance of mothers and infants to one another in the COVID-19 pandemic. I agreed to do so and wrote this article especially for LLLI. However, after it had been finalised, I was told that I needed to change the language. I was unwilling to do so and as a result, it was not published in Breastfeeding Today (if anyone else wants to publish it, I would be happy for it to be used). This was a most unprecedented experience. I am not a member of LLL, I wrote the article to support LLL and to help mothers, I was quite shocked to be told I could not used sexed language throughout the article and even that an inclusivity statement was not sufficient. To be honest, I thought it was very rude. 

Why was I unwilling to change my language for this article. Well, I have particular concerns about some of the replacement words for ‘mother’ that are suggested for use in such contexts. These concerns come from my work with the most disadvantaged mothers and infants, where language is explicitly used to marginalise the importance of the mother to her infant- situations of maternal incarceration, where child protection are involved, foster care, adoption and surrogacy- in all of these avoidance of the term ‘mother’ is common because of the power and meaning the word holds. Over the pandemic, mothers and infants have been separated from one another in numbers never before seen and breastfeeding terminated for many. Governments, organisations and individuals have not recognised the importance of mothers and infants to one another. When I am speaking of this tragedy, of mothers and infants placed in such precarity, I won’t use language that reduces in any way recognition of the significance of the relationship.  

On LLLI as an international organisation, LLLI has suffered from many of the same problems that other breastfeeding orgs (like ILCA and IBLCE) have had as a result of being based in the US. My experience has been that in many respects it does not do a very good job of being an international organisation (from my own perception and that of people from within the org that have spoken to me).  Being truly international is very hard and especially so if the org is based in the US (see ICDC and WABA as comparators doing much better jobs). On this particularly issue, the force of US/Western culture is very apparent. There can be no denying that the desexing of the language of maternity began in the US. Had it begun and become culturally salient in say, Japan or Zimbabwe, there is no way that it would have been taken up within LLLI or IBLCE or ILCA at all. And the letter from the LLLLs cited speaks quite powerfully to that. This circles back again to the concept of cultural imperialism.

Karleen Gribble
Australia

>> 
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 
>> Date:    Wed, 4 May 2022 12:58:59 +0200
>> From:    Lydia de Raad <[log in to unmask]>
>> Subject: Re: Paper on use of sexed language in communication on maternity
>> 
>> Hi all, 
>> 
>> You are very right, the heat needs to come out of this discussion. And in my opinion, that can only be done if all components contributing to it, are analyzed. 
>> However, I do take your words very seriously - but not without pointing out something. Lactnet has over 3.000 subscribers/members. Only a small group (less than 10?) comment on your posting - me being one of them. 
>> 
>> Me, as I pointed out before, who has no role in the (English speaking) academic world, nor in the 'lactating' world. There is an absolute inbalance of reputation and power there - making me feel like the dwarf speaking up against the giant. That is okay, but perhaps something to consider. On top of that, this discussion in which people hardly engage, has led to a flood of emails to my private email (and to everyone vaguely involved at an admin-level within LLL), from people yelling at me how on earth I can criticize you. Definitely: the heat needs to come out of this discussion. 
>> 
>> I will engage on one specific aspect of the paper, an aspect I am very familiair with: La Leche League. 
>> 
>> The paper states: 
>> In the context of global public health, an increasing encouragement, or requirement, to desex language by international organizations or funders based in the USA/the West may be experienced not only as confusing but also as cultural and linguistic imperialism (148, 149). This view was recently expressed by over 250 breastfeeding counselors from 45 countries to the Board of the USA-based breastfeeding support organization La Leche League who stated that changes in language requirements were being experienced as “colonialist” and “oppressive” (150).
>> 
>> --------La Leche League does not *require* to *desex language*. It does not *require changes in language*. I don't know whó told you this, nor do I know how you accessed an internal document, but this statement is simply not correct. 
>> A bit more background: La Leche League is a huge, international organisation. LLLI is the 'legal' part of the organisation, incorporated in the USA and made up out of a management and a Board of Directors. The Board members are democratically elected representatives from all over the world. 
>> LLLI has taken it upon themselves to use *gender diverse* language and a *variety of terms*. So yes, on its own website and in its own social media outings LLLI will use a variety of terms INCLUDING mother and women. 
>> 
>> La Leche League entities around the world have great freedom in how they address the people they work with. After all, they know their audience best. The policies LLLI created on the use of language and cultural sensitivity are publically accessible: 
>> https://www.llli.org/about/policies-standing-rules/psr-language-in-llli-in-publications/
>> https://www.llli.org/about/policies-standing-rules/psr-accessibility-and-cultural-sensitivity/
>> 
>> 
>> Another thing I would like to give into consideration. 
>> LLL is a mission-based, non-profit, service organisation. It is run by volunteers, who have a voice in every administrative level, every boardcommittee, in the board itself - which is democratically elected. The organisation has eight 'networks', mostly geographical, as a way to be organized around the world in workable 'chunks'. The creation of these networks is entirely voluntairily and up to the local volunteers. 
>> As representation often goes hand in hand with number of people - the composition of board (committees) is painstakingly monitored to be aware of this, and often has more voices from smaller, non-English-speaking 'networks'. 
>> In facing the outwards world, LLLI responds to the needs of the audience they (try to) serve - because after all, that is what you are supposed to do as an organisation of this type. 
>> 
>> I would greatly appreciate the statement being corrected. 
>> 
>> 
>> Lydia de Raad
>> Volunteer counsellor La Leche League (LLL) Netherlands (Europe)
>> All opinions expressed in this email are my own
>> 
>> 
>> -

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