A great event happened in modern China, which was so great that the whole history of China was bound by it. It used to be ancient, but later it became modern. This is the Opium War. We are all familiar with the impact of the Opium War on China and even the whole of Asia, so I won't go into details here. I just want to emphasize that the Opium War and various wars and international conflicts that lasted for half a century have also changed the concept of parenting in the mainstream society of China.
What the male elites didn't expect was that the law forbade corsets, subjectively to serve the young men in the future, but objectively aroused women's sense of physical autonomy and changed their aesthetic habits. Many of them, in the near future, refuse to breastfeed their babies in order to stay healthy. Of course, this change in aesthetic habits is the result of the joint action of many forces. For example, at the end of 19 10, the famous painter Liu Haisu advocated female nude model sketching, emphasizing the curvaceous beauty of female body. Ruan is a famous movie star in Shanghai. She often wears a bra to add color to her flat chest. At the same time, emerging sexual research claims that the key to women's beauty lies in their slightly larger hips and protruding breasts, which are now called "protruding forward and backward". On the contrary, a thin flat chest is less likely to attract the opposite sex. I totally disagree with this biased aesthetic. However, from this period of history, the joint promotion of artists, movie stars, scholars and clothing merchants, coupled with the illustrated rendering in Pictorial, has indeed made the message that "the key to women's beauty lies in curves" widely circulated in society. In order to keep the nipples beautiful, women refuse to breastfeed. Some people even claim that the only secret of a woman's youth and beauty is that she can't breastfeed her children.
Teacher Lu wants to emphasize that if a new product wants to enter the market successfully, it must be keenly combined with the ideas and social needs at that time. This is what milk powder manufacturers did, not only to actively attract women with breastfeeding pressure, but also to cater to the trend of the times at that time. This is definitely a very successful marketing, because in the next 100 years, drinking milk and milk powder has become an accepted concept of the whole society, and dairy products have turned around in a gorgeous way, becoming a just need of the whole society.
1924 The women's magazine published an article signed by Xia, expressing her daughter's feelings when she was weaned. Xia claimed to have read her daughter's classics, four books on women's books and biographies since childhood, but she just didn't want to be a "good wife and mother". She went to Shanghai from Qingdao to study and became a day student majoring in literature in normal schools. She was afraid of neglecting her studies because of love, so she moved to the school dormitory. But I accidentally got pregnant. After the baby is born, Xia wants to hire a wet nurse, but she is ambivalent. In the article, she used four interrogative sentences in succession to express her very tangled feelings. The following is the original text, read to everyone: She said: "A piece of meat is born, and breastfeeding needs people. Can I be a female student without her? " But am I not an ambitious female student? Isn't it just silently driving away the children at home? Hire a maid, give the child to her, and I will go my own way; Hey, ask yourself, how is that possible? "Yes, how is that possible! These four question marks roll in my heart every time, which makes me uneasy. A hundred years ago, women had to make a difficult choice between being a mother and being an independent woman, but this dilemma is still familiar to many women today.
The competition between milk powder and breast milk still exists, but the market and people have changed. Now milk powder manufacturers are aiming at the vast rural areas. This part is exactly what the author did not discuss. I want to add something here. In May, 20021,Caixin Weekly published a series of reports, showing the use of milk powder in rural areas. The title of one of the heavy articles is "In rural areas, milk powder is expelling breast milk". What do you mean? The World Health Organization has been calling on mothers to ensure exclusive breastfeeding for at least six months. However, in recent years, in China, a large number of milk powder enterprises have promoted "milk powder is more nutritious" in rural areas by means of publicity and marketing, inducing young mothers to give up breastfeeding and encouraging their children to buy canned milk powder. After reading this report and picking up this book, I was surprised to find that there are so many overlaps between reality and history on the topic of milk powder. First of all, the money to buy milk powder still consumes a considerable part of the income of many families, but it was in a big city like Shanghai 80 or 90 years ago, and now it is in the vast rural areas. Secondly, although scientists have reached a consensus that breast milk is the most important for babies, the propaganda discourse that milk powder is more nutritious is still very popular. Young mothers in rural areas are unable to express their ideas under the powerful advertising offensive and are in a state of aphasia. Or simply confused by the glamorous baby image in the advertisement, thinking that no matter what milk powder is better than your own breast milk. But in any case, the war between milk powder and breast milk, from 1920s to today, has lasted for a hundred years and should continue in the foreseeable future.
Breast milk and milk. The history of breastfeeding tells us that whether or not to breastfeed children is related to China people's eating habits, family inheritance, women's status and so on. It has always been a complicated social and cultural problem. In modern times, the addition of milk and milk powder makes women have more possibilities for self-development, but it also poses new challenges. From the history of milk powder, we can also see that the success of a product has never been just about working hard on the product itself, but must rely entirely on cultural concepts, social transformation, consumer demand and old industry habits, and the whole industry chain will fight for the market. Once such a product is successful, it will not be easily eliminated, because it has been embedded in society and become an indispensable part of society.