where they talk about nuisances. the thing that is constrained with municipalities but i think in this instant it was good. we didn't have to delve into much controversy areas. talk to the people, this is a nuisance, have them tell you about how it smells, doesn't belong here. so we had to use this new legislation. the reason i got also heavily and i said let's go for the bandits because there is a neighborhood that had two rigs

up. they're both close to where the school bus drops off. i saw mom scrapping their children and running back inside because the air was bad. on halloween no one went trick-or-treating. that is one of the things that resonated we need to have safe neighborhoods.

[inaudible] >> the whole framing of it was at once. about it? >> rationale for new york was precautionary, when you read this story that led up to that decision is that we don't know about the impact of the situation so we're going to wait and learn about in advance before we make a decision. there's a lot of bands, a lot of local bands.

they're just out of precaution so i think this other term which nobody knows about called pro action area which is made by punching trans- humanists. those guys who want us to live forever that you can transform biology and take control of evolution. his transhumance says we are sick of the precautionary so they came up with this electioneering. so through the technology should the technology is innocent so we do it numeral it out in the monitoring, watching, adapt to.

the framing of the book is our fan my understanding is not about being precautionary is the production model shot and recognizing the failure in this case. so seeing the limits of the pro action area approach to technology. we were not protecting people or compensating people. [inaudible]

>> any other questions otherwise we will wrap it up. >> okay thank you i appreciate it. >> [applause]. [inaudible] apple tv.org. >> this is book tv on c-span two, television for serious readers. here's our primetime lineup. tonight, courtney young

discusses the politics of breast-feeding. at 9:00 p.m. mae fong six down for and afterwards program to talk about china's recently discontinued one child policy with national book award winner. that is followed at 10:00 p.m. eastern discussing the impact of fdr's economic and social policies. we wrap up book to be in prime time at 11:00 p.m. with the book geek heresy, it argues argues technology is never the main driver progress. that happens starting next on c-span twos a book tv. first, courtney young. [inaudible] [inaudible conversation] [inaudible conversation]

[inaudible conversation] >> good afternoon. welcome to the new school. i am robert, i am vice dean at the new school for research. i am delighted to welcome back to the university, to very dear friends and distinguished colleagues. both former members of the politics department, courtney young who left us about a decade ago for greener or perhaps milk year pastures. of canada and new mexico respectively. first and foremost i am pleased to introduce courtney young whose new book, lack to visit

him and how feminist and fundamentalist, and position and politicians make threats making big business out about policy. we are here to celebrate, the book was published last month in november by basic books. courtney's the professor professor of political science at the university of toronto. she holds a phd from. university and has published two books, then i was black, and the moral force of indigenous politics. as well as a number of academic journal articles. she has been a member of the institute for advanced study in princeton and has received fellowships from the national and dominant the humanities, fulbright, the andrew mellon foundation and the social sciences and humanities research council.

courtney will give an overview of her book and then moloch will give her remarks. she will also moderate the discussion. moeller june is a professor of political science at the university of new mexico. she she is the author of two books, sex and the state, abortion, divorce, and the family under latin american dictatorship and democracies. and inclusion without representation. in 2015 she was named a carnegie fellow. she holds a peachtree from harvard and an abn international from scotland. i just want to talk about one endorsement from the book from

courtney, from nancy fraser of philosophy of national politics. this riveting book that have together made it obligatory to feed babies breast milk. [inaudible] and racist victim blaming as well as punitive policies that denied to feed children, courtney and explains the social forces behind america's love affair with breast pump. the country's failure to provide its workers with maternal leave, i open in thought provoking. obviously my own experience with breast-feeding is somewhat

limited. perhaps illustrative of courtney's pieces, as a baby boomer born to a working mother and communist poland, i was breast for a fleeting six months. an experience of deprivation symptomatic of the time and place was born in. my son on the other hand, also born to a working mother but in new liberal united states, was breast-fed for next against, you may six sepsis but very long three years, eight months, and 14 days. in both cases maternity leave was the same, three months. so my family in the sense to is the victim of the lactamase so

eloquently described in courtney's book. without further to do, professor courtney young [applause]. thank you very much robert. i can't tell you how happy i am to be here. to be home at the new school. i'm going to fix the problem that robert created here. thank you very much. i'm so happy to be here. the topic like this there are many, topic like this is right for many interesting and amusing introductory anecdotes. contemplating those i decided to dispense with the amusing anecdotes with would've been at my expense. i will cut right to the chase. a lot of people have expressed surprise that i am writing about

breast-feeding. as if this would be a health issue or a gender studies issue and not a political science issues. for me what was very interesting about breast-feeding was the moral issues around breast-feeding and the surprising consensus surrounding breast-feeding. political scientists know that consensus is not easy to find. almost anywhere, consensus is everything. so when you have consensus, that seems like a reasonable thing to study. how do study. how do you get consensus? out as sick come from?'s i think of this project is basically critical theory, critical social theory. investigating how theory. investigating how we come to hold the belief that we have and what works those beliefs are doing in our lives. how they shape our attitudes and how they affect our public policies. >> ..

>>

>> that evidence shows that breast-feeding has a modest impact on the risk of infection during the time the baby is actually breastfeeding travis small impact. there is good evidence that breast feeding has no impact :obesity or asthma or allergies or cancer and all of the rest of the literature of the outcomes in attributed to breast-feeding their research is characterized as weak and inconclusive. type two diabetes, chronic disease, a cardiovascular, celiac, ,

etc., etc.. a list of things associated is extremely long and almost everything on that list list, some of it has already been disproven in the rest we don't know. so the answer to the first question is no it is not driven by scientific evidence. that takes us back to what it is being driven by. if it is a driven by a science then what? i will answer that question in three pieces to the puzzle. what does breast-feeding mean to people in the united states? that starts with le leche

league. the women were sitting at a picnic breast-feeding their babies and not many other people were in the mother's did not have enough support so they got together with five other friends and started le leche league in 1956. but it was symbolic of the broader set of philosophies. and the role of the father

but the beginning of the latest wave through the advocacy but in the 1970's nestle's and other formula companies look to the developing world to see nothing but a vast untapped market of potential formula feeder so they in issue marketing practices to get women in four countries the most famous is that they

dress to their employees like nurses and sent them into hospital clinics san got them to convince others to use formula hundred the guys that was medically recommended. that is one picture. in and is so whole team so in a city is aggressively marketing formula they are mixing it with too much water because they tried to make a can of formula last

longer so babies are becoming so they are essentials a drinking colored water and the second problem is they're diluting the powdered formula with dirty unsterilized water so as a result you have got high infant mortality and infant malnutrition. so in response to this to reestablish breast-feeding as the norm in developing countries. so this becomes you have the nestle a boycott is something that happens in the united states a and canada and is very popular. and in fact, the longest and

most widespread boycott ever. even today they boycott because of the aggressive marketing practices. they boycott more often nests lead than to lung morris. that is the history that establishes breast-feeding is a challenge in solidarity with the world struggle against hanukkah to make that the challenge against corporate greed. it as a symbol of something bigger. into those who challenge corporate greed kicks cetera, etc.. in 1980's breast-feeding

becomes of symbol of female empowerment and a symbol of the life sustaining force of the female body. end of that attachment parenting. is there are three pillars of attachment. the first is baby wearing that means carry them in the slaying rather than the stroller to get your baby around town. second it is sleeping in the same bed in the third is breast-feeding. so once again a wonderful philosophy but it is of a larger statement or your

family commitments are like and to leave are in general. and that has been embraced by the christian right. and it turns out to be proof of intelligent design. it also offers evidence of heterosexual marriage isn't also an issue for environmentalist who believe locally produced sustainable food because what to be more locally produced and they and breast milk? so for all of these groups of people better fundamentally opposed to one another seeing eye-to-eye on any other issue of the

political spectrum get they believe them breast-feeding for fundamentally different reasons. and this was the parable -- power point i was supposed to show for a recession he was clear for years old and wearing camouflage pants and that that was the disquieting part of the whole picture was the parachute pants. [laughter] so that is the first part of

the puzzle the way breast feeding is taken on symbolic meeting as it has for so many people. it is a surprising number of things to a surprising number of people. the second part of the puzzle has to do with business. there is a business ankle that surprising to those of us of feeding with a big formula companies. so the idea is that breast feeding is free that is the along challenge and yes it is far from free 21st century america and the

first reason is if you ever plan to leave the house you will have to buy clothes and bras and may need in nutritional supplements for able supply bin pillows and creams and other things. it is in its necessary but most people who breastfeed in the united states today will by many of these. the second component is a lactation consultant. they will consult one of some point in their career between 200 and $500 an hour. >> the final component of the business of

breast-feeding is a breast pump industry. in 2007 there was a really large study on pumping and breast feeding and discovered 85 percent of american women to breast feed were also pumping. that is an enormous percentage of the population and it explains why 40 percent of the world market is san the american market. no where else where they are pumping breast milk as much as in the united states. in the next few years the world market is expected to reach 2.$6 billion a newly and 40 percent of that market is in the united states. and all of this pumping creates something that is new in the history of

humankind that is a surplus of milk in the refrigerators and freezers of american women. [laughter] so what happens here is the combination of the internet of the prairie used to be a service she would take your baby and nurse them now would is a product sold on-line routinely. i need to step back palaestra think those nestle's nurses are a thing of the past, this is a store of the side of upper manhattan and the people surrounding her are not

nurses the one is dressed in a white lab coat but they are employees as a way to sell the things like nutritional supplements and commerce. the way that you feed the baby is medically sanctioned but it is alive and well. >> as a result with a surplus of human milk is the human milk market so it is

called only the breast these are the ads that i had taken yesterday so all of the breast stroke is still available probably if you want some. people by esl breast milk any day of the week you could try between 12 and 16,000 post for people in who are wanting to buy or sell breast milk. not only mothers looking to feed their babies, athletes by bristol can consume it is large numbers because they look to predict -- boost their performance also people interested because that is the newest super food.

they are looking to boost immunity. so there is a big market with human milk. so the stiefel who sell at are not necessarily selling on line to other mothers lot of people solitude companies. there is the company in california that buys breast milk $1 per ounce and use it as a raw material for nutritional supplements. they turn it into the base of a nutritional supplement then they sell those at $180 an ounce. it is a private companies so they don't disclose the profits but they have

disclosed they have received $46 million in venture capital the last couple of years and this is a growing industry. this is the oldest company in this market but not the only one. there are 67 others that are competing with them to produce things like a nutritional supplements the aba material is the issue been built -- human milk. the interesting thing about this the largest breast, manufacturer in the world and those that make money off of human milk both of those fund research into

the chemical properties of human milk. not long ago people are interested in breast-feeding and do something about breast-feeding experts, they were breast-feeding researchers going to conferences and studied breast-feeding. now the study human lactation and innovations of human lactation there is a laboratory in western australia at the university of western australia it is actually run by a the specializes in cattle and

p.i.g.s. lactation now human lactation. so with that expertise to be put the the id to the human lactation area. one of the things that is compelling all of this pumping not only are people making money in the breast milk sector but they have a vested interest to make sure it is sent outside of the market. what is viable about breast-feeding but it is the consumption of human milk

and transforming breast-feeding into a human milk consumption. for advocacy initiatives. so the president's has been well-known to launching the initiative during his administration so at a federal level these initiatives are unusual there have not been presidents for to launch his initiative but none has to do with breast feeding but they're all about pumping so in 2011 to require employees

with the unpaid work breaks to mothers so they could prompt. in 2012 to allow mothers to take tax deductions and in 2013 that was superseded to require insurance companies to cover the cost of press comes for all new mothers now suddenly all the mothers in the united states were entitled to receive a free new breast pump. so that 85 percent that was quoted is now much closer because the mother and -- american mothers are getting a free press pump if they are insured also medicaid is required to give a free breast pump.

so what this does is framed the expectations of what the mothers are supposed to do to feed their babies not long ago we thought of working in breast-feeding the you would not be expected to do both. but not anymore and now they're expected to pump during the break in the unused broom closet so there is a tremendous burden from the breast pump phenomenon. phonies initiatives that promote pumping rather than breast-feeding.

in 2012 new york city implemented a controversial breast feeding advocacy program. this was the advertising campaign. uk and see a dozen actually mentioned breast feeding cattle it is all about breast milk has a product. i interviewed on the new york city director of health commissioner under bloomberg and i said why did you only refer to breast milk or and not breast-feeding? he said we were thinking of breast milk as a product that he said if we said breast feeding that would

have been too hard for most mothers to do they go to work after they have a baby with no maternity leave and breast feeding requires too much of a change in the workplace. and remember, in the public health commissioner under mayor bloomberg. and of course, he is well-known and i could not be advancing an advocacy campaign that implied that the businesses would have to bear the cost through maternity leave. so there was the explicit decision made to talk about breast milk other than breast feeding in the advocacy campaign. so that leads into the

question live a moral fervor around breast feeding. then finally i want to swing around the first part of my answer and here i argue it reinforces many of the division's over american society with the divisions of race and class. every year the cdc publishes the annual breast feeding report card. that is data on the united states, how common, etc.. then they break it down by state and demographics in the and what they use our race, class, social economic

status marital status and the level of education. by organizing the data that way, what they show is women who are white in higher socio-economic statices intermarried -- and a married with higher levels of education, and they are breast-feeding. those who were supposedly failing are african-american , pork, not buried and under educated high school or less annually when the report card comes out this is the story picked up across the united states

you will see this every single year it is the same story. breast-feeding rates are improving but african-americans lag far behind but it is presented as coming from a place of concern is for african-american babies that are not being fed breast milk. but with the kind of history and reality of racial division and also shores up the status of the white people was better parents. women breast-feeding is turned into a public health issue in 2012 the american academy of pediatrics in the surgeon general described it as a public health issue. the reason, a failure to breast feed was costing united states $13 billion per year.

that number is the result of the widely published study that i can tell you about later and why that $13 billion number is inflated. so they identified breast feeding is a public health issue in 2012 then to identify it that way to say that a failure is costing united states $13 billion per year, they transform those people into irresponsible citizens costing united states billions of dollars per year in unnecessary infections and conditions and illnesses

if only they would breast feed their children. . .

>> for more powerful rest speeding advocacy. there is a profound difference between the way middle and upper-class women in the united states experienced breast feeding advocacy. for them it is primarily in the form of overzealous nurses or lactation consultants and hospitals and the people in their social circle. for poor people, united states has long had more current cursive ways of influencing behavior in particular women of women who are poor and vulnerable. the united states has a program called the special supplemental nutrition program for women infants, and children. it it is called wic for short. in 2009, wic introduced what it

called for the enhanced food package. the enhanced food package provides different kinds of benefits for women who are breast-feeding then for women who are formula feeding. women who are breast-feeding are entitled for wic for twice as long as the mothers who formula be. breast-feeding mothers get more and better food then formula feeding mothers. breast-feeding babies get more and better food than formula feeding babies. breast-feeding mothers are prioritized for intake and registration. wic is not actually an entitlement program. wic can run out. in the event of shortfalls, wic counselors are advised to register mothers who are breast-feeding over mothers who are formula feeding. in the extreme events, feeding your baby formula can actually exclude you from qualification or eligibility to wic, for wic

completely. a couple of months ago, the well-known harvard law professor published an op-ed in the new york times about his knowledge theory. he argued in his new york times op-ed that since he wrote the book nudged, he subsequently went out and produced a data set looking at how much americans want to be nudged or how much the support is for nudging. what he argued in the new york times op-ed was that most americans support government nudging toward better behavior. depending on the particular question he asked the support was anywhere from anywhere from 60-85% for nudging. to me, this is really interesting. i feel like nudging raises all kinds of really interesting

questions. when you look at it through the lens of breast-feeding advocacy. the first question might be what counts as a knowledge and who gets to decide what is the knowledge? what what is actually more like a shop and a kick. it occurs to me that what wic is doing by withholding food from women who are already at nutritional risk and babysat nutritional risk, that does not seem so much like a nudge to me. as a matter of fact pat does not study wic so i don't know if you think that was a nudge. but i think in the government wic probably thinks it's a nudge. i think it goes too far. at any rate it was really make you think that you have to think carefully about what counts as a nudge. the second question breast-feeding advocacy raises is, should we worry when i just

don't just target particular behaviors? the behavior people sort of randomly scatter across society but these nudges consistently seem to target particular categories of people. the third question, something we could get handle on if we could get a hold of some data is to look at what the demographic difference is in his data. is it the case that african-americans are as inclined to accept her doors government no jews as white americans might be? or is it the case the poor people would accept them as much as wealthy people might be? is it the case that people would have a different answer when they're thinking, is the government may be going to nudge me or is the government really going to nudge all of those other people that are surrounding me that have bad

behavior, but i will not be nudged. so it raises all of these questions about -- i think it forces us or it ought to force us, it ought to convince us to look carefully at what really are reasonable nudges to embrace. finally, i will close with another thought that links back to the idea of public health issue. since the 1970s, the united states public health -- public health in the united states has focused attention on individual behavior is the cause of bad health. first it was smoking, then unsafe sex, around this time, around the time it all started in 1975, the chicago tribune offered the opinion that the idea of preventive medicine was quote saintly on american. it means recognizing the enemy is us.

it is saintly on america because it means recognizing that the enemy is us. it occurred to me that in fact the idea is profoundly america. it extends the story from wealth to help. we all have the potential to be healthy, we just need to work at it, we need to exercise the moral fortitude, we need to pull ourselves up by the bootstrap and we will succeed at health. so this is privatizing responsibility for health. i think that is one way, another way in which it breast-feeding fits conveniently into an american health paradigm that increasingly blames individuals themselves for poor health outcomes and for the soaring costs of american healthcare but it is not just a matter of blaming individuals when we blame individual lifestyle choices for the crisis of

american healthcare we are not only blaming random, on healthy individuals in our society, we are consistently blaming some category of people. so unsafe sex for example is associated with gay men, prostitutes, and iv drug users. smoking is more prevalent among people who are poor. obesity is among more prevalent among people who are african-american. the failure to breast-feed of course is the failure of women, but not all women, women who are poor, african-american, poor, african-american, unmarried, and women who are young. so the deal with breast-feeding that it is practically lee perfect in the sense that it served so many purposes in the united states today. for all kinds of people it stands as a marker of of who we are and what

we believe in. for a fast growing, breast-feeding accessory support and supplements market, it is a huge source mostly untapped potential profit. the demographic and social shores up many of the divisions and hierarchies that have characterized american life. breast-feeding privatize his responsibility for health. blaming mothers not only for infant infection but cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, asthma, allergies, pretty much any condition their children may get over the course of an entire lifetime. that my friend is the deal with breast-feeding. thank you. [applause]. mollo is going to comment on my book.

>> is a tough act to follow. i am happy to be back here at the new school. above all back here with my dear friend and former colleague, courtney. talking about her book, lacked a visit. first, i want to say this book is a vintage courtney. it is brilliantly argued, it has are characteristically, it has her characteristic sardonic tone. it is often hilarious and i have really enjoyed reading it. now there will be three parts to my commentary. i will not speak for more than ten or 15 minutes so don't worry. i'll first talk about what i took as the strength of the book. then i'll make a few remarks about areas where i think the book was ambivalent for or needed some improvement, finally want to make to points about the bigger picture, or the broader implications of this book for how we think about gender equality.

first, she did not mention all of it today, but the book does a real demolition job of lacked of his stick extremist in a way that is reminiscent of why we lost the era. it shows that single-minded, overcommitted activists can end up under minding their own cause because they are so intolerant and ideological. the second thing is, it brilliantly analyzes and traces the evolution of breast-feeding. which means breast baby into breast milk feeding, which she did talk about today via the pump. she also called out the policymakers and the business interests who would seemingly make motherhood compatible with work he be a pumping without any

change to the structural condition or the policy framework. the second to last point, like kristin bucher does in her book abortion and politics of motherhood, courtney shows late breast-feeding is just the tip of the iceberg. breast-feeding is breast-feeding is here but underneath the water of the iceberg is up whole package of agendas, worldviews, worldviews, ideologies, so people are investing the human active breast-feeding was so much more than just a way to feed children. i think today she succeeded in mapping out what those agendas and actors are. finally, on a personal note, i think this book has succeeded in calling out people, including myself, who have looked down on and felt superior to other women who are not breast-feeding or not breast-feeding as well. i'm actually grateful to

courtney for swaying my hand in that kind of behavior. so, what are some of the ambivalence is? courtney says repeatedly through the book that this is a book about lacked of his, that she has a problem with lacked a visit, not breast-feeding. breast-feeding is a human practice that has sustained the human rights as long as we have been around but at times in the book i think perhaps as it consequence i'm not going to be so banal and point out packed perhaps it is a that courtney has a tendency to blame breast-feeding for a series of social ills that are not

breast-feeding fall. so in political science term we did say that she exaggerates the cause of breast-feeding. so harassment of women in the workplace, women who want to take time off to pump, women who are exposing their breasts in a closet. i don't think that the font the breast-feeding i think it's the fault of sexism in general leave the subordinate position of women in the workplace. i think the marginalization and subjugation and targeting of african-american women is not the fault of breast-feeding, but it's a response to pervasive racism. breast-feeding breast-feeding is nearly a vehicle to further racism. women leading the workforce is not the fault of breast-feeding but another symptom of pervasive gender inequality. even the kind of competition, judgment, and shaming among women that i have admittedly

been guilty of, i don't think think that is the fault of breast-feeding, rather breast-feeding is just a vehicle to express that kind of competitive behavior and shaming. the next ambivalence that i want to mention is that especially in courtney's critique of the science there is a presumption, or up a trail of parenting decision, as a cost-benefit calculation. well, the formula is sitting right there but if i breast-feed now, i will be one sixth of my weight or one viewer ear infections. i i will be half an iq point higher. that's not the way i ever made any parenting decision. they were actually never responding to a cost-benefit calculation about the relative

payoff of certain types of behavior. for me it was about instinct and survival. the other thing that there is ambivalence in and i cannot recognize myself in some of the description of people who breast-fed, was i did not feel, at least in the beginning like i was breast-feeding to advance an agenda, such as to be green, be a feminist, to oppose corporate control. i felt like i was breast-feeding because that's what my baby wanted and needed. further down the road, road, maybe i hooked it to these other agendas, but i think many people in daily life are not making cost - benefit calculations, they are not furthering an agenda, they're just doing. so let me make -- i will wrap up in a few moments here, some broader reflections. i. i think the big question courtney is addressing and she

calls at the moral fervor, but how about the debate they did book is debating. lots of callers into shows, lots of action on twitter, even people responding to my facebook page. why are so many people worked up about this? courtney does give us an answer, she says people with diverse agendas have a lot invested in breast-feeding. the discussion is quite polarized. breast-feed, formula feed, good parent, bad parent. what is largely absent in this discourse are the voices of actual women who are ambivalent, who are through trial and error, who through their own suffering -- i don't want to say suffering, through the nature

and self understanding of this, i'd only want college college choices because choice sounds so rational. but the instinctual behavior they are following when it comes to parenting. i think if if we listen to these voices it would be hard for us to generate into the polarize debate, instead it would be much more richly complicated and diverse and polar stick. i think when we think about why there is a debate at all and what the debate is like, it's important that we see this is another reflection is gender inequality. that women's voices, and often in this book are not the most prominent when it comes to talking about breast-feeding. their male scientists, male policymakers. that is a reflection of a society that continues, if women were actually speaking about breast-feeding i think the debate would be different.

and finally, what about gender equality anyway? let me juxtapose to visions or models of how to achieve it. on one hand, we have the kind of liberal individual's choice model. what nancy is now characterizing as mainstream the feminism. to be successful, to be fully realized women who is having it all we need to be ceo or president, that we need to be fully present like men are, kind of on burden or unattached by accessories. now, formula feeding is very conducive to this type of feminism. it presumes that i can outsource or delegate to my baby who's

going to feed a formula. that is 11 model, an alternative model is one that makes dependency, caregiving roles, chaos, complication, apps actually central to our conception of the actor in the public sphere. of the politician, the ceo, the, the worker. i think in this model the public sphere is defined by and includes breast-feeding. i think breast-feeding is a good teacher for this model. it teaches us that life is unpredictable, that we cannot control things, that it is messy. i think therefore, and i believe in breast-feeding as a mechanism to the mass complies the public fear. i am grateful to courtney for teaching me that it is not the only mechanism and may not be the best mechanism. thank you very much. [applause]. >> we will take questions.

[inaudible] >> the key difference -- the difference between the united states and other advanced western democracies, the difference in breast-feeding initiation and duration are actually not that stark. one difference that you could point to would be between the united states and canada, and canada you have an 89% initiation rate, in the united states the initiation rate is 79 percent. the united states, six-month, 49% of women are

still breast-feeding, and of women are still breast-feeding, and canada, 52% are still breast-feeding. so the numbers are fairly comparable. the huge difference between canada and the united states is that women, women have maternity leave and canada. so women can make a choice more freely about what works for them because they have the time and the space to breast-feed if they choose to. so although there are breast-feeding advocacy programs and projects in canada, they are not as a trick pony and as they are the united states. it's not about withholding food from people who don't breast-feed. it's just advertising in the subways or something like that. because instead they have maternity leave. that maternity leave does make it a lot easier for women to actually, for women to be supported if in fact they do decide to breast-feed.

of course, as i'm sure you know, the united states is one of only four countries in the world that have no federally mandated paid maternity leave. others are swaziland, new guinea, and somewhere else. >> i am interested -- you talked about research from the pump companies and how that promoted their way of thinking in terms of natural breast-feeding. i'm curious about any kind of research that is being done on the formula side. with nestlé so blown up by their 1950s movement and they never got on the bandwagon again. it would seem to me that this is all good conversation but somebody on the other side, would be whoever we paid the million dollars to that they

would actually promote research study of their own. >> so they were partly completely blown up by nestlé. nestlé and abbott, and other formula companies, they are not sponsoring studies on breast-feeding or infant feeding. those studies would be grandly dismissed. since my op-ed was published in the new york times, a number of people have written to me and accused me of being funded by formula companies. the idea of having research funded by formula companies is something that cannot be done. that is not to say that form the

companies are not still making a lot of money in the infant feeding sector. if the breast pump industry is $2.6 billion annually, the formula industry is $7 billion annually. i expect the breast pump industry is set to take off. its highest growth area of the world is asia, it is actively marketing, aggressively marketing and asia. it is not 2.6 billion, $7 billion, they are a vast difference but it is like a apples and oranges. the breast market is really something. what formula companies are doing now, they are definitely set back on their heels by all of this advocacy around breast-feeding. what they're doing now is basically creating new products for markets they are creating. so it is a follow-on formula for

when you wean, as if there is a particular food your baby needs when it weans. there is a formula specifically geared toward your 2-year-old. so they are inventing these new products in these categories and that is how there are remaining competitive. >> it is a very fascinating exchange. i have not read the book yet, i feel in possession of certain outline here. i did not hear it how ms. mollo heard it, i did not hear it as breast-feeding as the cause for. ice got more of a symptom in the way in which inequality is managed and you could take it another ten instances of manipulation. i can think of it as an instance of how these things are done.

the women who were forced to use formula than the women who were forced not to use formula, the fact that the story is very complicated and there has been progress of moments for each side. but i think the action of women's voices has parlayed to do with the fact that story you're telling us about, the silencing of that complexity and ambiguity. i can imagine in a feminist position which does not exist here that talks about better conditions for breast-feeding, a number of things you would need. in order to make this work for you in a complex life you have. how unequal women are is partly how little maneuverability they have. but there's an interesting

absence here and it is in the spirit of discussion and and also in molinos, if breast-feeding is the key thing, in and out, up down, men disappear from the discussion. it is fascinating to me that people who have written about how any quality cannot be achieved without men taking real central, fundamental charge of children along with women. first well lots of feminists are ambivalent about that. think of the women who say oh, he can't do it. only i can do it. so there is a huge of places where people don't want to hear about, this is women's fear, women's bodies et cetera.

i think you could easily figure a feminists position that says whatever one of these decisions are making, the issue would be are you really sharing the domestic work. inequality is deeply embedded and the lack of sharing of domestic work and in the break between public and private space. that to me is what happens. how it's reproduced. so i love your argument because i think it shows the lack of leverage about really changing the condition of which women do things. it shows you the weakness of women's control over any of these situations. i love my students to the study

of male breast-feeding, why do men have nipples and he said that there were men who had breast-fed, the women in the class got terribly excited. here they are, appropriating everything. ice fascinating. i'm not advocating that men should take on breast-feeding but i do think men should take on early care of children and that is very fundamental feminist value of mine. >> i think you just opened it all up. >> or you could respond. >> i think there is a good discussion let's gather a few points from the audience and then she can respond, i might might have something to say to. >> minus very quick. first of all thank you have not read the book yet and it already

change my mind about my own experience of breast-feeding and i appreciate it. one of the the things i do not see here and i also read the new york times article was the question about benefits of breast-feeding off of the child but for the mother. the argument of how it reduces the risk of breast cancer and may help you in postpartum depression and all of that. i just want to hear some of that. >> hello. thank you for this. this. i thought the work was excellent. two comments for discussion. one was noting among the group this scoffing notion that the idea of masculine breast-feeding and accounted dovetails on

utilizing breast feeding as a way to d masculine eyes. i wonder if that is a shortsighted goal? one that is inherently -- kind of keeps us in a very binary focused projector he for feminism and thinking about the ways in which the trans- masculine body could be a pregnant body, lactating body, etc. opening that it because i think that is a great point. additionally that quick distinction in your commentary about our weight utilizing breast-feeding -- are we conflating it as the problem as opposed to a symptom or merely an act. i am wondering what everyone thinks of is that possible though? can we separate the fleshy bits out from the process? so maybe it's not actually that problematic to really critique

breast-feeding in the way that is picked up. it can't be just a weapon to harm women with or judge women with if it is literally part of the body. it's kind of complicating that i guess. >> carmela was next, not said then judith,. >> i was surprised, i was expecting moller to fight you on the science but she didn't. >> she told me at lunch i couldn't. [laughter] i'm really surprised that this world approved science has not

at least today cause -- maybe i'm just trying to justify that i carry that stupid pump for a year, tellme's there's something valuable about that. the second question besides really, it is like universal circuit pages your agenda. also i want to ask an international question because i think it's a very good argument for the u.s., but when you translate this to third world where people do not have the money to buy the formula, i wonder if there is still a value on the public policy of just supporting breast-feeding --

there are other conditions in which maybe these arguments would be different. >> i also wanted to go to the international question as well. i was thinking courtney and i share an interest in mexico where breast-feeding is very dominant in rural areas. where in fact diabetes is very high in the same rural areas. as i i was thinking about comparative research, has anybody been looking at that? you mention several rates today that one of the diseases you are preventing by having breast-feed is diabetes. and i can get it back to are you dismissing this research, i thought perhaps this was a good

good example of why the research may be problematic. i will just throw that out. >> do you want to respond now and then we'll take another round? >> a lot of what people have said is not things that i necessarily want to respond to, they're just interesting comments, good food good food for thought. i do want to respond to the question -- that is a really -- it is a puzzle. what is going on there? [inaudible] the fact is that there actually is not a consensus among doctors about the benefits of

breast-feeding. so it is presented as if there is a hegemonic consensus on the benefits of breast-feeding but just for example, since i wrote that op-ed in the new york time, i i have received many, many e-mails from doctors, including from family practitioners in maine to former deans of medical schools who have said to me, you're exactly right. this. this is exactly what the breast-feeding literature shows. you are very brave for pointing it out, you will be accused of being funded by formula companies. a pediatrician, i mention the the senate my book, pediatricians in particular get demonized by lactation consultants. lactation consultants and breast-feeding advocates always say that pediatricians do not have the right training and they

just don't understand how important breast-feeding is. pediatricians on the other hand say, i am responsible for the care of this one particular child. pediatricians are actually quite quick to say, you need to move on from breast-feeding, you need to start beating your baby formula because your baby is failing to thrive, you're not producing enough rest melt, etc. so doctors who are actually taking care of patients in the real world have much more ambivalent feelings about breast-feeding than the public health advocates who are making breast-feeding policies. those public health advocates, this is what their position is. their position is those modest by the fence benefits that you get by reducing the risk of

infection -- so doctor mayer says six women breast-feed exclusively for six months, they will advert one ear infection that one of those children otherwise would have gotten. a third dr. that is great, that is a very powerful intervention. but when he read the op-ed in the new york times, a reporter called him and the reporter says so what do you think about this and he said, this just makes my job a whole lot harder. i did not quote those numbers for mother's to be hearing, i was talking to doctors who understand what that means as a public public health initiative or public health intervention. his position was, what he said then was even if the benefits are modest, why wouldn't we try

to achieve them? he is acknowledging the benefits are modest and sane why would would we not try to achieve them. he said this and it's out there in the public sphere now because i read it in an article. what he is doing when his same even if the benefit is modest why wouldn't we try to achieve them, he's admitting that the benefits are modest and he is not paying any attention at all to the high cost that are being paid by being paid to try to achieve them. the very, very high cost that mothers are imposing on themselves, and we answer society aren't posing on mothers in order to achieve these very modest benefits in reducing ear infections. chances are, you are not going to reduce any affection that your own child would have had, you are are reducing someone else's, eliminating someone else's ear infection which is why i said, i'm really sorry about that year of pumping.

i could talk about the international angle. the last chapter of my book is about the international dimension of the story which of course is partly the nestlé story. where partly in the 1970s in poor countries around the world, in those countries breast-feeding advocacy is still an important public health project. in many of those countries, formula feeding is not actually a safe alternative, whereas in the united states formula feeding is a very safe alternative. and a lot of poor countries formula feeding is not a safe alternative. in the 1970s and early 80s breast-feeding advocates took up this idea and took up this

project, and international public health organizations like the who and unicef became convinced that breast-feeding was the solution to many problems in developing countries. they invested a lot of money and breast-feeding advocacy and support programs. a very large proportion of their funding was reinvested into breast-feeding advocacy and support. they hired a lot of breast-feeding advocates, lactation consultants and very important positions in the who. that was in the early 1980s. they pass the current marketing, there is the declaration, there is a lot of things going on, it it was a heyday of international breast-feeding advocacy. in 1985, the first evidence that breast-feeding -- that hiv can be transmitted through breast-feeding and through

breastmilk. in 1985 when the land set publish that information the united states, canada, new zealand, australia, and western europe immediate lee change their competing guidelines that recommended hiv-positive mothers should be their babies formula. the who did not. they continue to recommend that all mothers should breast-feed regardless of whether they were hiv-positive or not. in 1992, don published a very important meta-analysis that revealed not only that breast-feeding was a transmitter of hiv, but in fact how large a transmitter of hiv it was. as a result of that meta-analysis, people learned that up to 40% of babies who are infected with hiv, are infected through breast-feeding.

so 40% of babies infected with hiv were infected by breast-feeding. from 1985 when information was first revealed that hiv can be transmitted through breastmilk, until 1998, the who continue to recommend that all mothers breast-feed regardless of their hiv status. in 1998, as a result of tremendous pressure and push back from health ministers in poor countries, the who finally changed its infant feeding guideline, recommended that mothers who were hiv-positive should feed their babies formula , and initiated huge programs in poor countries. they sent people into teach

people how to use formula safely, they sent in formula, they sent in a lot of formula that was already mix, are ready liquid formula. they started giving away formula to mothers who were hiv-positive. that was in 1998. then there is a back story that has to do with leche which i will spare you right now. we come to 2010. in 1998, this is an enormous setback for the breast-feeding advocate who had been fighting against this very transition and infant feeding guidelines for 13 years. they have been fighting against this. it finally it finally happened, it's a big setback, then they fight for the next 12 years to get the guidelines changed again. they are worried and they say this out loud, they fear that hiv is a threat to breast-feeding advocacy.

so the threat of hiv is a threat to breast-feeding advocacy. i'm i'm sorry i just had to say that again. so in 2010, the who issued new infant feeding guidelines. listen carefully to what these infant feeding guidelines are. in countries where formula is safe and affordable, women who are hiv-positive should be advised to feed their babies formula. when mothers have access to antivirals and their babies have access to anti- retro viral's, women should be advised to breast-feed because anti- retro viral's reduce the likelihood that you'll pass the hiv to your baby. the reason i said listen to this closely, you'll realize that this leaves an enormous hole right in the middle. where women who do not live in countries where formula feeding is a safe alt and women who do

not have access to antiviral. experts estimate that in africa, africa as a whole, 37, only 30% of 37%% of pregnant women have access to arb. so 63% of hiv-positive pregnant women in africa have no access to ar bees. what should those women be advised to do? the who now recommends, since 2010 that if a mother is hiv-positive, even if she has no acts as to antiretrovirals, she should be advised to peter baby -- to breast-feed her baby. so there is this huge complication to the old story that we are familiar with about the value of breast-feeding in poor countries.

>> does anyone have a question on this particular topic? >> on a different topic speemac's because i want to to address some of the previous topics. but that needed a pause. >> i just wanted to briefly touch upon answer question and your question. the extent to which quality depends on reallocation of domestic responsibilities, specifically specifically amend taking care of children. i know people, people who firmly pulled equality and equal sharing. this also is within the breast pump industry. so they make a point of having a bottle and then the other parent, the non- lactating

parent will also feed, weathers the middle of night, or during the day. courtney and i shared a good laugh together because we never did this. when i was a committed feminist virtually my entire life, but i had never done that. it just seemed very contrived to me. the easiest thing was to just put your breast and the baby's mouth and it will shut up and be calm. we didn't do that, but i know a lot of people who do. i think the broader point for me anyway is that, i think having three children in this experience of being pregnant, birth, breast-feeding, was a real challenge to me as an equal rights feminist and equality feminists. it threw me for a loop. it caused me to reconsider or reconstruct my notion of feminism. i will say on a much more

biological basis, i think at that time i started reading total moiety about what is a woman. she teaches us in that text that it is okay to read embrace bodily nest without embracing biological sensualism. the body does not have to determine your lot in life are what you do with the body, but the body also does not need to be denied either. it does not need to jeopardize equal participation were equal treatment. so i have been trying to construct and think of feminism that incorporates the unique nature of the reproductive function of the woman's body, including lactation. therefore. therefore i am interested in reconstructing the public fear about universal values of

lactation, i'm saying this to incorporate. it may be trans exclusionary, i don't biggest transvaal big. big. they may be the same thing in your view. to reconstruct the public fear around what i think should be universally revered and practiced values of biology, dependency, chaos, attachment. i feel like it is been alienated and bled dry of those types of practices. >> you're being too literal, and no way what i'm saying -- i know some women who breast-feed because of the pleasure and other women who really hate it.

[inaudible] the point is that these discussions never include other what egalitarian reorganization, not only of who gets to do what and where, but also of the light project three. why not take a year off and breast-feed, a man also talked about paternally. people have different different stages in life might really need to withdraw from the daily grind. the discussion of pleasure is so far away from or displeasure so far away from the analytical question. yet i think it should be folded in. so i don't want to say choice because we know where that leads

us. i choose to breast-feed and i choose not to come of this is that horrible, every woman on her own. no big social changes it's a personal choice. i don't even want to use the word choice. one would like there to be a range of possible behaviors and support for them. that is one good thing about the j league, their rhetoric was her brenda's. i'm sure that is a funny part of your book. one great thing about it is no one is helping women. >> i was a member. >> even though i thought the thing about the late leche league that was moving was let's help women.

>> part of what i hear in courtney's work work is the coldness of the manipulation. the embedded stuff that you watch. i don't think it is a breast-feeding, i don't think she is blaming breast-feeding for these terrible things, kind of a lack of plasticity in what men and women do. [inaudible] three - one in support of your position. mostly that support was coming from people that were put upon by the activist. that spoke to the huge silent

majority who needed to be able to discuss this. are you hoping for a specific policy change to support these people? they obviously need it. >> well, no. i am hoping for a policy change policy change that is a maternity leave. that is not necessarily supported the women who are feeling put upon. a policy change like maternity leave would allow women who want to breast-feed to do it, to actually breast-feed and not have to pump breast milk so someone else can feed their baby breast milk from a bottle. that is the policy change that i am interested in. i also would like it wicked to change its policies. i would like to see the enhanced food package eliminated and for that

coercive mechanism that is specifically geared toward inducing poor people to choose a breast-feeding. i i would like to see that eliminated. what i am really hoping for, more fundamentally and i think what a lot of those women were saying, they're not necessarily experiencing that shaming that is coming from on top, from policy. it is it is coming from everywhere. it is social. if we change the conversation and start to look at what we are actually doing, also if we look at it take something that is bigger than the mommy wars, this has long been dismissed by identifying it as an issue that is just about mommy wars. even calling it that is very dismissive. it it is just sort of what these mothers do because

they're so jealous and angry with one another. if you look at it as something that goes far beyond the mommy wars that has these larger implications and that is insidious in many ways, it will change the conversation. the way i read or heard a lot of the comments that i received is that it is the conversation that needs to change. we are hoping that your book will do some of that work in changing the conversation. >> any more comments? >> i really enjoyed the talk. i think it is very eye-opening and educational about the history of lactation. >> i can hardly hear you. >> i enjoyed your talk, i

thought i was eye-opening and agree with the points you are making. i don't think i'll be saying anything with which you disagree if i were to say, we know why things can shout this way it's because of capitalism. when you breast-feed, or bottlefeed, formula fee, it is going to be mutually commercialized because that is the capitalist world that we live. likewise, the reason it cashes out is the reason you're just driving is because the patriot sheet. regardless of what women do in the choices they make, their criticized work, work, their over managed in doing, et cetera. but the punchline of your book is not capitalism or patriarchy, it is like to visit him. on the one hand i understand why because it's 2015 and we don't want to read a book that says guess what it's capitalism. but there is kind of a problem with that and let me draw an

analogy. we all know now that the -- we know those people have no medical -- if any of you are in the internet you will notice over the last three years that is like a pastime on twitter, facebook, whatever. these socially irresponsible morons, i had a friend point out to me that there is a problem with that. the problem is the reason my people were attracted to the anti- baxter position which they surround the nineties, may maybe earlier than that, didn't have to do with a fear of autism, the reason people were attracted to it was because the moment you get pregnant you are introduced to this medical system and other

systems that are incredibly condescending, contradictory, judgmental and validates all of the choices you make. >> and. ..

were more decisions and also to point out the scale to throw people in that event and say you have that so i want to raise that i like the fact to catalog all of this empirical evidence into one book to point out how problematic it is but -- >> should i respond?