Bernice is really asking about how professionals view Ruth Lawrence's book,
but I am posting her entire email to the list so you can respond to her.
This is being done with her knowledge.  Please respond also to the list, or
to me privately at mailto:[log in to unmask], as I would be very interested
to see how others view these issues.

Kathy Dettwyler


>From: Bernice Hausman <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: query
>X-Sender: [log in to unmask]
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>Dear Katherine Dettwyler:
>
>I'm currently revising an article on Ruth Lawrence's Breastfeeding: A
Guide for the Medical Profession (to be published in a technical
communications journal on medical rhetoric).  Someone has asked me--well,
how do you know this is the most important (perhaps the only) guide written
by a physician for physicians on breastfeeding?
>
>I don't have a medical library available to me in Blacksburg, and so I
want to query Lactnet--what is the stature of Lawrence's book, among
professionals?  What makes it the definitive source?  Is it, as I have been
led to believe, the only book of its kind?
>
>Unfortunately, while I used to be on the Lactnet listserv, I signed off
and subsequently lost my hard drive.  Can you give me the subscription
information again?
>
>By the way, I don't know if you have read Linda Blum's book yet, but I had
an interesting conversation with a graduate class in history about the view
of mothers presented in the book.  A friend of mine is teaching a course on
Feminist Issues in the History of Medicine, and asked me to join the class
when they read Blum's book.  The feeling of the students was that
breastfeeding advocates use discourses that have historically been used to
regulate women (mostly poor women) in terms of their mothering
practices--so that any discourse that talks about the health of the child
or the idea of IQ is necessarily imposing problematic ideological views on
mothering.  Interestingly, when I challenged this with the idea that there
is compelling medical information about the health detriments of formula
feeding, the students discounted this argument, stating that the medical
data was problematic because it replicated ideologically suspect views of
women as mothers.  How do you deal with this issue (also one that Blum
stresses), that breastfeeding advocacy seems to replicate white middle
class norms of mothering, which have historically been used against other
women and their childrearing practices?  Is there a way to separate the
ideologically problematic views of mothering as women's "natural" state
with the medical information in support of breastfeeding?  Is there any way
to talk about children's needs or rights without erasing the subjectivity
of mothers and their choices?
>
>Not an easy list of questions.  I find it difficult, in my research, to
float between the contexts of breastfeeding advocacy and its skeptics.
It's as if I agree with all sides, or can see legitimate points of view in
each perspective (although I can't agree, entirely, with anyone).  An
agonistic view, to say the least.  In any event, thanks for any help in
advance.  And thanks for the materials you've sent me--I'm anticipating
more work on evolutionary views when I can get back to the book.  This fall
I've been putting together materials for tenure.
>
>yours,
>
>Bernice Hausman
>

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