Biased against breastfeeding

Tom Jacobs at Miller-McCune writes about a study out of Oxford University that shows that, while breast-fed babies fair better at school, the number of American women who choose to breastfeed is "stagnant and low."

The reason? Apparently, breastfeeding women are judged more harshly:

Research just published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin reports mothers who breastfeed are widely viewed as less competent than otherwise identical females. This disturbing finding was obtained in three separate studies, one of which also found breastfeeding is a handicap for women hoping to be hired for a job.

“Importantly, we did not find evidence that gender of the participant influenced perceptions of the breastfeeding mother,” notes the research team led by Montana State University psychologist Jessi L. Smith.

Read this article here: http://www.insidecatholic.com/myblog/biased-against-breastfeeding.html