Terfs are constantly tripping over themselves to show their fascist roots.
This post was ostensibly supposed to be an attack on surrogacy, but in it they choose to take a deeply anti-feminist line of attack in the process. This is the problem with cultural feminism. It always comes back to some mystical understanding of the female essence or whatever the fuck in a way that just repackages patriarchal ideas and harms women.
The fact that you're so desperate to attack gay men rather than stick to the actual issues with surrogacy (capitalism) that you would shame people for using formula, something that is necessary for many women? Absolutely disgusting. The ability to choose formula is so fucking necessary that I would absolutely 100% argue that attacking it is anti-feminist.
Have any of these people who have reblogged this even given birth? Absolutely any of them? Have any fucking one of them ever tried breast feeding??
Because breast feeding is fucking difficult. It is time consuming. It uses so much energy. It. Fucking. Sucks. Having the ability to choose formula allows you to actually be independent of your child at some point if you can't make enough breast milk to freeze (or if you don't have the ability to freeze and reheat your milk at a later time.)
You think it's feminist to shame someone for not wanting to be plugged into a machine like a fucking dairy cow for hours a day??? Really????
How about the women* who can't work because their job won't allow them to pump? Either because they don't have laws protecting them or their company violates the laws? How are they supposed to be financially independent?
You know why I stopped breast feeding? I was sitting in my kitchen, attached to my breast pump, as my ex stomped around the house in a fit. The scary part was, my mom was sitting right next to me. My ex was going through a full breakdown and letting the mask slip in front of my mom. I had the sudden realization that if these slips could happen in front of my mom, how bad was it going to be when she was gone?
I suddenly realized how vulnerable I was attached to this machine. If my ex wanted to start beating me while I was attached to it, I would have a difficult time getting away without breaking my very expensive pump (which I would also get beaten for doing). I have ADHD and serious memory problems, but I remember the exact fucking moment I decided to switch to formula because it was the only way to keep myself safe.
My ex did not want me to switch our baby to formula for the reasons OP listed above, but I somehow made it happen. Looking back I am actually shocked I got away with it.
The demonization of formula is fucking bad for women. We can talk about the ways in which companies like Nestlé use predatory practices in order to force impoverished mothers into using formula, but again a lot of these arguments are about capitalism itself. Formula in and of itself should be celebrated. It helps women be independent, it feeds babies who can't drink breastmilk, it helps children who are adopted... Etc.
I mean, what are adopted children supposed to do? What about babies whose mothers die in childbirth? Are they just supposed to die??
This is why I hate terfs so much. Cultural feminism is so deeply fucking unserious.
This devalues parents who didn't carry their kids, and so many more groups, but what hits me in a very personal way is the part about breastfeeding.
I didn't struggle with breastfeeding. All the pains and small injuries some people experience while getting used to it, I never went through. And with my first child I was happy breastfeeding and I loved every moment of it. Breastfeeding for me was magical back then.
But my second birth was very traumatic, my autonomy was violated, and it just felt different. Having to be there and give physically from myself every time the baby needed to eat felt like torture, like I'm still being denied autonomy over my body. And I made myself do it for MONTHS because of that exact rhetoric about how good and important and pure breastfeeding is.
I resented my own baby, I didn't spend time with my baby outside of breastfeeding, changing diapers, baths, and basic caretaking like that. No bonding, no silly little songs, nothing.
Until I stopped, gave my child a bottle, and suddenly it didn't have to be me. It could be dad. It could be anyone. The difference was HUGE. We bonded, because I felt free. They're describing it as so clinical and sad, but it was my tool to connect with my kid.
Putting the "natural" elements of motherhood on a pedestal isn't helpful. And it can very easily be harmful.
Also, just putting it out there, but having a child through surrogacy doesn't mean it won't be breastfed??? Trans women can induce lactation and breastfeed. It's really difficult and labour intensive, but it can (and does) happen. Also, as a child born through surrogacy to straight parents, my mum induced lactation for me, and a network of women donated breastmilk for me. I got more antibodies than the limited set "normal" breastfed babies get. Inducing lactation is something that's been done for millennia. We have new, more effective ways of doing it, but the concept is not new.
Hell, my wife gave birth to our daughter and I'm breastfeeding her for a few meals a day, because I induced lactation.
Women do not have to give birth or breastfeed if it's not right for them, there is no shame in not being able to do an incredibly difficult thing. But let's also not pretend that things like breastfeeding are limited only to cis women who have recently given birth.
As always, biology (and the world in general) is far more interesting than what exists in a TERFs limited imagination.
Unfortunately, terfs really demonize induced lactation, especially on the part of trans women. It is really, really ridiculous. I donated breast milk to a woman who induced lactation for the baby she adopted around the same time my child was born, and I've always thought that was just such a beautiful act
If you're interested in an actually good feminist book about surrogacy, Sophie Lewis's "Full Surrogacy Now" does a great job of working with the tension between how misogyny impacts surrogates and pushes women into it economically, while upper-class women who own clinics use "women's solidarity" to obscure the class relations that allow them to exploit the surrogacy labour of lower-class women. (I say women here because that's who the book focusses on; obviously anyone who can get pregnant can do surrogacy.)
Even for people who have an easy time breastfeeding and really enjoyed it - like me, honestly - having an option was really important because it made what I was doing a choice. I didn't breastfeed because without doing so, my child would die: I did it because that was the right choice for my kid and me, where we were at the time. Because it was an informed choice I made and an informed choice I was able to make, I cherished that choice. It was a gift I was lucky enough to be able to easily give to myself and my kid.
If I'd been forced into that choice, it would have been very easy to resent every minute of it. My joy almost certainly relied on the fact that I could have chosen to do something else and I didn't.
not to derail but this was also really triggering to me as an adoptee... My bio mom gave birth to me (prematurely) and then i was taken away immediately and she never saw me again. and that's the best case scenario for me and hundreds of thousands of other international adoptees. a worse case would be that i was stolen from her, that she was told I had died, that she wanted to keep me but was forced to surrender me by the people around her...
are terfs railing against this too? Or are they just monopolizing incredibly real trauma to accomplish their own pointless goals of just hurting other people?
