Dear all:

I am a firm believer in free speech.  And often when one person is being particularly provocative and making us feel uncomfortable with a new idea that seems outside the norm, championed the idea that we should consider these new ideas even if they seem unfamiliar or wrong.  I have been provocative myself.  I have apologized when I felt I made a comment that was too personal.  Nevertheless, I think that it is good to be stimulated by new ideas even when they make make us uncomfortable to consider at first.  Just think of the challenge of being brainwashed from the time you were tiny that breasts are for sex and then being told overnight you should be completely comfortable with seeing them being used for a purpose that you thought was outmoded.  It does take an adjustment period.

We all do make generalizations.  I have done it -- even though I do try to get in some disclaimers such as "most" or "seems to" or "in Manhattan it appears that".   In fact, in some cases, it is useful to generalize and we could not function if we did not do so.  For instance, if you are trying to decide what to wear and don't know the temperature, you might look outside and see big gray clouds and generalize "it usually rains when there are gray clouds" and take an umbrella.  Many times you will use the umbrella and sometimes you won't.  In research, you might generalize and decide that people living in an area that has little access to fresh green vegetables and orange fruits might have diets low in beta-carotene and pick that spot to develop a research study on gardening projects.  Most of the time you would be right -- but perhaps sometimes that area might have a thriving livestock production economy and they might all be eating goat's liver -- and be saturated with retinol.

Yet, when it comes to a personal note, we all do like to think we are unique and talented and don't fit into someone else's definition of ourselved based on our profession, our ethnicity, our location.  For instance, living in Manhattan, I really get very grumpy when politicians talk about "Real Americans" as if somehow I am not a real American because I don't live somewhere that is defined as being "real".  No one likes to be categorized into a box and then denigrated as part of a group.  Usually, I don't take it personally on Lactnet when I fall into a group that someone may find fault with.  The only time I went nomail was not when my ideas or a group I belong to was criticized.  It was when a group that I don't belong to was being criticized, despite an increasing body of evidence that this group is mostly comprised of victims who have been preyed upon by child molesters and/or child abductors.  

I agree that we should be provocative in generating new ways of thinking.  And certainly in the United States we have the right of free speech.  Nevertheless, it does not mean that we cannot also challenge ourselves constantly to try not to overly generalize and to keep in mind that it is mostly the practices that are attributed to some members of that group that we may be unhappy about and there very well be a member of that group that is working very hard to change those practices.  While being provocative could be considered a "straw man", it should not be too much to expect that we do make an effort to be more specific in our criticisms of particular practices and in the institutional policies that are impeding our ability to assist women and their babies.  

Best regards, Susan Burger

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

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome