Dear Editor,
        I was surprised and very saddened to read Betsy Hart's cruel and
pointless diatribe against breastfeeding in the Lawrence Eagle Tribune.  As
an anthropologist who has done considerable research and published on this
topic ("Beauty and the Breast: The Cultural Context of Breastfeeding in the
United States" in the book Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives), I find
it difficult to understand how people can harbor so much hatred and disdain
for breastfeeding.  Women's breasts are mammary glands.  Their primary
function (and in most cultures around the world, their ONLY function) is to
produce milk to nourish and nurture children.  Breastfeeding is the normal,
natural, and healthy way to feed and nurture your children.  Breastfeeding
also protects the mother against breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers.  Why
should a woman feel that she must stay in her home, or hide under a blanket,
when she is feeding her child?  Women who are bottle-feeding with formula
aren't expected to go hide in the bathroom or lounge, or cover up with a
blanket, even though what they are doing is very well-documented as being
harmful to their children.  I cannot imagine any circumstances in which the
sight of a woman breastfeeding her baby could be considered "careless,
flagrant, cavalier, or downright offensive."  Imagine using these terms to
describe a mother cat nursing her kittens, or a newborn foal nursing from a
mare.  Why is it offensive if it is a human woman doing it?  If someone
finds breastfeeding offensive, then the offense is in the eye and mind of
the beholder.  If Betsy Hart finds the sight of a woman breastfeeding her
baby offensive, then my advice to her is: DON'T LOOK.  If a man "sees his
co-worker openly breastfeeding and feels offended" -- he needs to grow up
and get a life.  It can't possibly be considered sexual harrassment, because
breastfeeding isn't about sex, it's about feeding babies the normal,
natural, healthy way.
        It is beyond my ability to understand how anyone can equate the
promotion of breastfeeding -- a healthy, life-giving and life-sustaining
activity, with Nazis, a genocidal political organization.  Please reconsider
before you publish any more columns by Betsy Hart, or anyone else who is so
clueless about the purpose of women's breasts.


Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Winner of the 1995 Margaret Mead Award
Texas A&M University
College Station, TX 77843-4352
(409) 845-5256 (work)
(409) 778-4513 (home)
e-mail: [log in to unmask]