Valerie said >I think that one of the things that has happened is that Dr.
William Sears
was put on a pedestal.<

Just to expand this one point from her post, I have been wondering for the
past week or so whether I dared raise this pedestal business.  When I first
joined lactnet there were fairly frequent posting addressed 'to the wise
ones' (or even 'to the Wise Ones').  I found this bizarre in the exteme and
tried to imagine it was the result of some joke I had missed.  However, joke
or not, it seems to suggest a heirarchical culture of deference to
'expertise' (deference is not the same as respect).  It seemed to
'supervalue' the opinion of some as 'wise' and, by implication, denigrate
the rest of us plebs.

Can I just say that I think we will never get anywhere with helping women
stand up for themselves and their babies and make good choices for
themselves if we propagate this culture of pedestals, defererence, wise ones
and heirarchy?

Magda Sachs
Breastfeeding Supporter, BfN, UK
of plebian stock

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