I have to say I'm a bit surprised and disheartened by much of the response
(or lack thereof) here to Kim Gandy's letter. Here's why I think this open
letter is potentially damaging:

 

1)       As an open letter on the NOW website, visitors are encouraged to
send it or print it. As many of you have identified, the letter signifies
some very important issues that are sure to get many women excited and they
certainly will want to spread the word if they believe it will create
solutions so they'll forward it. The problem is the letter has inaccurate
information and IMO, well I just plain disagree about what to do about these
issues, specifically:

 

2)       The letter has as it's first solution to" Extend to one year from
the present six months after childbirth the period that women can receive
nutritional supplements under the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
program." The only way the WIC program can extend to one year benefits for
women that don't receive them is for the WIC program to increase benefits
for non-breastfeeding women. This could effectively make WIC have no
equalizing measure of benefits between those breastfeeding and those not
breastfeeding. Am I the only one who finds it interesting that this is being
advocated for when the WIC program is getting ready to revise its food
package (a process that happens very rarely)? I hope this offends no one and
I might be paranoid but this is kind of reminding me of when the Patriot Act
was passed quickly after 9/11. Democrats hardly looked at the bill but voted
for it and then complained about it afterward. LCs are you really reading
this letter from Kim Gandy or am I totally off my rocker to be concerned
about this?

 

 

3)       The letter basically states that the formula company's criticisms
of the Ad Council BF ads are legitimate. Maybe they were but we never found
out because the ads were watered down and aired so infrequently. What would
have happened if the ad council's campaign as originally aimed was
actualized? We will never know. For those who are not familiar with the
history of the formula companies successfully lobbying to water down and
discredit those ads here's a link:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124271
<http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124271&page=1> &page=1

 

4)        As a women who identifies (o.k. I'll use the dreaded "f" word!) as
a feminist it hurts me that the President of NOW is echoing the formula
company's stance and advocating their point of view as a way to achieve an
end to discrimination in the work force for women who give birth while
employed. I just don't get how this is o.k. and good and we should just
ignore it.

 

 

 

       Respectfully,

       

       Barbara Holmes RD, IBCLC

       Brooklyn, NY

 

 


             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html