Missing Witches - WF Dr Phyllis Rippey： I Started To See Breastfeeding As Central To The Construction Of Gender...

00:00:00.340 We've been missing you. Do you want to find the witch friends you've been missing? Do you want 1.00

00:00:04.480 to participate in these conversations live? And do you want to support the work of recovering

00:00:09.080 a true history of feminist ideas about magic? Do you want to hang out? Do you want an invite to

00:00:15.440 Zoom together with Amy and myself, every new moon, along with our hilarious, diverse, wise,

00:00:22.600 queer, creative, anti-racist, science, and awe-loving coven, you must join the Missing

00:00:30.460 Witches Patreon. It's pay what you can, and we can't wait to meet you there. Patreon.com

00:00:37.180 slash missingwitches. You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:45.080 You must be a witch. I'm really excited for today's. We're going to talk about the enclosure 1.00

00:00:51.680 of the body. Yes. I know. I'm excited. And I'm glad you're here too. I want these conversations

00:00:57.740 to be increasingly collaborative if we can figure out how to do it, but it's like, it's a new kind

00:01:04.380 of interview style. So we got to figure it out. It's really interesting. I was thinking about

00:01:10.180 like, like, um, like white feathers model, the bio art coven and how everything that she does

00:01:16.860 collaborative and everything that we're trying to do in general in witchcraft to flatten hierarchies

00:01:23.240 and so I was like this is a cool idea so I thought that was really interesting cool I'm glad you think

00:01:30.020 so yeah I think I'm just going to take a breath in a second welcome witches welcome listeners

00:01:40.280 assemblages of beings and liken forms however you define yourself we're glad you're here

00:01:46.320 in this coven we make in the dark between our ears. We're honored and privileged, I think,

00:01:53.580 to sit with each other and with you. And today, especially honored and privileged

00:01:58.080 to have Dr. Phyllis Rippey here. Dr. Rippey is an associate professor of sociological and

00:02:04.880 anthropological studies at the University of Ottawa and the author of a book called

00:02:09.380 Breastfeeding and the Pursuit of Happiness. And oh my gosh, I've had the song Pursuit of

00:02:14.780 happiness Kid Cudi in my head for weeks and then read that that was the title of your book

00:02:19.600 and all I want to think about is like our rights our rights to pursue happiness and and witches

00:02:26.260 and women's bodies and people's bodies rights to pursue happiness um and I'm so glad you're here

00:02:32.880 and I want to know everything you know about witch hunts and breastfeeding and I don't even

00:02:37.240 know where to start with the question just hi welcome welcome thank you I'm so excited to be

00:02:43.860 here really yeah I'm like I'm excited to learn what all of you know about wishes like because

00:02:50.620 what I know is really from a pretty negative negative sense rather than from a more sort of

00:02:58.520 reclaiming and empowering sense which I love that idea so yeah I'm really excited to be here

00:03:05.340 oh I'm excited too and members of our coven are kind of dancing in and out in our new form of

00:03:11.420 interview, which I'm excited about. Maybe could you start by telling us some of what you discovered

00:03:17.000 in your research about this relationship between witch hunts and breastfeeding?

00:03:23.260 Yeah. Yeah. So, so I'll just say also to preface it is that sort of the, the, 0.63

00:03:29.720 my work on breastfeeding in general came from in four days, it'll be 20 years ago when my first

00:03:36.660 son was born and I was, had went into being like, I'm going to breastfeed. I remember they asked in

00:03:43.920 the hospital and they were like, you know, Oh, what are your plans? I was like, well, you know,

00:03:47.620 I'm going to do it for a year, but if I like give up at six months, that's fine. Like, you know,

00:03:52.200 but I was like, I had read everything. I was going to do it all right. And then like reality

00:03:56.980 came and I had this enormous, enormous baby. He was a 11 pounds, 10 ounces. And yeah, he was

00:04:03.880 enormous. I think it was untreated gestational diabetes, like anyway, but he was enormous and

00:04:10.380 I had postpartum depression and I cried like every day and my milk did not come in. And after 10

00:04:17.640 days I quit breastfeeding because I could not stop crying and I was exhausted and it was just,

00:04:24.020 it was really hard and really horrible. And, but I was determined to figure out like, what can I do

00:04:29.860 to sort of make up for it. So I started reading all the like science and research on like the

00:04:34.860 quote unquote benefits of breastfeeding. And I was like, I have to like recreate like breastfeeding

00:04:41.420 with formula because it has to be like, you know, this is like magic according to the science.

00:04:48.120 And then the more that I read, the more I was like, this isn't magic. This is like this. I mean,

00:04:53.440 it's magic as in our bodies are magical things that can do magical things but it's like it's not

00:05:01.900 going to like I don't know that it really makes a difference and I started to just see the ways in

00:05:06.540 which sort of power structures and elites were creating these sort of narratives around

00:05:12.880 breastfeeding that I saw as very much a backlash against the progress that women had been making 0.81

00:05:18.680 in society at large, that there was this sort of alongside with pressures to breastfeed

00:05:26.080 also were concurrent with this idea of women needing to return to a kind of domesticity

00:05:32.380 in a way that we couldn't say anymore in terms of like being a housewife, because that was no

00:05:36.980 longer normatively acceptable, but to sort of suggest that, oh, babies around the world are

00:05:42.380 all going to die if they don't breastfeed. It's like, oh shit, I want to like be a good mom. I 0.99

00:05:46.660 want to be a good person. So I better breastfeed. So I started to just have questions about it.

00:05:51.280 And, and at the same time, my sister breastfed her babies and loved it. And she like breastfed 1.00

00:05:57.220 both of her kids for over a year. And it was just absolutely, and she would get upset a little bit

00:06:03.020 when I talk about it. She's like, am I doing bad by breastfeeding? I'm like, no, of course not.

00:06:06.260 Like, it's not a question of like, anything is good or bad. And so it really, so I started doing

00:06:12.960 a lot of different research and I'm a sociologist and so I started looking at things like what's

00:06:17.220 the relationship between women's earnings like and breastfeeding or father involvement in care

00:06:22.340 or I looked at a qualitative study looking at lesbian moms and seeing how does breastfeeding

00:06:26.340 impact the sort of division of labor and and and the sort of relationships um with each other and

00:06:32.140 with their kids and I just started to find more and more that there's this pattern that when um

00:06:38.780 there is a primary parent who breastfeeds that that person tends to become much more responsible

00:06:45.400 for the needs and wants of the child. And it can start to introduce this kind of pattern of work

00:06:52.080 and labor and, and of also like the expectations of what, what particular parents are supposed to

00:06:58.360 be doing. So, so for my book, it started just sort of exploring all of these ideas. And there

00:07:04.640 were other people who had looked at this like there's a sociologist Linda Bloom who wrote sort

00:07:09.100 of one of the first sociological well Pam Carter in the UK and then Linda Bloom in the United States

00:07:14.440 wrote in 1995 then 1999 the sort of first sociological critiques of sort of breastfeeding

00:07:22.200 promotion and there have been lots of debates by feminists about like you know is you know like I

00:07:29.120 I've attended a few times the conference like a breastfeeding feminism conference like 1.00

00:07:33.080 what's the feminist argument should it be like what what should it be should it be like get 0.94

00:07:38.460 everyone breastfeeding and we need to support people breastfeeding or is it like you know then 1.00

00:07:42.820 some feminists came along and were like no it's oppressive to breastfeed everyone needs to bottle 1.00

00:07:46.780 feed or it doesn't matter like just choose whatever you want but that always seemed really 1.00

00:07:50.760 simplistic to me because I'm like well some people can't like some people can't choose to do it like

00:07:55.000 some people get harassed if they do it some people like no matter what you do you are like you're 1.00

00:08:01.840 you're fucked. Like you're supposed to do it for like a year, but one minute longer. And then 0.99

00:08:06.960 you're a pedophile. You do it like less than that. And you're murdering your child. Like if you do 0.99

00:08:12.840 it in public, you're like, uh, you know, you're showing off and you're an exhibitionist. If you

00:08:17.480 do it at home while you're not working. And so you're not like engaged, like no matter what,

00:08:21.500 to me, I just really started to see breastfeeding as so fundamental to the construction of like

00:08:27.100 gender and really the moralizing of breastfeeding as really central to, to the construction of

00:08:34.720 what women are supposed to be. And so, so my book is really looking at sort of that historically

00:08:42.300 and sort of how that has been done. And what I realized is this has been going on for thousands

00:08:48.700 of years. So in the Bible, for instance, there's all kinds of, like, I have a whole chapter right

00:08:55.080 before the the witch um the witch hunts which i will get to i promise but so the witch hunts are

00:09:01.880 in the bible like i talk about rhetorically how this idea of a land of milk and honey is actually

00:09:07.720 i see it as as a rhetorical call to the mother to the maternal body and that there's sort of this

00:09:14.400 this idea you know we can think of it as politically as you know somewhere around

00:09:19.520 Israel of like, oh, it's this place that happened in the Exodus story that, you know, Moses brought

00:09:25.500 people to this land of milk and honey. But you can also see the ways in which women's bodies are used

00:09:31.280 throughout the Bible to be sort of associated with this sort of like lush, comforting, loving place.

00:09:39.560 And it's not just Christianity, like in Judaism, Islam has a recommendation in the Quran that women

00:09:47.360 breastfeed for two years. But throughout, it's sort of this idea of like women's bodies as these

00:09:51.860 sort of lush and fertile lands, but a very sort of comforting maternal place. Like there's this

00:09:58.580 poem by a Sufi Muslim poet, Rabia, from, you know, hundreds of years ago, where she has this poem 0.95

00:10:07.420 about how she used to be a bottom feeder, but now she nurses on a breast in the sky. This sort of

00:10:14.320 also idea of like, um, sort of, and there are ministers like Christian ministers and like

00:10:20.860 puritanical United States that would talk about their followers as nursing at sort of nursing

00:10:28.600 at their words or that they themselves like, or Jesus was like, you know, this sort of nursing

00:10:33.940 thing. So, so there's this, this idea of nursing, um, as breastfeeding as being this comforting,

00:10:40.880 loving, nurturing space. And that's like, to me, like where there is this kind of magical power

00:10:48.120 of like, you know, this, when you think about a baby, like if breastfeeding can work, like if it 0.98

00:10:55.140 is successful and the baby gets enough nourishment, it's like, what the fuck is better? Like imagine 0.86

00:11:01.380 being a baby and you have this person who just like provides you this like warm, creamy, super,

00:11:08.680 super sugary elixir that is just like, and when you're a newborn, like all you want to do is like

00:11:17.160 not feel uncomfortable, right? Like all you want to do is like not have an empty belly and not have

00:11:22.480 a dirty diaper. It's like, that's your only thing. And so it's like, you have this person that's like

00:11:26.060 magically doing all these things. So, so in some ways I take some of the arguments that

00:11:31.600 some people will suggest that, that men can't do that. So, so men don't have, well, actually men do

00:11:39.240 have the capacity to nurse, which is a whole other, not really nurse, I will say to provide

00:11:43.120 non-nutritive suckling, but which is a whole other social construction because people will be like,

00:11:46.800 oh, breastfeeding is so natural. And I'm like, so why not get men doing it? They have nipples,

00:11:50.380 they have milk ducts, like it's, and sometimes they can produce milk. So like that would be 1.00

00:11:55.460 very natural. And yet people are like, ew, gross. That's weird. Right? Like that's, that's just not

00:11:59.340 natural and I'm like I don't know I didn't like artificially implant nipples on men but okay so

00:12:06.720 so but we have this like so we see this sort of gendering of nipples and that men don't have that

00:12:15.080 kind of power don't have the power to make babies don't have the power to um to nurture babies and

00:12:21.240 what I also sort of at the more at the end of my book we'll talk about sort of drawing on sort of

00:12:26.860 theoretical ideas from Hannah Arendt is that from the ancient Greeks who suggested that our

00:12:32.700 sort of pursuit of happiness, that our goal in life is to feel immortal and that, you know,

00:12:38.720 that happiness can come from this sort of being closer with the gods that we can attain this

00:12:45.040 kind of immortality. And so if women, when breastfeeding or breasted, chested people, 1.00

00:12:52.800 because there are trans men who who chess feed um you know if if this group of people have these

00:12:59.020 little life beings that see their mothers as magical as all-knowing as giving them all of

00:13:06.480 their needs that that it's almost as though only women can experience what it is to be a god

00:13:12.280 that to have like that kind of experience of someone like a supplicant in the way that like

00:13:20.880 a you know a a parishioner would would see god and so um so there's a kind of jealousy there

00:13:27.760 there's a there's like a hey why do you get to do that since there that makes it so that there's

00:13:33.640 this like control like we start to see this control of women's bodies of like well I want 1.00

00:13:40.340 to take ownership of that I want to own that I want to like have so so we start seeing all kinds 1.00

00:13:46.000 of rules about like throw away colostrum keep colostrum like have like breastfed feed the baby

00:13:52.920 this way don't breastfeed the baby that way like historically there's just tons and tons of like

00:13:58.160 stories about you know of rules that men have created for how babies should be breastfed

00:14:04.160 the witches though to me is particularly an interesting thing so a lot of my stuff

00:14:09.760 on witches um is comes from this one book caliban and the witch by sylvia federici i mean thank you 0.93

00:14:20.440 yes all right yeah we quote her a lot in our book love it oh my god we fucking love her

00:14:26.460 oh my god she is she she was like everything to me like everything so my chapter is basically i

00:14:33.980 just like paraphrase like I just basically paraphrase her entire book which in my chapter

00:14:41.160 and then I add one little thing I add one little thing so so I mean she can speak for herself but

00:14:47.420 I'll say basically what she articulates is that you know the rise of sort of the entire emergence 0.68

00:14:53.880 of capitalism was dependent on the construction of the witch so that it was in order for so we have 0.69

00:15:01.640 the the bourgeois who started to evolve before the bourgeois we had landed elites right like

00:15:07.600 we had renaissance whatever and so we have this um not renaissance middle ages

00:15:14.260 i'm all excited that you know what i'm talking about so how much do i how much do i explain

00:15:19.840 just explain just expand one of the themes of our podcast is please expand just please know that we

00:15:24.960 want to go down all the tangents with you so go go go okay awesome awesome okay okay so

00:15:30.480 So we had, historically, a period of time before capitalism emerged.

00:15:37.140 It was, you know, like serfs, feudalism, where you had a lord, and the only people really

00:15:41.920 who had any power were the landed elites, the royalty kinds of people, and you had the

00:15:47.200 church, which were in cahoots with each other to, you know, help bolster each other up.

00:15:52.460 Capitalism starts to emerge because we have people who want to start making money, and

00:15:58.080 they aren't just people who had land already so we also see the enclosure movement especially in

00:16:03.700 the UK where we start closing off the land so you know I'm a royal I've got all this land I could

00:16:09.160 sell a little bit of it and you know let somebody else buy it and then start to exploit that land

00:16:15.260 and one of the things that happened that was particularly important is that prior to that

00:16:20.460 enclosure where this land was being sold off that land was publicly available and it was the common

00:16:25.340 so anybody could use it and a lot of the people who used it were the poor peasantry who would

00:16:31.780 you know work the the land to pay their sort of rent to the the landed nobility um and then that

00:16:41.020 that wasn't you know they needed to feed their families like a lot of this is just about food

00:16:45.380 so they need to feed their families and they could use those lands to hunt or to fish or to like

00:16:50.760 whatever, gather food. Well, capitalists started to exist as a group of people, a concept. They're

00:16:59.200 closing off, they're enclosing that land so that now it's private property. Now we have private

00:17:03.440 property. These people, a lot of women, couldn't really access that land. And so people couldn't 1.00

00:17:11.580 afford, like they didn't have the money to feed their families. And so this land also, they

00:17:16.480 couldn't like just get the food that was there. We also start seeing with the emergence of

00:17:22.120 capitalism, huge fluctuations in the price of goods, like, because they're just starting to

00:17:28.600 figure out like what, like what capitalism is about, like what a market is about, like a free

00:17:34.880 market is about. So we start to see all kinds of fluctuations in food prices and like rapid

00:17:42.120 inflation. And then it was really crazy. And what that meant is that there were famines,

00:17:47.300 like frequent famines that were really, really horrible. Now, people had not yet been disciplined

00:17:54.860 to understand how to be good workers either. So much of early capitalism was a process of

00:18:01.880 disciplining workers, teaching people, how do you behave? Like, how do you show up to work

00:18:07.500 at 9am and work until 5pm? Or how do you do all of these things? And so a lot of it was just like

00:18:14.180 a drive system where it's like, you know, yell at you. Another important part that Marx, she draws

00:18:20.420 a lot on Karl Marx, is, you know, having a surplus army of workers. So you need to have like enough

00:18:27.600 workers in your business, your factory, but you also need to have enough knocking at the gates 1.00

00:18:33.900 so that you can say, well, if you don't like it, you can fuck off. Like, yeah, I got another 500 1.00

00:18:39.120 workers who could come in here. So it's a pretty bleak experience, early capitalism. And so the

00:18:46.540 big question that Marx never answered that the brilliant Silvia Federici started to figure out

00:18:52.580 was like, why did people go along with this? Like, like why, like, how was it? Like, it's this sort

00:18:58.840 of question of primitive accumulation. So primitive meaning like early accumulation of the

00:19:03.520 how did they get away with this how was it that people weren't like go fuck yourself like i want 1.00

00:19:09.140 this land i'm gonna tear it down and like kiss my ass this is like bullshit i don't like it right 1.00

00:19:14.480 so there are lots of ways that they did this but a really important way that she says is through 1.00

00:19:20.380 the witch hunts that the witch hunts were you know a means of dividing the proletariat dividing the

00:19:28.040 workers into men and women and it was extremely successful and this was also because you know

00:19:36.760 remember that earlier we had the the landed elites and the church well the bourgeoisie wanted to get

00:19:42.640 in on this action right and the those earlier elites weren't gonna like do that for nothing

00:19:48.840 right like there needed to be a kind of collusion between these emergent bourgeoisie like owners

00:19:56.760 capitalist and the land elite. So in part, they could, you know, buy the land from, from the

00:20:02.380 land of nobility, but they also were working, you know, could work with the churches. So, so the

00:20:07.440 churches could, you know, put out these edicts saying in terms of like the supernatural, right,

00:20:14.040 this supernatural, the, the witches are so evil and it could, you know, not only garner support

00:20:21.960 and relevance for the church but it also divided the proletariat but importantly really importantly

00:20:30.060 and to me this is like one of the most important parts is that the people who were protesting like

00:20:37.480 the people who were at like the granaries or the food like there was some granary in like Italy or

00:20:43.260 something that was like knocked down like people were all pummeled because there were people like

00:20:46.820 banging at the doors. The people who were best able to, to protest this were grandmothers. Okay.

00:20:54.760 So grandmothers, because the moms are looking after the kids, the dads are having to work, 0.71

00:20:59.500 assuming a sort of heteronormative family structure, but it's that grandmothers are

00:21:03.820 responsible for food, right? Like mothers and grandmothers were feeding their families. 0.95

00:21:08.500 So we start to see also the iconography, like the imagery of the witch goes from, you can see

00:21:15.800 really in with the art of Dürer and Hans Baldung Green, both located in Strasbourg. Dürer was sort

00:21:26.340 of like a mentor of Baldung in Strasbourg, which was really a center of witch hunts, also a center

00:21:34.140 of capitalism, also a center of sort of rising humanism, like sort of enlightenment ideals of

00:21:42.720 art and sort of emergent ideas about culture that isn't just about sort of church renaissance church

00:21:50.000 art but starts expanding and and what we can see in their art is that whereas witches in the past

00:21:56.460 something and this is the one thing that i had that that federici didn't really talk about is

00:22:01.360 that what we start to see is a shift in the presentation of the breast in their art so so we

00:22:08.360 start to see this shift from witches before that either they were like their breasts were covered

00:22:14.440 or um they were like young looking breasts but we start to see in their art as the witch hunts 0.84

00:22:22.360 went on this sort of shriveled shriveled breast like a like a empty bladder because also prior 0.97

00:22:30.420 to that the maternal breast and art was like the virgin mary like there's tons of art of like the 1.00

00:22:35.520 Virgin Mary and like the Saint Bernard in France, who was a man, but like the Virgin Mary squirted

00:22:41.720 milk in his eye and he like could like whatever. Right. So it's like, you know, went from magical

00:22:47.660 to suddenly we see the witches as associated with the shrunken breasts. And to me, what I say is

00:22:53.180 that this became visually extremely powerful for linking famine, hunger, like an actual most

00:23:03.360 fundamental human need is to eat from the day that we're born, associating that as that's women's

00:23:09.480 fault, that's witches' fault, as opposed to being the fault of capitalism, as being opposed to the

00:23:15.480 fault of the enclosure movement, of trying to control food so that market prices are fluctuating

00:23:22.680 all over the place and that there isn't a very clearly regulated market. So by visually associating

00:23:28.800 witches as, and they're also like in the Malleus Maleficarum, there's like a whole chapter on like

00:23:33.540 how witches steal the milk of cows and other animals. Like there's tons of stuff about like

00:23:38.780 stealing milk and stealing, you know, making butter and like, and it says like in it, like,

00:23:44.600 do not be careful not to share your milk, like any food you have with a woman walking by because

00:23:51.620 that she could use that to curse your family. So it's also like, don't share, don't, don't share

00:23:58.580 your stuff with anyone else because witches are gonna get you and and to me I argue that you know

00:24:05.940 that we can see this also you can see a parallel now with formula because it's also that witches

00:24:11.000 had these frothing bruise right it's like they're cauldrons with you know scattered dead babies all 0.99

00:24:17.720 around them and these you know emaciated skinny women with these dripping yucky breasts it's like 1.00

00:24:25.780 they represent infant mortality and famine. And, and so we can see now like all kinds of like 1.00

00:24:33.340 anti-formula stuff now in that if you use formula, you're going to have a dead baby.

00:24:38.780 Like, so there's, you know, like in the seventies as like, you know, as part of like the Nestle

00:24:43.380 boycott stuff that started, we could see like, you know, bottle feed your baby, you know,

00:24:48.460 Nestle kills babies. I shouldn't call it that because they, they called it that first. Oh,

00:24:53.380 what's it called now? And then they got sued by Nestle. So then it's, oh, the baby killer,

00:24:59.060 the baby killer. So that it was like, and there's in my book, I have a picture of it where it's like

00:25:05.620 a baby bottle with like a dead African baby in it. It's so gross. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, 1.00

00:25:12.460 but again, it's like, you know, women, like the cause of infant, you know, mortality around the 0.92

00:25:18.240 world is again, women's fault, you know, that it's because they didn't breastfeed. If women 0.69

00:25:22.020 had just breastfeed fed, then they would have saved all the babies. And so it's like, and so 1.00

00:25:28.020 again, like I always have this tension between the real magic of breastfeeding, but also that

00:25:33.640 imposition of the magic of breastfeeding on like that. It is women's responsibility to save the 1.00

00:25:39.480 world, even though it's men who are fucking it all up. So, so that's my, my book, my, my shtick. 0.99

00:25:46.220 Yeah. Oh my God. Go, go ahead, Ravi. I am like screaming inside. I'm so excited about

00:25:51.360 well because this is this is stuff that i talk about and i'm getting i'm gearing up for a phd

00:25:58.920 program in medical anthropology and i want to focus on witchcraft and indigenous practice and

00:26:03.840 i think it's really interesting the shift back and forth from like formula to breastfeeding i

00:26:09.240 work in health care and my mom actually works on the lnd unit she's she's a nurse as well and she's

00:26:14.820 still working on the floor and i remember talking with her about breastfeeding in the hospital

00:26:20.860 there's a movement about breastfeeding safe spaces and hospitals and making your for your

00:26:25.840 hospital baby friendly and she's like that's a terrible thing and I was like what what what

00:26:33.540 and she basically was saying that it's pressuring women to breastfeed and it's shaming women who

00:26:41.420 are unable to breastfeed and it's pushing that that's the only thing and formula will kill your

00:26:47.140 baby and I was like whoa okay I didn't know that interesting and I also was thinking about the the

00:26:54.840 global north versus the global south which is what we're not we're not calling it in that anymore but

00:26:59.120 that's the way it's still conceptualized with a shift in a first world move to breastfeeding

00:27:04.260 there's a shift in a global south move to formula because the capitalist consumer institutions 0.99

00:27:11.760 don't have anywhere to push their formula so then they push it on like women in these other 1.00

00:27:16.920 country. So I wanted to know if you had any comments on that. I also think it's interesting 1.00

00:27:22.400 that we put an age when we should stop breastfeeding. I also noticed that there's,

00:27:27.300 there's a crossover in Christianity of being nestled at the father's breast. And you'll say

00:27:33.060 like, whenever they die, they go up in their nestled at Abraham's breast. And I wanted to

00:27:37.400 know if you thought that that was an appropriation of the female body, because in some cultures,

00:27:41.960 there's appropriation of the entire nurturing thing, like the appropriating, like the labor

00:27:46.800 of the of the woman who's giving birth and it's a general theme like you're saying it's it's our

00:27:54.600 our quest for immortality it's the control of of the female body that can do that that kind of

00:28:00.420 harkens back to this like the idea of the goddess culture and breastfeeding being one of those

00:28:04.520 things um yeah uh i'm gonna stop rambling um but wondering if you know oh my god there's so much

00:28:13.940 so much good stuff in there. You're not rambling at all. I just like pulled up my notebook to like

00:28:17.860 take notes. So make me go back. Cause I can't go off forever, obviously. So make sure I want to

00:28:23.280 come back to it all. Okay. First hospitals and baby friendly. So I'm with your mom, like it is.

00:28:29.240 And, and what is bothered me the whole time and all those research that I've been doing is that,

00:28:35.800 is that actually a lot of these practices are not evidence-based. Like they're not based in

00:28:41.600 actual science they're based in arguments that I found out in doing my book have been arguments

00:28:47.140 since like Rousseau like like since 1700s that people have been saying and some of these things

00:28:54.720 like a lot of the stuff about like the dangers of formula were true when formula was first invented

00:29:00.280 in the like late 19th early 20th century but isn't true anymore like people be like oh it's 0.93

00:29:06.380 just sugar it's like well so the fuck is breast milk like breast milk is just like super sugar 0.99

00:29:11.540 sugary milk. Like some people will be like, Oh, it's magic. If like your kid has a, like an iron 0.99

00:29:16.000 infection, put milk in it. It's like, don't put milk in it. It's full of sugar. Like that'll just

00:29:19.800 make yeast grow. So it's like, there's certain things that are just ideas of sort of mystifying

00:29:26.420 breast milk, but also claiming science that just doesn't exist. So there actually was just a report

00:29:32.060 forget it's the American Academy of Pediatrics or some pediatric association started to say that

00:29:36.600 actually this insistence on early exclusive breastfeeding has led to an increased rate of

00:29:43.500 jaundice in babies like and jaundice can cause brain damage like it's extremely serious that

00:29:48.980 supplemental milk like they always said like oh don't give any supplements don't give anything

00:29:52.420 because that'll interfere with breastfeeding it doesn't interfere with breastfeeding like my

00:29:56.720 sister breastfed I mean it's anecdotal like but you know she breastfed for a year and a half or 0.85

00:30:01.460 whatever with each of her kids um uh despite like working full-time and pumping and doing the whole

00:30:06.240 thing and she supplemented both of them because it just took her a little while and that like a 0.66

00:30:10.740 lot of the things that are said um and that like rooming in makes it so that mothers are more 0.57

00:30:15.480 exhausted that it's like there's higher rates of accidents where babies get dropped because you 0.94

00:30:20.780 know you just fucking gave birth like I don't know about any of you have given birth like I had 30 0.99

00:30:26.300 hour births like I was not in a state to take care of myself never mind a fucking baby like it's just 1.00

00:30:33.440 I'm going to drop it. Right. So exhausting. So it really emphasizes with no real evidence. And 1.00

00:30:41.220 actually one study I found that I talk about, cause I talk about this baby friendly hospital

00:30:46.260 initiative. And one study found that these initiatives also only apply in the like labor

00:30:53.180 and delivery area. Like there can be all kinds of baby unfriendly shit in every other unit on the 0.99

00:30:58.660 hospital like no space to breastfeed no place to pump no place like there aren't things to like 0.99

00:31:05.140 support the breastfeeding anywhere except where the babies happen to be born so we still see this

00:31:09.940 like relegation of women to like one space and also that the only real impact they've had are

00:31:16.400 as I defined they didn't frame it this way but um yeah as Cassandra said your support leaves as

00:31:22.380 soon as you leave labor and delivery but the only impact that they've had is are things that lower

00:31:26.760 costs for hospitals. Like I just sort of like, I haven't done a formal analysis, but they just

00:31:31.820 like in this one article, it was like, so we see reduced pacifier use reduced, like free formula

00:31:37.380 given by hospitals, but not really higher rates of breastfeeding. Not like, you know, like the

00:31:42.700 things like not more lactation consultants necessarily, but it's like, oh great. We don't

00:31:47.380 have to, as a hospital provide moms with pacifiers, even though pacifiers don't cause nipple confusion. 1.00

00:31:53.320 like there's no evidence that that happens but for whatever reason lactation consultants started 0.99

00:31:57.860 saying oh yeah pacifiers cause nipple confusion don't use it and it's like just breastfeed it's

00:32:02.460 like so you are supposed to not only provide food but provide constant suckling which is another

00:32:06.500 purpose i say men's chests nipples could be used for which there is one aka tribe in western congo

00:32:14.340 where men do provide non-nutritive suckling to babies and i'm like it's like well that's not

00:32:18.500 natural, but a pacifier is not, is natural. I could go on forever. Sorry. I want to highlight

00:32:22.980 that point. Um, and the way that this, the, the gender divide of the body, like the, the sort of

00:32:30.760 long standing shaping of the body that this body does this, and this body does that is used to

00:32:36.900 control women's experience and also men's experience. Like for my partner, it was incredible.

00:32:42.940 As you said, like, you don't have, you don't have an experience of God. You don't get to bring life

00:32:47.960 to the world and you can't sustain life so just go fucking put your shoulder to the wheel and 0.98

00:32:54.580 you know you're you're going to be used for production in this way and you're going to be 0.98

00:32:58.260 used for production in this way and stay stay in your corners and I know like jealousy is like a

00:33:06.980 way that it was maybe experienced or I think jealousy comes through in a lot of it but also

00:33:12.540 just like sorrow detachment, like wanting desperately, he would have carried her, you

00:33:18.280 know, he, you know, he had tears in his eyes, he would have carried her, he would have

00:33:21.500 rescued, like, if he could have had that closeness with her, he watched us just like, and just

00:33:26.120 cooked and cooked and cooked, like, sort of mourning his inability to have that. And

00:33:32.380 I think that I think it damages us all. I mean, we all know that, that like patriarchy

00:33:38.220 breaks us from the magic of each other and the magic of our potentialities. And I love

00:33:42.460 this idea of like ungendering the care that a body could give to a tiny body I love that I love

00:33:49.500 the magic in that yeah I just and I love that idea of sorrow like and I because I do think like I

00:33:54.960 I very much subscribe to like if I were to I have a few critiques of it but generally would say that

00:34:03.920 like if I were to situate myself theoretically it would be within like care ethics and I and to me

00:34:08.740 so fundamental to that sort of theoretical body is the human need not just to receive care but to

00:34:14.240 give care and that I do think that what is has been what is so damaging about sort of capitalist

00:34:21.280 and patriarchal development has been in the denial of the opportunity to provide care for others like

00:34:30.540 you know for especially for men and for women is the burdening with only oh my god Ravi this is

00:34:37.180 your dissertation and that with women they're burdening only like to only to not get any care 0.82

00:34:43.460 right it's like that there are givers and there are receivers as opposed to sort of integrating 0.93

00:34:47.560 that within everyone and I think also that also leads like goes back to Ravi's third point or

00:34:54.880 question about you know the appropriation of women's bodies and father's breasts and I think

00:34:59.480 that like what is interesting is that there is absolutely a desire to be like to get the value

00:35:06.840 without putting in the labor like you know it's like I want to like I want to be the god but I

00:35:12.480 don't want to have to like have sore nipples like I don't want to get like cracked and bleeding

00:35:16.860 nipples I don't want to have to like get up in the middle of the night like you know so so which

00:35:21.820 to me is like the nature of appropriation of anything you know any kind of cultural appropriation

00:35:26.740 is being like I want you know I want to wear the cool like native headdress and look really cool

00:35:32.220 it Coachella or whatever but without having to actually like experience you know what it is to

00:35:39.280 be a person right like dehumanized and you know it's like you just want the like coolness of it

00:35:44.720 so I think there's like a really similar thing totally I mean and we've looked at the way that

00:35:48.800 the witch hunt is used over and over again in the history of colonialism like it takes these

00:35:53.840 different forms in different countries but the witch hunt is played out again in Brazil it you

00:35:59.000 know and capitalism sort of plays it out again in india and it's an ongoing way of taking women who 0.64

00:36:04.880 have a little bit of land or who have a little bit of creative power or a little bit of space

00:36:09.800 and and then blaming them for the death of the cow or whatever and blaming you know a healing

00:36:15.020 totally go 100 and that i was getting really excited because that actually brings me into

00:36:20.700 rabbi's second question about sort of the globalization stuff but also so i also went

00:36:24.620 indonesia as part of my research because what i knew 2009 indonesia made exclusive breastfeeding 0.52

00:36:32.540 for six months mandatory by law and so they made this yeah it's like so fucked up and like so some 0.99

00:36:40.820 activists were like yeah they were like oh this is great for women and i'm like are you fucking 0.97

00:36:45.560 kidding me like how can it be great that like by law and they're like oh but we're not gonna punish 0.66

00:36:51.320 women, babies have to be breastfed exclusively for six months. But the punishment is for people who 1.00

00:36:58.400 interfere because this assumption is also always that women are going to love breastfeeding. And

00:37:03.580 if we just break down the barriers, all women are going to be like, nah, this is amazing. And it's 1.00

00:37:08.200 like, no, some, some women really fucking hate it. Like they don't like it. Some love it. Some hate 1.00

00:37:13.240 it. Like just like anything else. It's like, you know, some people like to knit other people don't.

00:37:18.140 Sure. If you've experienced sexual trauma, breastfeeding is a fucking nightmare. I mean, not for everybody, but that is something that comes up a lot that like having someone depend on my body in that way and the control that the fear and control. And I mean, for me, that wasn't totally a piece of it, but I had just unbelievable pain and just, you know, electric shock pain. 1.00

00:37:42.660 I can't remember what it's called, but it was like, as though I was being electrocuted

00:37:46.160 the whole time and I didn't know I could stop, you know, I mean, I got prescriptions and

00:37:51.720 it helped, but I really, I had postpartum too.

00:37:54.100 So I just didn't, I didn't know I could stop.

00:37:56.460 I didn't, I was just trapped in my head in a way that I didn't really understand.

00:38:00.560 And I loved it so much.

00:38:02.420 And I would cry in the shower, like I was being electrocuted, you know?

00:38:05.680 And then when I finally got some help from a lactation consultant, the pressure was for 1.00

00:38:11.020 her to have surgery to cut all she turned out she had like five ties she had tongue tie 1.00

00:38:17.240 two lip ties like she had so many ties in her mouth that that's why she was basically just

00:38:22.660 chewing on me to get milk oh my god and and by then you know we kind of figured it out like i 0.88

00:38:28.260 i was on the right beds she was breastfeeding it was incredibly snuggly and also she had like 1.00

00:38:34.940 horrifying eczema so it was the only thing that calmed her and people told me to squirt 1.00

00:38:39.200 breast milk all over her body, which I tried. No, but I, I, I really, I don't, I just relate

00:38:51.240 so hard to this, this pressure, this feeling that like, you must want to do this, that if all else

00:38:56.400 was taken away, like, of course you would do this, you would do it. Even if it meant, you know,

00:38:59.980 you had to cut up your, your baby's mouth, which maybe that's a great idea for some people, but

00:39:04.280 yeah that yeah it's not it's not it's not it's not a binary yeah exactly it's complicated it's

00:39:11.220 just it's super complicated so so i wanted so the question before that robbie had had mentioned

00:39:17.480 was about sort of the promotion of formula in global sales developing world whatever you want

00:39:24.320 to call sort of low-income countries and like i have so many thoughts about this so indonesia

00:39:30.740 2009 they make this law saying everybody has to breastfeed exclusively and that if you don't if

00:39:36.780 sorry it's not if you don't breastfeed it's if someone stands in the way you can show that

00:39:41.560 somebody stands in the way of the law that are like of of your breastfeeding that person presumably

00:39:47.360 your employer your husband yeah or partner or your mother okay and in in Indonesia it's they're 0.54

00:39:54.700 talking about husbands because it's extremely heteronormative, primarily Muslim. So not that

00:40:01.000 Christianity isn't fucking heteronormative. So, so, so they have this law and if you, so if any 0.99

00:40:10.420 of these people stand in the way, they can face something like the equivalent of like a $12,000

00:40:14.720 fine, which is like the average earnings of like a person for a year in Indonesia, a year in jail

00:40:20.760 or other kinds of sanctionings. And like, if a doctor is the one who, you know, gave you formula

00:40:27.600 that then that doctor can like lose their license or something. So apparently like this law has no

00:40:34.200 teeth, like it has never been enforced. It has never been like, you can't, you can't even figure

00:40:38.940 out. It's like really written in this sort of weird, vague way. So I went to Indonesia to be

00:40:43.280 like, what, what the hell is going on there? Like, why, why is this law there? And, and I assumed

00:40:51.520 that this was like lactivists that have, that have put it out there. So I ended up with this

00:40:55.040 fucking amazing research assistant. It was like the universe brought her to me and her name is 0.99

00:41:00.400 ending. Sorry. And she was amazing. And she was like my translator. And, and I, we ended up talking

00:41:06.760 to like all these moms and also talking to different members of different organizations. 0.68

00:41:11.200 and one of them was a woman who was a head of this organization called Aimi Asi. So Asi is the

00:41:19.120 Indonesian word for like breast milk. So I spoke with her. It's a kind of like La Leche League,

00:41:24.880 but in Indonesia. And so I was like, did you all support this law? And she's like, we didn't

00:41:29.800 support this law. We thought it was nuts. Like we wanted, like they were following all the other

00:41:34.620 kinds of international breastfeedings, like La Leche, like all the other things saying like,

00:41:39.340 we want more supports for breastfeeding. And, and we didn't want to mandate it. Like we just

00:41:44.580 want to help women do it. Like if women want to breastfeed, like they provide, you know,

00:41:48.380 they have like a Facebook group and they offer help and supports for helping women learn how

00:41:52.280 to breastfeed. So I was like, well, why would they make this law? And she was like, well,

00:41:56.020 because they wanted to make it with no teeth. And I'm like, well, and she's like, cause the

00:41:58.980 formula makers were there at these meetings. So they had these meetings in like 2007, starting

00:42:04.260 2007. And these formula company representatives were there. So they're at these meetings. She's

00:42:10.040 like part of this like debates or whatever. And also I'll just know in Indonesia, it's really

00:42:14.980 weird, but there are formulas for every age group. So not just like infant formula, but there's also

00:42:22.660 formula for like toddlers. There's formula for pregnant mothers. There's formula for elderly 0.97

00:42:28.780 people. There's for like, it's, it's like weird, like boxes. I have a picture of like shelves of 1.00

00:42:33.820 it in the book where there's just like shelves and shelves of formula. And they also will have

00:42:38.520 people, which I didn't really believe until I saw it, people who will work for these formula

00:42:42.600 companies and they'll wear like what look like lab coats, but in the colors that match the marketing

00:42:47.160 of the brand. And they'll have a clipboard and they'll help you figure out what is the formula

00:42:51.880 that you need for your particular situation. Like basically it's just like powdered milk

00:42:56.180 with like some vitamins thrown in. So, and there's, and there's some of these powdered

00:43:01.680 milks are really cheap. And then the ones that are for newborns, like for babies are, are very

00:43:06.120 expensive. It's like the same price as formula here, but earnings are like a 10th of what they

00:43:11.120 are there. So super expensive. And, and part of how they've gotten around sort of the rules about

00:43:17.740 no marketing of formula to babies is they can just market the formula to like, you know, one-year-olds

00:43:22.420 or market formula to whatever else. So anyway, so I'm sort of puzzling with her, like, why would

00:43:29.040 these formula companies want this law? And they were like, and she's like, I don't know, because

00:43:32.260 the word on the street was at the last meeting of these politicians and all these different

00:43:36.820 representatives of the breastfeeding group and of these formula companies was the last meeting,

00:43:42.400 the IMEASI people were uninvited, and they weren't allowed to be there. And so and then this law came

00:43:47.320 out where it was like, people are mandated to breastfeed. And I was like, this just it doesn't

00:43:50.580 make any sense. I don't understand this. This doesn't make any sense. So side note, I talk

00:43:54.440 about all this in my book, but side note, I had a really bad case of diarrhea while I was there

00:44:00.800 because in Indonesia, you cannot drink the water. So I was like, so sick. So, so sick. When I went

00:44:07.700 to go see this woman, I thought I was going to die, but we get through this interview and she

00:44:11.820 says this thing and I'm still puzzling. Like why the fuck would a formula maker want to have a, 0.99

00:44:17.760 a law that says you have to breastfeed. Right. And I'm lying there and I have all of these bottles 1.00

00:44:23.460 of water on the bedside table. And I'm just like in a haze staring at the bottles of water. And I

00:44:29.700 look at them and I'm like, Hey, that's weird. All these bottles of water are made by Nestle

00:44:33.920 and Dan and Nestle and Dan are the two largest makers of formula in the world and in Indonesia.

00:44:42.960 And I was like, huh, that's weird.

00:44:47.040 There's no such thing.

00:44:48.140 I started to realize there's no such thing as a formula company.

00:44:50.620 That doesn't exist.

00:44:52.060 What there are are multinational food companies that make all kinds of products.

00:44:56.360 And what Nestle and Dannon make is they make both formula and they make a shit ton of bottled

00:45:01.380 water.

00:45:01.960 And so what I started to realize, and I had already been doing a study that included Indonesia

00:45:05.980 in this data, where I had been looking at this idea of is breastfeeding, one of the things you'll 0.60

00:45:13.360 see among feminists too, where they'll be like, well, you know, breastfeeding doesn't really 1.00

00:45:18.180 matter. It's, you know, you can have formula unless you're in a developing country. If you're 1.00

00:45:22.060 in a developing country, quote unquote developing country, then you can't use formula because the

00:45:26.620 water's bad. So the water's bad. And so you have to breastfeed in developing countries. And I always

00:45:33.160 thought was like a little bit weird because my question was well why don't you fix the fucking 1.00

00:45:36.920 water if the problem is the water right so but no it's like no women are gonna again save the world 0.97

00:45:43.040 so they start thinking about this and then I I randomly talked to my husband this is all a very

00:45:48.720 long story so I randomly talked to my husband and he had been a graphic designer working for

00:45:53.920 um a company and this is a major multinational corporation not one of the two mentioned and

00:45:59.800 he happened to just be in this meeting where they it was their water subsidiary and they were like

00:46:05.460 you know in the 1970s like avion was seen as like all healthy bottled water is really healthy

00:46:10.660 but suddenly there's this train coming at us in north america in europe where bottled water is

00:46:17.480 suddenly being seen as unhealthy right like we started to see water watch like this whole

00:46:22.000 social movement in the early like mid of the first decade of the 2000s of the aughts um where

00:46:28.080 bottled water was really framed as this super, like it was dangerous, it was dirty and lots of

00:46:33.920 critique about bottled water. So I started looking at the annual reviews of Nestle and Dannon. And

00:46:40.980 what you can see is there was this huge, huge shift in these companies where they started to

00:46:48.340 diversify where they were both, like one was a Swiss company, one was a French company.

00:46:52.420 They started to move a lot of their operations out of Europe into Southeast Asia, especially

00:46:59.220 into China and Indonesia.

00:47:01.320 Indonesia is a huge market, like fourth largest country in the world, something like, like

00:47:05.500 it's a huge population, small, like geographically, but it's very densely populated.

00:47:09.760 They started moving a lot of their water sales to countries where water was not drinkable.

00:47:18.280 And so while I'm lying there in bed, think I'm going to die. 0.98

00:47:21.700 My first thought was there's no fucking way that any mother in this country is going to 0.99

00:47:26.140 feed their baby dirty water mixed with formula or anything else. 0.99

00:47:30.360 Like all the babies don't die. 1.00

00:47:31.820 Like mothers aren't stupid. 0.99

00:47:33.060 Like this is something that is sort of like an ongoing thing. 0.93

00:47:36.480 And I, and one of the projects that I had done this sort of data analysis, I published

00:47:40.180 one version of it with former students, John Paul Neonatar and Fabiola Aravina.

00:47:45.860 And John Paul is from Ghana.

00:47:47.680 And he also did his dissertation looking at breastfeeding experiences in Indonesia, but we would talk a lot about how in Ghana, where he was from, like, you never would just give like dirty water to the babies. Like people aren't stupid. Like people know if water makes you sick. 0.95

00:48:03.000 so in his village they had you know they would use like river water but they would boil it so

00:48:08.860 they would always boil the water and i'm like the problem i don't believe that the problem is water

00:48:12.620 i don't believe that the problem with you know in sort of developing countries is that the water

00:48:17.560 isn't clean the problem i am convinced is that people don't have access to adequate formula and

00:48:23.880 so they feed babies things other than formula or breast milk that what they feed them are things

00:48:28.260 like soups. They feed them banana. They feed them all kinds of food that the human gut can't handle

00:48:33.140 until you're about six months old. So, but what I also realized, I don't know a hundred percent,

00:48:40.540 I'm always afraid I'm going to be sued by Nestle or Dannon, but so I want to put this all with

00:48:44.780 lots of caveats. I don't know this for sure, but if you read the annual reports, what you do see

00:48:51.920 is the CEOs of both of these companies are like Southeast Asia is where it's at. This is where

00:48:57.920 we want to go. Indonesia in particular, we are increasing the marketing of bottled water in

00:49:03.600 Indonesia. And it also is our number one or number two market for formula. And so what I think

00:49:11.300 happened is regardless of whether or not this was intentional at a lunch and they wanted this law to

00:49:16.320 happen, what I know is that access to potable water in Indonesia has been on the decline since

00:49:25.120 the early 2000s. There has been fewer initiatives to actually make tap water drinkable and accessible.

00:49:34.920 Bottled water drinking has been on the increase over these numbers of years. And what I suggest

00:49:42.260 is that a lot of this sort of language and rhetoric about formula being bad for, you know,

00:49:49.900 babies in developing countries has actually provided free marketing for bottled water

00:49:55.160 producers, because it's like, look, the water's not safe. It kills babies. It kills babies. It

00:49:59.600 kills babies. And to me, it always goes back to fix the fucking water. And I, and I started to ask 1.00

00:50:05.900 some, some of the women. So the woman, I say, I was like, well, why don't people just fix the 1.00

00:50:09.260 water? And she's like, well, that would be too hard. And then I asked these other two women and 0.66

00:50:13.360 I said, well, okay, three women. And I said, imagine you could wave a magic wand. You could 0.58

00:50:17.620 wave a magic wand and you could get every baby breastfed for six months, or you could have

00:50:22.760 access to clean drinking water for everyone in the country. What would you pick? And guess,

00:50:28.420 guess, guess what they said? If they didn't pick the clean water, then I think my heart is broken.

00:50:33.160 They all pick breastfeeding because they were convinced they were like, well, we can boil the 0.99

00:50:37.560 water. We can get bottled water, but you can't match. You can't match what's in breast milk 1.00

00:50:43.220 because breast milk is magical right breast milk has the antibodies it has you know all these so

00:50:49.980 it's like we have convinced the world that breast milk is the solution to covid it's the solution 0.99

00:50:57.060 to eczema it is the solution like every to cancer i believe that like formula needs to be fucking 0.90

00:51:04.280 regulated like there are real like there you know there's like melamine in formula like there have 0.97

00:51:09.680 been problems when formula is not adequately regulated, like babies will die. Like babies

00:51:14.460 will die if you get them hooked on formula. See what I think what happened with the whole Nestle

00:51:18.960 thing is like, you know, and all this like dead baby, a lot of it, I think was just like fear

00:51:23.820 mongering, but I do think like, it is true that if you give a baby formula and you stop breast,

00:51:30.160 like breastfeeding is supply and demand, right? Like the more you breastfeed, the more milk you're

00:51:33.240 going to produce. So if you start introducing like supplemental feedings of formula, your milk

00:51:39.280 will start, you'll produce less milk. And so if you give someone, let's say in Indonesia,

00:51:45.780 a $30 can of formula, and they're, let's say they are not working, their spouse earns $100 a week,

00:51:57.660 let's say, if she uses that can of formula, her milk dries up, she's not going to be able to

00:52:03.580 replace that formula with another can of $30 formula. Right. So, so I do think that like 0.94

00:52:10.240 the marketing of formula with, when you're giving away free samples, it can interfere,

00:52:17.100 like it can make it so that then a mother's milk dries up and then she doesn't have any more,

00:52:21.280 although she could keep breastfeeding more and produce more milk. And then in the interim,

00:52:25.980 you could have free fucking formula that you would give to moms to help them. But when we have 0.99

00:52:31.240 vilified formula as like a witch's brew that is going to murder babies it makes it so that you

00:52:38.700 can't like you you can't do that and so to me again it goes back to like the quote-unquote

00:52:44.420 baby-friendly hospitals where it's like who is killing babies like there there's the death of

00:52:50.180 babies that comes about through you know form or breastfeeding promotion because of just this

00:52:57.820 insistence that any drop of formula is going to kill a baby and it's like no formula is fine

00:53:02.600 formula is just fine as long as it is prepared with clean water as long as it is heated to kill

00:53:09.820 any like corona bacteria or whatever that stuff is called um you know like you have like you have

00:53:14.780 to learn how but even even learning how to prepare formula properly people are denied information i

00:53:21.740 have a former colleague who wrote a book shoot i'm forgetting her name is leslie frank super

00:53:26.300 interesting book. She's Canadian. Um, she's at Acadia university where I used to be a professor 0.99

00:53:31.220 and she wrote a book looking at, um, food insecurity and, uh, like infant food insecurity. 0.76

00:53:37.920 And so she did all this research talking to low-income moms about what do they do when,

00:53:42.260 you know, if they, if their babies are fed formula, what did they do? And, um,

00:53:47.720 many of them said they just sort of figured it out by reading the can. 1.00

00:53:51.840 Like that's how most women learn how to feed formula because there's like such pressure 1.00

00:53:58.020 to formula feed or to breastfeed that doctors and nurses are not allowed to give out information 1.00

00:54:05.360 about how to formula feed unless they can ensure that like they have done every single 0.94

00:54:11.560 thing and that the mother has to say, there is no fucking way I will ever put my breast 0.72

00:54:15.880 to my baby's lips that like, I like tell me what I need to know about. 0.95

00:54:20.600 if you have any hint that well maybe I'd like to try it then you are not allowed to talk about it

00:54:26.760 and so what Leslie um told me I don't know if this is in her book but what she told me is that she

00:54:31.220 had such a hard time there was like some word but there was some like piece of paper that like said

00:54:36.320 how to safely formula fade and she and she was like can anyone give me access to this and like

00:54:42.320 no one would give it to her and so she finally apparently like knew the graphic designer like

00:54:47.000 because she's like from Nova Scotia she knew the graphic designer who gave her the like copy of

00:54:52.380 of what this thing was because nobody in public health would give it to her because they were 0.98

00:54:56.500 like well we don't want people to know about it and it's like how fucked up is that like how fucked 0.91

00:55:01.240 up is it that we don't want people to have access to information on how to safely use formula 0.82

00:55:04.600 because like we want everybody breastfeeding yeah it's just and like how is that supportive

00:55:09.920 let's let's be honest it's not breastfeeding that kills babies or or formula that kills 0.99

00:55:15.660 babies it's poverty that kills babies it's fucking capitalism right that kills babies yeah exactly 0.99

00:55:22.100 exactly oh witches uh i'm going to include you in my oh witches dr rippy i'm gonna you can call me 0.99

00:55:33.400 phyllis phyllis i i i like whenever i interview a phd a professor on the show i do like to call 1.00

00:55:41.260 a witch doctor because I like that there's so many fucking anti-racist, badass feminists 1.00

00:55:48.360 that are disrupting power structures and reaching out to heal each other with care 1.00

00:55:54.560 and may not define themselves as witches, but I hold them in the pantheon of people that I

00:56:00.720 am learning about how to be a witch from. And so thank you for being here and thank you for your

00:56:06.500 work. I feel really emotional thinking about it, thinking about my own memories from that time

00:56:11.460 and thinking about all the people listening and all of their complicated relationships

00:56:16.360 with mothering and babies and care. I'm really choked up. I don't know why it's, it's, uh,

00:56:24.480 it's so fundamental. Um, it really, yeah, it really is. And I just, and I just, I, I meant

00:56:31.240 to say it before I can't get so wrapped up in what I'm talking about, but I'm so sorry that

00:56:35.200 you had that experience like that and just that like I I know what that was like that the pain

00:56:42.000 and the it's just there's there's nothing like new motherhood to just be so absolutely feel so

00:56:51.380 alone and yet you suddenly have this other person just stuck to you and um and it's just it's really

00:56:57.660 hard and uh anyway yeah I'm so grateful to have been here and to be to get to be a part of it and

00:57:03.940 and I I'm gonna start calling myself a witch doctor I'm like I'm gonna look into joining 0.99

00:57:11.860 your coven because I'm just like like fuck all the fuckers yeah I think we're all so electrified 0.99

00:57:19.700 to have you we will be honored to have you and I think you will enjoy some of the uh the badass 1.00

00:57:24.700 witches that are in there how can we find you how can we stay in touch how can we follow your work 0.94

00:57:29.120 Yeah. So, um, few different ways. So I'm, I'm at the university of Ottawa, so I can be reached

00:57:35.340 there. I also, um, have a website that my web developer husband helped me make phyllisrippie.com.

00:57:41.200 Um, I'm also on social media, on Twitter as socio mama, Facebook, my book has a Facebook page. So,

00:57:48.900 um, yeah, just Google Phyllis Rippie and you'll probably find about 15 ways to, to find me. 0.90

00:57:54.820 And we'll make sure that Phyllis, which Dr. Phyllis has an invite to some upcoming, upcoming 0.99

00:58:02.560 Patreon circles.

00:58:04.680 Um, I'd love that.

00:58:06.260 Yeah.

00:58:06.640 And we'll make sure we all find each other again and keep amplifying this important work.

00:58:12.380 Listeners, Coven members, thank you for being here.

00:58:16.000 Um, thank you for the care that you are putting out into the world and into each other as

00:58:21.400 we try to survive and heal.

00:58:24.820 Uh, that's it for me.

00:58:26.720 I'm going to go weep in the corner and cuddle my kid. 1.00

00:58:33.200 You must be a witch. 0.99

00:58:37.280 The Missing Witches podcast is brought to you by the Missing Witches Coven.

00:58:41.360 Join us right now on patreon.com slash missing witches. 0.99

00:58:45.940 Blast it fucking be. 1.00

Missing Witches - December 09, 2021

WF Dr Phyllis Rippey： I Started To See Breastfeeding As Central To The Construction Of Gender...

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