Jacquie Nutt asks for my thoughts on why Norwegian feminists have embraced
breastfeeding, at least until recently.
It is due to several factors.  The women who started our BF mothers org. in
1968, were some of the more radical feminists in Norway at the time.  Again,
the terms 'radical' and 'feminist' are culturally defined, and I doubt a
radical feminist from, say, the USA at the same time would have had
everything in common with them.

They also came from a culture where breastfeeding had been the norm always,
until just a few years before when commercial infant formulas were
introduced to the market and BF continuation rates took a sharp nosedive.
Initiation rates stayed about the same, close to 100%, and the value placed
on BF did not really change.  That is, everyone still agreed that BF was the
norm, but the commercial influences and changes in maternity care (this was
the decade after the major shift to institutionalized birth) constituted new
obstacles to success.  The BF organization was as much a reaction to the
attempt by the (male) power structure of the health services to dictate how
childbearing and BF would be carried out, as to the need for practical help
to preserve BF.

Even now, BF is a tangible sign of the strength of women.  Norwegian women
know that there is nothing made in a factory that is better than what their
bodies produce.  They enjoy not being dependent on a purchased product to
nourish their children.  And they enjoy their bodies perhaps somewhat more
than is the case in many other cultures.

Living in a woman's body here does not carry the same economic burden as it
does in the US, as we have quite good protective legislation for maternity
leave, breastfeeding breaks, child support etc.  A woman in the public
sector on paid maternity leave (now approx. one year, at full pay) accrues
pay and job seniority just as if she were at her job.  That helps play down
the conflict between caring and career advancement.

Only about half of children here are born to married couples.  A large
number of couples co-habit and they have approximately the same rights as
married couples.  Then there are the mothers raising children alone, and
this is also much less stigmatized than in many other countries outside the
Nordic community.  Our minister of oil and energy two governments back, had
a baby while in office, and to this day it is not public knowledge who his
father is, but that didn't stop her from carrying out her duties, and even
taking the child along to OPEC meetings after her leave was over.  She had
to, she was breastfeeding!  The Prime Minister at that time was from the
Christian democratic party, for sure a 'family values' party, and nobody
batted an eye.  That party, with the same PM, is in power again, and the
minister of finance just formalized his relationship to his co-habiting
partner, another man.  Not much chance of a maternity leave coming up there,
but again, there has been no negative commentary despite the Christian
democratic party's official and tenacious opposition to the law enabling
same-sex marriages.  (They didn't throw a party for the couple in the
Parliament either, and given the hysteria around royal weddings here, it
would not have been out of place, but that seems to be too much to ask, even
here!)

I think many Norwegian women find the supposed conflict between feminism and
breastfeeding to be artificial.  It is easier to combine breastfeeding and
feminism where being a woman is considered almost the same as being a
person.  We still have significant pay inequities between male-dominated
professions and female-dominated, and there is all reason to be vigilant in
the new age of privatization of public services, and 'market' economics
which seems to mean one doesn't reckon with such things as the value of the
total production of breastmilk when figuring the GNP.  But compared to the
rest of the world we have it pretty good here.

In connection with the revised Norwegian recommendations for infant
nutrition, which now say exclusive BF is the first choice for the first six
months, one of the public officials for gender equity criticized the council
on nutrition, because this could exclude fathers from a close relationship
to their children.  She was roundly corrected by a huge outcry from the
populace, along the lines of 'but only women have breasts with milk in them,
so talk to the Creator about it if it bothers you'.

There are signs that among younger feminists, an earlier return to other
work is valued precisely because it gives the father the opportunity to have
a carer function for the infant.  I hesitate to criticize this, and I have
great respect for the effort some of these mothers go to, to maintain their
milk supplies by pumping and continuing breastfeeding when at home.  But I
wish more of them would practice the letter of the law, which entitles
breastfeeding women to time off as long as they are lactating.  If the law
acknowledges BF as work, why can't we?
Rachel Myr
posing as a social commentator in
Kristiansand, Norway

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