In a bid to see whether financial incentive could overcome cultural resistance, researchers at Sheffield University are to offer 130 mothers in Yorkshire and Derbyshire up to £200 (in shopping vouchers) if they breastfeed. This will be piloted in areas where breastfeeding rates are below the national average, involving women (from "young, white, low-income areas") who probably weren't breastfed themselves and are too embarrassed to breastfeed in public or even at home.
Personally, I'm jumpy about the idea that anyone could or should be bribed, sorry, incentivised, into breastfeeding, but first: would it be too much to ask for people to lay off women's breasts generally?
I've long pondered that there must be a period somewhere between Midsomer Murders and death when a grown woman's mammaries are not automatically considered community property. Before that, there's sexualisation ("Stop looking at my breasts!"), non-sexualisation ("Please, I beg you, look at my breasts!"). Then there is motherhood, where women are criticised for public breastfeeding (all the under-jumper guzzling putting people off their caramel mochas) or, indeed, not breastfeeding "as nature intended". Surely people need to accept that a woman's breasts belong to her alone and hence she can do with them whatever she wishes (breastfeed, not breastfeed, attach nipple tassels and twirl). It really is just up to her.
By the same token, most mothers can be trusted to make up their own minds about breastfeeding and this usually happens before the baby arrives. After which, it's as if they've signed up to some lactating/non-lactating UN treaty, and "financial incentives" (however exciting the shopping token!) aren't going to make any difference. In my experience, it truly is this polarised – you really couldn't pay non-breastfeeders to do it and neither could you pay breastfeeders to stop doing it (or, in certain cases, shut up about it).
As it happens, women have myriad reasons for not breastfeeding. Some simply don't want to. Others don't produce enough milk or find it too painful (anyone pooh-poohing the idea of cracked nipples, please put two hot coals down your top and go down a playground slide front first before commenting further). Moreover, a woman might be the main breadwinner, need to get back to work and, for whatever reason, expressing isn't an option.
Motherhood shouldn't just be defined by physically being with the baby; for some women, it's about being away from the baby, earning money to support it. How's that for a financial incentive?
If this initial study is concerned with looking into ways of re-establishing breastfeeding, then it needs to look at all sectors of society, not just the obvious one. While certain communities have lower breastfeeding rates, the whole of Britain is low compared with many other countries. Therefore, might better-off British women be tempted into breastfeeding, maybe with Harvey Nicks vouchers, perhaps an organic veg box or a scented candle – or is it just low-income women who could be thus incentivised?
Call me oversensitive, but this idea of shopping tokens tempting low-income mothers away from their free formula when nothing else would work, reeks of classism – Vicky Pollard selling her baby for a Westlife CD all over again, only this time she's lactating.
Encouraging breastfeeding is one thing, but this idea of bribes feels grubby. Most mothers, rich or poor, already do the best they can for their children, without requiring incentives. There is also the fact that re-popularising breastfeeding in areas where numbers are falling would require priority investment in public health education, as well as sustained support for mothers, for which you need trained midwives (of which there is an ongoing shortage). This is what it would take – costly sustained education and public service investment, not government officials idly waiting to see how Sheffield University gets on with its fistfuls of New Look vouchers.
That's more than enough flaunting for good causes
This is the time of year when the nation expresses its social mores via the medium of nude charity calendars. Glastonbury founder Michael Eavis appears in a Somerset-themed affair, with just a pair of shorts positioned to spare his blushes, or perhaps our own. The effect is somewhat surreal, like stumbling upon an orgy featuring the Wurzels and Old MacDonald.
Isn't it becoming a little wearing that the majority of these calendars play on a single visual joke – that the people disrobing don't have what would be perceived as attractive or sexually appetising bodies, and their nudity is only "acceptable" because it is for charity?
Another calendar, Undressing Disability, confronts the issue of sexuality and disability head on, an honourable objective. Compare this with other nude calendars, which increasingly come across as insulting, patronising and reductive for participants of either sex. A case of: "No one in their right mind would want to see you naked – would you be our Mr July?"
What (uncharitable) message is all this sending out? When the Rylstone WI flashed for cash, it was an interesting moment but, nearly 14 years on, perhaps the charity calendar should put its kit back on.
That Dr Who, isn't he Dalektable?
Increasingly, I feel as though I am committing a huge cultural faux pas by not being obsessed with Dr Who. Apart from an abiding memory of Tom Baker and a long scarf, playground debates about Daleks being unable to go up stairs and periodically feeling that they could at least consider a non-white or female doctor, I just haven't kept up.
I'm not even sure I have time to be a Dr Who fan. You'd have to keep abreast of the regular fanfares as some new Dr Who event occurs (new doctors, companions, foes), as well as remain permanently steeped in nostalgia (old doctors, companions, foes). It looks full on and completely exhausting and most of us have relationships for that.
It's not helped by the fact that fans, especially those who came on board during the resurgent Russell T Davies era, sometimes come across as a tad smug. Not like the nice, self-effacing Trekkies who have endured decades of ribbing about their stick-on Spock ears. Even Star Wars fans don't exhibit such ludicrous airs and graces. It's as if in some nerd pecking order Dr Who fans have placed themselves right at the top without consulting anyone else. It's just one big nerdy power grab – just who do Who fans think they are?
Anyway, it worked. With the anniversary, and Peter Capaldi's appointment as the 12th doctor (Malcolm Tucker uttering profanities throughout time and space, who could resist?), I want in. I'm going to order all the box sets and catch up as quickly as I can. In the meantime, on behalf of all the others who have been left behind by Dr Who, could I plead for a little patience and understanding while we sort out our Krillitanes from our Cybermen?
