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Jun. 14th, 2006 01:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenAnother news-generated rant that also has to do with my current topic of investigation: babies.
You uppity womens better be nursing those babies!
I cannot believe the context to which these studies have been distorted. Right there in the article, they admit that the women who tend to do what this new "Health Initiative" (more like a stealth initiative to sabotage male-female equality in child-rearing, more on that later***) wants--breast feed for six months tend to be a) wealthy and b) older. Meaning that they have either established themselves comfortably at work such that they can take the time to do what this push demands they do, or that they are at liberty to do it because they don't work at all (many women who worked all along in their lives tend to stop with later pregnancies because by then they're dealing with a passle of kids).
Also, hello? Wealthy people can afford better health care. Period. That means all the diseases that exclusive breast-feeding provides? Not causally linked to breast mllk antibodies! How many of those wealthier, older, and more-at-liberty moms with the "smarter," "healthier" children are able to take their kids at least twice a year to a pediatrician versus the working-class ones or the poorer ones who can't afford it or get time off to go?
And the article is damned right to ask the question: what if you can't breast feed because you can't, and not just because you can't afford the time off (12 weeks is the most maternity leave you get)? Because your mammary glands just aren't up to the demands of a hungry baby? Or if you have, I dunno, HIV? Hello? I wonder, since antibodies are this be-all, end-all in popular perceptions of immunology, if people have considered the many difficulties facing an Rh- woman with and Rh+ baby. I'm almost certain that, even when she's been immunosuppressed to support the child in utero, she's not supposed to nurse the child after because those precious antibodies could make it violently ill! Don't forget folks: antibodies are not always your friends (that's why we have autoimmune disorders--like asthma, which they mention as being possibly prevented by breast-feeding; I'd have to read up more on that to know how that works...)
Beyond that, what "evidence" is there? I love the analogy of the rooster crow = sunrise. It sure looks like that's the case (unless your rooster's broken, and somebody else's rooster picks up the slack). So, without surveying what kind of medical care the wealthier breastfeeders were getting, without doing a genetic history to see which of the nonbreast-feeding mothers might have been predisposed to the diseases their children were subject to, we should take it on faith that breastfed babies seem to be healthier, thus couldn't possibly be healthier for any other reason??
***This fucking administration has made every attempt to put women back in the dark ages with their relations to men, the world that governs their rights, their children, and their own bodies. Women are the primary targets of the abstinence drives because they are the convenient targets--they get pregant, so we can tell they've been having TEH SEX. They are also targeted because of this bullshit, perverse male obsession with paternity that is instead presented as "purity." The patriarchy wants to ensure its members have the privilege of lineage, so we must keep the women sacred until the men want them so there can be no issue of paternity when she falls pregnant. That's why we can't teach those sluts and whores how to use condoms. For all the men know, they could be like storing sperm up there to hatch out whatever eggs they want. Crazy.
So, women are being shamed away from sex because it's wrong to do for them and makes them dirty. Then they are being denied access to education that might save them from literally being contaminated with diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Then, they are increasingly being denied emergency contraceptives. They are being denied on all fronts where Plan B is concerned: education, access, and provision, in that Plan B is not discussed in sex ed (which they should change the name of if they're not going to educate about sex) then access is being restricted because they have to find a doctor willing to give a prescription and provision will be equally hard to obtain because you have to find a pharmicist who won't refuse you because his company gives him permission to foist his religious conviction onto you (even though it's to to the dereliction of his duty).
So the right wing-nuts have made women feel dirty for being, just like men, fond of pleasure and sex, gotten and kept them pregnant whether they wanted it or not, and now we are going to see that those women stay at home with those babies because it's unhealthy not to breastfeed. They keep pulling this "It's not natural," or "It's unhealthy" shit, and people, used to trusting doctors who tell them when something's out of the ordinary or life-threatening by using those terms, BELIEVE THEM.
And don't think this doesn't also tie nicely with the homobigots' push to make being gay a crime in and of itself. Sure, lesbians can get pregnant and nurse, but what about gay men who adopt young babies? Well, they sure can't breastfeed, and stupiding up a child by denying them breastmilk is tantamount to child abuse. Therefore, gay men can't adopt babies. How hard would that argument be to make with this breast-feeding initiative? Not very, I just made it in about three sentences. It's more of that oversimplified false logistical bullshit that conservatives use to QED erroneous conclusions.
It's criminally cyclical. Gays can't have babies because they can't breastfeed. Well, if they can't have babies, which is the purpose of marriage (says the Bible, and we can't question the Bible--it's straight from God's mouth!), then they can't have marriage, can they? And if they can't marry, they're just fornicating every time they are together. Fornication is wrong. They should separate and find nice women to make babies that can then be breast-fed, and this would all be okay.
You uppity womens better be nursing those babies!
I cannot believe the context to which these studies have been distorted. Right there in the article, they admit that the women who tend to do what this new "Health Initiative" (more like a stealth initiative to sabotage male-female equality in child-rearing, more on that later***) wants--breast feed for six months tend to be a) wealthy and b) older. Meaning that they have either established themselves comfortably at work such that they can take the time to do what this push demands they do, or that they are at liberty to do it because they don't work at all (many women who worked all along in their lives tend to stop with later pregnancies because by then they're dealing with a passle of kids).
Also, hello? Wealthy people can afford better health care. Period. That means all the diseases that exclusive breast-feeding provides? Not causally linked to breast mllk antibodies! How many of those wealthier, older, and more-at-liberty moms with the "smarter," "healthier" children are able to take their kids at least twice a year to a pediatrician versus the working-class ones or the poorer ones who can't afford it or get time off to go?
And the article is damned right to ask the question: what if you can't breast feed because you can't, and not just because you can't afford the time off (12 weeks is the most maternity leave you get)? Because your mammary glands just aren't up to the demands of a hungry baby? Or if you have, I dunno, HIV? Hello? I wonder, since antibodies are this be-all, end-all in popular perceptions of immunology, if people have considered the many difficulties facing an Rh- woman with and Rh+ baby. I'm almost certain that, even when she's been immunosuppressed to support the child in utero, she's not supposed to nurse the child after because those precious antibodies could make it violently ill! Don't forget folks: antibodies are not always your friends (that's why we have autoimmune disorders--like asthma, which they mention as being possibly prevented by breast-feeding; I'd have to read up more on that to know how that works...)
Beyond that, what "evidence" is there? I love the analogy of the rooster crow = sunrise. It sure looks like that's the case (unless your rooster's broken, and somebody else's rooster picks up the slack). So, without surveying what kind of medical care the wealthier breastfeeders were getting, without doing a genetic history to see which of the nonbreast-feeding mothers might have been predisposed to the diseases their children were subject to, we should take it on faith that breastfed babies seem to be healthier, thus couldn't possibly be healthier for any other reason??
***This fucking administration has made every attempt to put women back in the dark ages with their relations to men, the world that governs their rights, their children, and their own bodies. Women are the primary targets of the abstinence drives because they are the convenient targets--they get pregant, so we can tell they've been having TEH SEX. They are also targeted because of this bullshit, perverse male obsession with paternity that is instead presented as "purity." The patriarchy wants to ensure its members have the privilege of lineage, so we must keep the women sacred until the men want them so there can be no issue of paternity when she falls pregnant. That's why we can't teach those sluts and whores how to use condoms. For all the men know, they could be like storing sperm up there to hatch out whatever eggs they want. Crazy.
So, women are being shamed away from sex because it's wrong to do for them and makes them dirty. Then they are being denied access to education that might save them from literally being contaminated with diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Then, they are increasingly being denied emergency contraceptives. They are being denied on all fronts where Plan B is concerned: education, access, and provision, in that Plan B is not discussed in sex ed (which they should change the name of if they're not going to educate about sex) then access is being restricted because they have to find a doctor willing to give a prescription and provision will be equally hard to obtain because you have to find a pharmicist who won't refuse you because his company gives him permission to foist his religious conviction onto you (even though it's to to the dereliction of his duty).
So the right wing-nuts have made women feel dirty for being, just like men, fond of pleasure and sex, gotten and kept them pregnant whether they wanted it or not, and now we are going to see that those women stay at home with those babies because it's unhealthy not to breastfeed. They keep pulling this "It's not natural," or "It's unhealthy" shit, and people, used to trusting doctors who tell them when something's out of the ordinary or life-threatening by using those terms, BELIEVE THEM.
And don't think this doesn't also tie nicely with the homobigots' push to make being gay a crime in and of itself. Sure, lesbians can get pregnant and nurse, but what about gay men who adopt young babies? Well, they sure can't breastfeed, and stupiding up a child by denying them breastmilk is tantamount to child abuse. Therefore, gay men can't adopt babies. How hard would that argument be to make with this breast-feeding initiative? Not very, I just made it in about three sentences. It's more of that oversimplified false logistical bullshit that conservatives use to QED erroneous conclusions.
It's criminally cyclical. Gays can't have babies because they can't breastfeed. Well, if they can't have babies, which is the purpose of marriage (says the Bible, and we can't question the Bible--it's straight from God's mouth!), then they can't have marriage, can they? And if they can't marry, they're just fornicating every time they are together. Fornication is wrong. They should separate and find nice women to make babies that can then be breast-fed, and this would all be okay.
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no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 07:56 pm (UTC)My mother didn't let me watch some R-rated movies when I was kid, even though I'd seen Predator a bazillion times before I hit puberty. There were some she just drew the line at, and others she gave up doing so or never actively stopped me going to see. Nowadays, she'd be considered a neglectful parent. But it wasn't because she didn't care. She simply raised me well enough that I had the tools that allowed me to understand that TV and movies are fake, people are real.
But those steps, those real positive steps are always overlooked in the new crusade to force people to homogenize their child-rearing choices. I believe I was bottle-fed and breast-fed. Am I more brilliant for it? Probably not. I'm smart because I had a nanny who taught me to read before I went into kindergarten and parents who put an emphasis on education = life and put me in a school district that did the same. Nature influences, sure, but nurture, god, nurture is sooooo important. And they're confusing the two with the breast-feed debate.
So fucking stupid (and misogynist) it hurts...
no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 08:08 pm (UTC)Obviously, you are just as confused as your heterogenously-feeding, selfish, malicious mother.
For the record, I am also totally fine with either choice. I think this debate is the one that should be labeled "pro-choice," actually, because for most women that's the case. It's not a matter of life or death. Obviously, there are cases in which a woman is forced to turn to an alternative source of nutrition for her infant rather than breastfeeding, but neither child nor mother's lives are in danger, and this certainly isn't the case in the usual circumstances of making a choice.
The current Choice argument needs to be relabeled. I know I've said it a million times, but I think this is a good illustration of an actual choice in the same arena of women's issues.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-15 10:04 pm (UTC)