I’m going to try to explain this in a way that I believe my fellow feminists will understand by using a hypothetical scenario. Try to imagine…
…We’re living in a society that hospitalizes healthy young women for a few days of observation when they hit biological puberty, as marked by the onset of menstruation. This is a critical time in a woman’s reproductive life, so it’s important that we monitor it in the event of an emergency.
While the young woman is in the hospital, Nesbott Inc. offers her free prophylactic breast augmentation surgery. After all, the young woman has just begun puberty, and there is no way of knowing whether she will be able to grow the Big Beautiful Breasts she desires. In our society, every woman is entitled to have Big Beautiful Breasts whether they can pay for them or not. But what if she’s incapable of growing them? We don’t want to wait around to find out. So Nesbott Inc. offers her this free procedure during her hospitalization so that she has the “choice” to have Big Beautiful Breasts. But Nesbott Inc. doesn’t tell the young woman that if she accepts this “free” surgery, she’ll be required to continue to make payments of approximately $200 per month for an entire year once their “trial” period is over. They also don’t explain any of the risks that come with the surgery, nor do they mention the long-term health implications of interfering with the natural biological process of growing and utilizing one’s own healthy tissue. Sure, they say “Your breasts are best” but we all know what they really mean is that keeping our own breasts is a lofty, unattainable goal for the majority of women. And Nesbott Inc. certainly doesn’t mention that this “trial” process is really not a “trial” at all, since the procedure will be quite complicated to reverse, IF it can be reversed at all.
But it’s her right. The feminists fought to give us choices, and it makes perfect sense that Nesbott Inc. should be allowed to enter a young woman’s hospital room and sell her a “free” product in the name of choice, no matter the health risks. They are hers to claim. To the young woman, Nesbott Inc. is an altruistic corporation who is obviously only giving her a free product because they truly care about her and her right to make this choice. The fact that they’ll make $200 a month off of her for the next year isn’t even factored into the equation because, at least while she’s hospitalized, it’s free! And who doesn’t want something that’s free? Especially when we’ve all been told that we should have Big Beautiful Breasts, and knowing how many women are incapable of growing them, she just can’t take the chance that she’ll be one of them. The guilt would consume her.
Of course, the mastectomy patients and fire victims who could really use the breast augmentation surgery have to pay a much higher price now because the altruistic Nesbott Inc. has been giving away their surgeries for “free”.
And we don’t put any money into looking for natural ways to increase bust size, which would be healthier for the young woman who truly can’t grow her own. Why do that when we have a cheap way to make fake ones?
And what about the young women who don’t want the surgery? Well, the world thinks they’re weird hippies who are constantly making a spectacle with their small, non-augmented breasts. Society expects them to use falsies whenever possible, or stay in the bathroom if they MUST bring those weird, unaltered breasts out in public. Of course, any time the non-augmented women try to assert that their real breasts are healthier, people tell them to shut their mouths and stop talking crazy. There is NO way that natural is better, and even if it were, the Natural Boob Women are only saying so to guilt everyone else about exercising their choice to have Big Beautiful Breasts. It’s a full-on war, and we must support a healthy woman’s choice to be given a free product that she may not need, which will trap her into paying a huge sum to a corporation, and compromise her long term health. It’s the feminist way!
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Now the stark reality: If you think the above scenario is outrageous, it’s absolutely not. This is what happens every single day that a brand new mother is handed bags of free formula in a hospital, regardless of whether or not she plans to breastfeed. In the above scenario, I would think any feminist worth her salt would see Nesbott Inc.’s false charity, and recognize that Nesbott is simply snagging these young women as consumers before the women really have a chance to decide if they need the product. And what if these young women really, truly did want augmentation? Well, we’ll never know because the corporate influence is so intertwined in the decision-making process. Do these feminists even realize that breastfeeding women have a lower risk of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, Type 2 Diabetes, postpartum depression, and heart disease (the #1 killer of women?) As a feminist, I consider it irresponsible to advocate for a corporation that assists in harming women’s health while disguising it as “choice.”
In our reality, Nestle and Abbott want you to know that they don’t want to take any chances that you may actually be able to make your own milk for your baby. This is a critical time to make critical choices, so they’re going to give you “free” formula right from the start. And why not take it? It’s FREE! I mean… until it costs $26 per can every 2-3 days, never mind the increased health care costs. And of course someone’s got to pay for those free samples, so they’ll just pass that cost on to the next mom. And once you take the formula and stop your body’s ability to breastfeed that baby, there’s almost no “choice” to go back. Relactation is difficult, so they’ve got your money from now until the baby hits at least a year old, wooo hooo!
Perhaps you’ve decided that you want to give your baby donor milk? Well, sorry, we don’t put money in to making donor milk more widely available because formula is a billion dollar industry, so real breastmilk is going to cost you $4 per ounce. We cannot have women using their breasts when they could be buying an inferior, manufactured product.
And what if you made the choice to breastfeed and had a successful start? Well, you’re in the minority, so ergo you are a weirdo and are not allowed to eat your dinner with the rest of us. We also will not allow you to claim lactation support services on your health insurance. After all, this is America and we are certainly not in the business of keeping people healthy. It’s better for business if we can get you sick and then charge you to get well. Didn’t you get the message printed on the side of your Enfamil-branded diaper bag? You should be formula-feeding. That’s the only “choice” we support. And the only way to support that is to invite Nestle and Abbot Labs into your delivery room to get your baby on their product first – before anyone else, including you, has a chance to mess that up for them.
For all of the reasons above, I cannot imagine why any feminist would support formula marketing and blatant violations of the WHO International Code of Marketing Breast-milk Substitutes, but apparently many loud, respected ones do. All I can think is that they have done zero research or homework on what they’re claiming to support. They think they’re taking a feminist position by advocating choice, but really, they’ve just been duped into supporting a corporation who harms human health all over the planet, and has been repeatedly boycotted for decades. Many people are also arguing that banning the free formula bags is simply the hospital’s way of cutting costs, but that’s just not true. It is largely known that the hospitals and their staff get huge incentives to accept these samples. Of course they do! That’s exactly how marketing works – especially pharmaceutical marketing (and in case we’re not making the connection here, Similac is made by Abbot Labs, which is a pharmaceutical company.)
I absolutely support a woman’s right to choose to feed her baby formula, but I absolutely do NOT support the drug company’s “right” to be in the delivery room, handing out products that are only designed to stand between the mother and her breastmilk. And contrary to the popular (misguided) belief of famous feminists like Jessica Valenti, the UNICEF “Baby-Friendly” hospitals are NOT denying access to formula, or even preventing women from receiving free formula. It is still there for the mothers who need it. Those who don’t have a medical need for it can elect to purchase it just about anywhere. Those who cannot afford it can get it through WIC (actually, the state purchases the majority of infant formula sold in the U.S.) If your baby really needs it, insurance will even help pay for it. Nobody is in any danger of losing their choice to formula feed, even if we start enforcing the WHO code.
Just because you’ve used infant formula (I have), and you support formula-feeding moms (I do), does NOT mean you should support formula marketing.
And what about the moms who intend to breastfeed? Well, Nesbott Inc. will make sure they assist in that decision if at all possible. If you’ve got a breastfeeding question, they want you to call their “Breastfeeding Help Line” so they can help you figure out why you should be buying their product instead.
And this? This is why I’m a feminist AND a lactivist, and why all other feminists should be too.
And here’s my follow-up regarding the rampant classism I’ve seen among those who will deny the truth about unethical marketing, after a self-proclaimed feminist uses ad hominem attacks and insults to deflect attention from the real issue.
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This post celebrates Breast Cancer Awareness Month. As they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and breastfeeding is a perfectly free way to help prevent breast cancer. If you’re looking for more information, visit BestForBabes.org. Dig it.
The hospital that I had my son in was wonderful when I came to breastfeeding. They automatically assumed you were going to BF. They encouraged rooming-in, had a lactation consultant on every shift, offered a pump to help stimulation (which you got to take all the attachments home with you when you left), they pushed skin to skin. They never once offered me formula. But at the 1 week check up at the Peds the nurse handed me two bags of free formula samples right after I told her I was BFing exclusively. I realize how lucky I was to be in such a supportive hospital but was dumbfounded by the dr office offering me formula "just in case I changed my mind"
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