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Subject:
From:
Anne Merewood <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 17 Oct 1997 23:32:54 -0400
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Dear Mr Kelly,
A correspondent and fellow health advocate shared with me your response to
her letter concerning the recent baby bottle illustration in Weekend.
As a freelance journalist and women's health writer contributing regularly
to Vogue, Parenting, and many similar popular magazines, I understand your
cynicism concerning the mass media. Of course, as writers, illustrators,
and editors we are constantly bombarding the public with superficial
information and imagery which has no depth of meaning whatsoever. I am
therefore not at all surprised that the symbol of a bottle was used
mindlessly to imply, 'baby'.
Some of us, however - even journalists - do pause occasionally to think
about the impact of what we are doing.
Bottles are the cultural norm in this country in large part because they
are portrayed as such in the mass media. As you say, the suppression of
breastfeeding is shameful, yet countless women fail to breastfeed because
they consider the bottle as normal, the breast as 'gross'. You have been
exposed to breastfeeding through your family, however you have apparently
not been exposed to breastfeeding 3 or 4 year olds, which is a cultural
norm in many developing countries. Presumably, this is why you find the
idea 'gross' yourself.
I am sure the cigarette companies would like to claim that linking Joe
Camel and teenage smoking is also an idea from the lunatic fringe, but we
know that it is not. Mass exposure to apparently meaningless imagery has a
tremendous effect on society, and those of us involved in the media ought,
more than any others, to be aware of this.
I am glad you are so aware of the benefits of breastfeeding, and I hope
that next time you use a bottle as an illustration, you will at least give
it a second thought.
Yours sincerely, Anne Merewood
Freelance writer and breastfeeding counselor

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