Mother's Milk: Breastfeeding Controversies in American Culture
Routledge, 2003.
From the Conclusion:
Biomedical
research and related medical practice constitute prominent, culturally significant
sources of representations about the body in contemporary society. Their significance
will only continue to increase as the biological sciences refine their ability
to produce pharmacologically significant substances in the coming years. At
a talk during the recent La Leche League parenting conference in Chicago, global
breastfeeding advocate Ted Greiner commented that researchers were able to produce
“human” milk from genetically modified mice; for Greiner, this advance
meant that breastfeeding advocates could no longer promote maternal nursing
on the basis of breast milk as a substance. It was time, he argued, to promote
breastfeeding as an experience.
Feminist intervention in this area is sorely needed. Feminist scholars should confront, challenge, and work with biomedical discourses about female bodies in order to help to shape the public debates that emerge from biomedical research and practice. Feminist health activism and scholarship on medical institutions and practices continue to pay little attention to breastfeeding. Emphasis is placed on reproductive practices like childbirth and fertility treatments, and on breast cancer and hysterectomies. As is clear from Linda Blum’s assessment of the medical promotion of breast pumps as the technological “fix” to help working mothers continue to breastfeed, feminist discourses about mothers’ right to work can be appropriated for purposes that may be at odds with feminist goals. But biomedical discourses can also be utilized by feminists to change the terrain of public debates about maternity, women’s roles, and women’s rights. Disembodying mothers is at best an ambivalent advance for feminism, even if many women find that this is the only way to participate in waged labor and motherhood simultaneously. Biomedical research about the biological benefits of breastfeeding could serve as a basis for arguing for other sorts of provisions for mothers, provisions that acknowledge the unique embodiment of lactation.
Other publications by Bernice L. Hausman on this topic:
"Between Science and Nature: Interpreting Lactation Failure in Elizabeth von Arnim's the Pastor's Wife," Journal of Medical Humanities 20, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 101-115.
“Rational Management: Medical Authority and Ideological Conflict in Ruth Lawrence’s Breastfeeding: A Guide for the Medical Profession.” Technical Communication Quarterly 9.3 (Summer 2000): 271-89.
"The Feminist Politics of Breastfeeding." Australian Feminist Studies 19.45 (November 2004): 273-85.