Tags
breastfeeding, employment, jobs, motherhood, prejudice, research
This article really surprised me, but I suppose it shouldn’t:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110415104546.htm
According to this American research study, people perceive breastfeeding mothers as being less competent than other people. They are less likely to hire someone whom they know happens to be a breastfeeding mother.
What’s more, this bias was equally distributed between men and women – which means that other women are also less likely to hire a breastfeeding mother.
Mental note: don’t mention breastfeeding during job interviews.
Where do you suppose this prejudice spring from?
If By Yes 
Weirdly related. My american cousin had twins 6 weeks ago and goes back to work next week. I couldn’t believe her maternity was so short!
I can’t imagine. I’m so glad I’m not American – I even feel like a year isn’t long enough!
It’s a leftover prejudice from our parents’ era. Every 30 years or so the pendulum swings on this. A few decades back, formula was a way of freeing women so they could be independent and out of the house.
Give it a few years and that will change.
Honestly, I found everything about that article irritating. I think that feeding another human solely with milk created from your own body could be the definition of competence. People put so much weight on your performance in the workplace, but what about your performance in parenting? You know… sustaining the life of another human. And what about your competence in nurturing them, keeping them from killing themselves (because I feel like that is 75% of my job some days) and helping them grow and develop into adults?
I think the “scientists” who “researched” these women’s “competence” would find me exceedingly competent at telling them the specific orifice into which they could jam their results. Wow. I’m all cranky today. Must be the residual from when I breastfed two children. I’m going to go eat a cookie.
Excellent attitude!!! What kind of cookie?
You might misunderstand slightly. They didn’t find breastfeeding women to BE incompetent, they found that people BELIEVED breastfeeding women to be incompetent. This was not a measure of actual competence. Just people’s perceptions of breastfeeding women.
Which isn’t better, but at least it means that the researchers aren’t jerks.
I agree with you that breastfeeding is highly competent parenting. So why do people believe otherwise, I wonder?
Oh, I thought that I read that they scored low on testing in general competency and math. I speed read though, so I sometimes don’t quite catch things right. Honestly, sometimes I just need a good rant. 🙂
Gluten free chocolate chip was the cookie, by the way.
Mmmmmmmmmm. Chocolate.
Yeah, well, the rant is still valid because PEOPLE STILL THINK THAT WAY. Oy.
I looked at the original study (http://psp.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/03/18/0146167211401629.full.pdf+html) and the introduction was pretty horrifying: a summary of the objectification and devaluing of childbearing women!! Not surprising, but still disturbing. Interesting to note that anyone WITH children was excluded from the study. So, nobody with breastfeeding experience.
I can’t imagine going back to work after six weeks, but some people have to do it. I was very lucky. I quit my job at the end of 4 months maternity leave and went back to work part-time when Thing One was 9 months old because my husband lost his job and I was recruited for one (so, at least he was home with her). Then after Thing Two was born I took six months off (both leaves unpaid), and went back to work part-time. FYI, I breastfed Thing One for 15 months and Thing Two for 24.
Well done, you!
Interesting that they excluded actual parents from the study.
Yeah, wouldn’t that really invalidate the whole study? It can’t be seen as [oh I forget the term] because … well, they’ve not used a correct sample of the population. If they exclude people who have children, then … well yeah, the responses are likely to be skewed. Unless the study was specifically to be breastfeeding bias amongst people who haven’t had children.
I think it’s ludicrous that breastfeeding women should be “less capable” than someone feeding from a bottle. Breastmilk is full of good stuff for a child’s immune system, so breastfeeding (if the woman is physically capable – not all women are) is actually really positive. But there you go. Would be interesting to see what the study would say in other parts of the world!
I had to leave my oldest daughter at daycare when she was six weeks old. It sucked. It really and truly sucked.
Jessica summed up my thoughts, although it saddens me that so many YOUNG people have this attitude too. We’ve really become a superficial society lately, and it’s kinda scary. I fear breastfeeding may actually become extinct in the Western wold eventually. That makes me very sad.
No, I think Jess is right and it’s definitely on the upswing. But it’s going to take many years to erase this disgust with female traits.
I hope you’re right. I really do.
I’d be curious to see this study recreated in Canada, western Europe, or Australasia – I would expect (hope?) that the results would be different given the different cultural perspectives about body-image in general.
I bet it totally wouldn’t exist in Africa or other places where breasts are not sexualized.
The hell? That is so weird. I agree that it is a holdover from when formula = freedom and the very best that science had to offer. Only the uneducated would still continue to use the “old model.”
I guess, sadly, those people still make up a majority.
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