Breast feeding
git. I applaud with much gratitude and Praise John Linklater's article on The Decline and Fall of the Breast (September 8). It is appalling to find that oniething as natural as breastfeeding iS becoming out of fashion and indeed ' unnatural.' One wonders how on earth us females were influenced to the extent where we choose to bottlefeed our infants, though it is all too aPParent to me from Dr Linklater's odings that these brainwashed Women regard their bodies only as sexual apparatus — created and maintained for one purpose only.
I disagree though with Dr Linklater's opinion that this swing to bottlefeeding is closely allied to the wornan's liberation movement: surely anY ' free' woman would choose to
breastfeed her baby if only in protest against the society which dictates that We should be stereotype females, interested only in developing our sexual attractiveness and considers breastfeeding to be an inconvenient part of
Motherhood — in fact an offensive and unsightly act to be undertaken behind closed doors. It would be interesting to see how many men would stand up in support of Dr Linklater's Motion that " Breast is Best " and insist on their wives reading this article, or would they confess to seeing their Wives only as sex objects?
_My only hope is that as many women as possible read Mr Linklater's article, come to the only possible conclusion and act accordingly. It would also be encouraging to find other Fleet Street dwellers treading the same path as the Spectator in printing such a genuinely worthwhile article.
M. E. Cooling 73 Glebe Crescent, Broomfield, Chelmsford, Essex ,Sin 1 was very interested to read John Linklater's article on the decline of breast-feeding (September 8), but I think he has missed some vital points ;i1 his analysis of why women increasingly bottle-feed their babies, In my experience the whole thing is very largely determined by class: that is to say, by and large, working-class Mothers bottle-feed, middle-class be breast-feed. Why should this e„ so? I have seen attempts to explain this situation by reference to " work. mg-class sexual puritanism," "taboos on nudity" and the like; but I would suggest that the explanation lies elseWhere.
The truth of the matter would seem to me to be connected with the fact
that nowadays education determines social class; or to put it another way, Mothers who read books think for themselves (and are most likely to be the product of higher education and therefore middle class) decide to breast-feed; those who do not read hooks have their ideas made up for them (and are working class, having left school at the minimum school leaving age) bottle-feed. If your contributor would be intereaten in following up this idea, / would suggest he look at the glossy ads. of the cosy women's magazines, Brand A c,ornmercial milk powder gives 'Mothers "confidence"; Brand B is "the nearest thing to the natural godn"s of a mother's own milk." The logical fallacy of the latter, as well as the general nonsense of the others, is laughably obvious to a critical mind,
out the sad fact is, the majority of Mothers do not have trained, critical
minds. They are ignorant, gullible, beset with feelings of inadequacy and Incompetence, wide open therefore to this sort of highly unscrupulous commercial pressure. The answer, accordingly, is not to Offer a "tax-free breast-feeding allow ance." This would merely benefit Middle-class mothers, already well
cossetted by the perks of the welfare state. Much more to the point would be to ban all commercial baby milk and food advertising as a first step, but secondly, even more effectively, get GPs to spell out to their largely unwitting ante-natal patients the brutal facts about infant mortality among the bottle-fed, A little less toleration of the sillier fads of pregnant women, and GPs will find themselves reversing this apparently inexorable trend towards the substitution of artificial for natural feeding.
Hilary Meddle° tt
40 Victoria Road, Oxford
Previous page
