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Subject:
From:
Barbara Wilson-Clay <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 25 Apr 2002 10:07:47 -0500
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First of all I want to say to Kathleen Huggins, Brava for trying!  It takes
a lot of courage and a lot of patience to go through the (typical) long wait
to have your say and then to have to talk about breastfeeding politics to
people who are (generally) clueless.

Secondly, I want to say that as a strategy, persistence is a virtue.  This
may have been the first time they've ever heard these ideas, but if it isn't
the last, your first round will turn out to have been the first step in
their re-education.  I'm sure the first time someone came to the law makers
to talk about a lot of new ideas there was incredulity and
incomprehension("What!  Let women vote???  Next thing you know they'll want
to work outside the home!" "What!  Make smoking inside public buildings
against the law???  We'll lose votes!  We'll lose revenue!"  etc. etc.)

I think always of the suffragists.  Many never lived to vote but they kept
struggling to make sure their daughters could.  Spend a few days licking
your wounds, Kathleen, then figure out your next plan.  Mine might be to go
to the commissioner of public health (or some other public health big shot)
and ask if he/she could write a letter to that committee expressing his
dismay that there was so little perception of both the ethics and the health
issues involved.  There should always be consequences for stupidity, and
this is the time one time I'd play the shame card.  Then I'd see if you
could somehow fund someone like Dr. Michel Young, the brilliant African
American physician from DC, to come to the district of your African American
legislator to present on issues of maternal-child health.  Ask this guy to
introduce her (so he has to BE there to hear her talk about "where is the
outrage in the black community that their birthright of good health is being
stolen from them by the purveyors of poison.")

As women, when we get our butts kicked, our first inclination is to slink
home, lick our wounds, and stay in our safe place.  It's tough to muster the
energy for a repeat experience.  But the best revenge is to win, and
Kathleen, you are plenty savvy enough to win.  Just don't expect it to be
fast.

Barbara Wilson-Clay BSEd, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
http://www.lactnews.com

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