The Big Letdown: How Medicine, Big Business, and Feminism Undermine Breastfeeding

Journalist Allers (coauthor of The Mocha Manual to Military Life) thinks the slogan “Breast Is Best” should really be “Breast Is Complicated” as she comes out swinging against simplistic probreastfeeding arguments. Though some background is necessary, too much of Allers’s focus is on examples over a decade old, including a controversial advertising campaign from 2002, a controlled trial from 2001, and infant growth charts that were based on formula-fed babies until 2006. The resulting impression is that she doesn’t have much new to say about 21st-century trends. Allers does have one unusual target—feminism—and though much of her ire targets older second-wave ideas, such as the masculinization of women in pursuit of workplace equality, she also blames the well-meaning approach of lactation activists for making breastfeeding seem aggressive or radical rather than normal. She also criticizes third-wave ideas, such as placing breastfeeding in the context of “choice feminism” rather than public health and social justice, and calls out the middle-class focus on workplace accommodations in corporate environments. Only at the end does Allers step back from the anger to propose approaches for moving forward, and then her ideas are too vague to be useful or actionable. Agent: Stacey Glick, Dystel & Goderich. (Jan.)