books read
Jun. 13th, 2005 02:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fleaLa Leche League, at the crossroads of medicine, feminism, and religion, Jule DeJager Ward (UNC Press 2000).
This was fascinating, because it places La Leche League within the context that its founders inhabited - that of progressive mid-century American Catholicism. Something I knew nothing about, and still don't know a lot, but this book made LLL so much more understandable to me. It also deals with LLL's relationships with the mainstream of American medicine and the feminist movement - and how in some areas it is very close to, and in other areas very far from, these two entities. It's emblematic of how far we've come since LLL was founded in 1956 that women nowadays can buy scads of books about breastfeeding; in 1956 there was such a dearth of knowledge that women who wanted to breastfeed grabbed on to LLL with both hands. The 7 founders had a first meeting with themselves and 5 pregnant women they knew; at the second meeting 30 people showed up; at the third people could not fit into the house. All without advertising, jus word of mouth. It's also so funny to read about the culture of the founders, and how different (and similar) it was to that of modern LLL members, who seems to fall mostly into the Christian-homeschooling camp or the hippie-granola camp.
Girls & Boys: The Limits of Nonsexist Childrearing, Sara Stein (Scriber, 1983).
This book pissed me off. The author purports to do what the author of Our Babies Our Selves did - look at the role of nature and culture in shaping gender roles and how they affect the way we treat our children. The author does no such thing, however. The author treats as evidence of "nature" studies conducted on American middle class white infants and toddlers that show that girls are more girly and boys more boyish at quite early ages. The author never stops to consider that these studies might be examples of culture in action - that by 18 months a child knows that girls play with dolls and boys play with trucks, because of the images on television, they way parents and friends treat her, etc. There no discussion of evolutionary sex roles or cross-cultural ones. Very unsophisticated, just a rehash of mid-century child psychology, and this leads the author to conclude that gender sterotypes are innate and you can't raise a boy who likes dolls? FEH.
This was fascinating, because it places La Leche League within the context that its founders inhabited - that of progressive mid-century American Catholicism. Something I knew nothing about, and still don't know a lot, but this book made LLL so much more understandable to me. It also deals with LLL's relationships with the mainstream of American medicine and the feminist movement - and how in some areas it is very close to, and in other areas very far from, these two entities. It's emblematic of how far we've come since LLL was founded in 1956 that women nowadays can buy scads of books about breastfeeding; in 1956 there was such a dearth of knowledge that women who wanted to breastfeed grabbed on to LLL with both hands. The 7 founders had a first meeting with themselves and 5 pregnant women they knew; at the second meeting 30 people showed up; at the third people could not fit into the house. All without advertising, jus word of mouth. It's also so funny to read about the culture of the founders, and how different (and similar) it was to that of modern LLL members, who seems to fall mostly into the Christian-homeschooling camp or the hippie-granola camp.
Girls & Boys: The Limits of Nonsexist Childrearing, Sara Stein (Scriber, 1983).
This book pissed me off. The author purports to do what the author of Our Babies Our Selves did - look at the role of nature and culture in shaping gender roles and how they affect the way we treat our children. The author does no such thing, however. The author treats as evidence of "nature" studies conducted on American middle class white infants and toddlers that show that girls are more girly and boys more boyish at quite early ages. The author never stops to consider that these studies might be examples of culture in action - that by 18 months a child knows that girls play with dolls and boys play with trucks, because of the images on television, they way parents and friends treat her, etc. There no discussion of evolutionary sex roles or cross-cultural ones. Very unsophisticated, just a rehash of mid-century child psychology, and this leads the author to conclude that gender sterotypes are innate and you can't raise a boy who likes dolls? FEH.
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no subject
Date: 2005-06-13 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-06-13 08:03 pm (UTC)Someday I hope to get back into reading in real life.