Demeaning breastfeeding analogy

Breastfeeding mothers are not like cows. It is not okay to make that comparison. People do it all the time. Just to clarify, I am NOT a breastfeeding activist. But I am a mother who breastfed. And a human being.

This post was incited by a highly offensive and grossly ignorant article printed in a Canadian women's magazine. The article had the potential to make a positive statement about the real demands of breastfeeding and to offer support for women who choose not to breastfeed and who might be feeling guilt about that choice. Instead it made ridiculous generalizations and the frequent and very insulting comparison of mothers to milk cows. This is something that friends and family have actually said to me while I was breastfeeding--"Don't you feel like a cow?" No. I did not feel like a cow. Neither did my child look like a calf. Nor was I selling cartons of my breastmilk at Kroger.

I do not think this is an innocent comparison and it is not acceptable. The connotations of a milk cow are too closely related to the construction of motherhood in our culture to allow this. A cow is a working animal, a possession. It's value exists solely in the products of its body and the capacity for those products to sustain human lives. It is anonymous and expendable.

In The Bonds of Love, Jessica Benjamin addresses the problem of traditional cultural images of women that deny women subjectivity. The image of "mother" is one who gives up the autonomy of her body through pregnancy and lactation for the life of another. Susan Bordo, in her collection Unbearable Weight, has an essay about how once a woman becomes pregnant her body, her life, her desires all take second place to the life of the fetus. She is no longer a person with value as an individual. She is an incubator. Those currently in political power are passing legislation federally and in states across the country that remove all autonomy, subjectivity, and value from a woman once she becomes pregnant. This is all part of the same problem, and it is getting worse under the current leadership of our country.

I am a mother, and I am also Sarah--I am both at the same time. When I was pregnant I was both. When I was breastfeeding I was both. I give my child what she needs to thrive. I do the best I can to give the best care and all of my love to my child. But in that role of mother, I do not give up my identity and my agency as Sarah. And I want my daughter to grow up to understand that she is in possession of her body and her desires and that if she becomes a mother some day, she is still in possession of her body and her desires. The commitment and responsibility and experience and love of motherhood do not detract from that but become a part of the person that I am. That I am.

Never, ever compare a mother to a cow. It is never okay.

Edited for correction: The article I mentioned was printed in Maclean's, which is a news mag, not a women's mag.