Artificial Infant Feeding: Women’s Loss, Men’s Gain

Synopsis – Artificial infant feeding, the first reproductive technology, has eliminated the need for women’s breasts and lactation function in successful reproduction. This paper argues that men have been the primary beneficiaries of this technology. Artificial infant feeding provides wealth, power, and status to the men who produce and control it. Women in nonindustrialized nations are especially vulnerable to the negative impact of artificial infant feeding because they are targets of the industry’s marketing practices, population controllers who promote Westernized lifestyles, and social institutions which exploit them. In addition, breastfeeding is devalued because it is connected to biology which women have come to believe is oppressive, and because it fails to conform to the dominant model of sexuality. Men benefit from this devaluation because breastfeeding is something they can neither understand nor control and because it prevents their access to women’s bodies.