Is Breast Best?

“Wolf offers a powerful and important cultural critique…this is an insightful and eye-opening book that will be of interest to sociologists of gender, medical sociologists, and science studies scholars.” - American Journal of Sociology “Wolf notes the ‘insular and unidimensional zealotry’ of breastfeeding campaigners and skillfully uncovers elements of racism and elitism in their behavior toward working women who do not have the luxury to breastfeed.” - Choice “Beautifully written, powerfully argued… Challenges the science prescription that all infants must be breastfed.” Linda Blum, author of At the Breast: Ideologies of Breastfeeding and Motherhood in the Contemporary United States “Instead of disputing the science about the chemical makeup of breast milk … she (Wolf) posits that the benefits most people associate with breast-feeding studies cannot be separated from the fact that mothers who breast-feed may be more attuned to health and may take more precautions about hygiene … Wolf rightfully contends that in the government’s and advocate’s zeal to increase the numbers of breast-fed babies, they have vastly discounted the harsh realities of breast-feeding in a modern world” -Tara A. Trower, Statesman.com “Wolf confronts the stereotypes of ideal motherhood and explains how public health campaigns and advocacy groups have relied on flawed infant-feeding research to exaggerate any health risks associated with using infant formula.” Texas A & M University News,tamunews.tamu.edu

Joan B. Wolf is Associate Professor of Women’s Studies at Texas A&M University and author of Harnessing the Holocaust: The Politics of Memory in France.