Table Of ContentFeminism, Breasts and
Breast-Feeding
Pam Carter
FEMINISM, BREASTS AND BREAST-FEEDING
Also by Pam Carter
CHANGING SOCIAL WORK AND WELFARE (editor with T. Jeffs
and M. K. Smith)
SOCIAL WORKING (editor with T. Jeffs and M. K. Smith)
Feminism, Breasts and
Breast-Feeding
Pam Carter
Senior Lecturer, Sociology Division
University of Northumbria
Newcastle upon Tyne
Foreword by Mary Evans
Consultant Editor: Jo Campling
© Pamela Carter 1995
Foreword © Mary Evans 1995
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Contents
Foreword by Mary Evans Vll
Acknowledgements IX
1 The Great Breast-feeding Question 1
Infant feeding: mainstream policy concerns 1
Change or continuity? 5
But why don't they breast-feed? 7
Women's lived experiences of infant feeding:
the missing dimension? 11
Feminism and breast-feeding 14
Feminism and reproduction 17
Social contexts and infant feeding 21
Which feminism? 24
Sexual difference versus gender neutrality 27
The category of women 32
Conclusion 32
2 A Tidal Wave of Good Advice 34
Infant feeding before 1900 35
Ignorance and carelessness 1900-18 41
i. Infant welfare movements 43
ii. Support for motherhood 46
iii. Infant feeding and medicalization 48
Between the wars: the politics of femininity 49
World War Two: putting milk into babies 54
1945-1970: housewives and mothers:
a job to be done 56
1970 to the present: breast-feeding centre stage 59
Current literature and debate 62
3 Infant Feeding in Women's Lives 71
Breast and bottle feeding 'categories' 73
Coping with the 'working conditions' 78
Are 'breast-feeders' different? 88
Continuity and change: what is a generation? 89
Different memories: Asian women's stories 95
Conclusions 100
v
vi Contents
4 Public Space and Private Bodies 106
Managing women's bodies 106
Sexualizing private and public space 115
Time, space and women's work 121
Rethinking private/public boundaries:
the concept of femininity 127
5 Breast-feeding, Sex and Bodies 133
Sexuality in the breast-feeding literature 135
Women's experiences of their bodies 140
Breasts and discourses of sexuality 149
Creating alternative discourses of sexuality 154
6 'She said the baby belonged to the state':
Health Professionals and Mothering 161
Professional interventions in infant feeding 162
Femininity and the semi-professions 172
Medicalization and infant feeding experiences 179
Current professional thinking 183
7 Control and Resistance in Infant Feeding Regimes 189
Discourses of infant feeding 190
Forms of resistance 197
Women's stories 199
Feminism, breast-feeding and resistance 211
8 Feminism and Infant Feeding: Theory and Policy 214
Summary of main arguments 214
Is choice between breast-feeding and bottle feeding
enough? 221
Theoretical conclusions: the sexual difference
versus gender neutrality debate 227
Policy and practice conclusions: strategies for
change 234
Concluding comments 239
Bibliography 241
Name Index 260
Subject Index 264
Foreword
Once upon a time all babies in Western s'ocieties were breast
fed. They were not, as every reader of eighteenth- and nine
teenth-century literature knows, necessarily fed hy their
mothers, but the human breast was the sole source of in
fant feeding. Today, what was universal has become the choice
of a minority of mothers. The word 'choice' is central here:
what is now taken for granted is that mothers should choose
how to feed their babies rather than simply accepting what
is naturally given, and possible.
Thus in the context of discussions of breast-feeding the
idea of 'a woman's right to choose' becomes a complex,
and paradoxical, idea. In one sense, most people would
probably defend the possibility of bottle-feeding; after all,
hreast-feeding is not necessarily positive for the mother, nor
is it always necessarily feasible. On the other hand, power
ful lobhies in favour of breast-feeding argue its value for
infants and point out the vast commercial interests at stake
in the maintenance and continuation of bottle-feeding. Those
commercial giants who sell powdered infant food in the non
industrial world implicitly export, this thesis points out,
dangers to children through the use of polluted water sup
plies and a further dislocation of traditional feeding and
eating patterns.
It is in the context of these debates that Pam Carter's
study is such a welcome addition to the literature, since what
she does is to demonstrate that even the apparently simple
and essential issue of feeding infants is part of political de
hates about the status and role of women, and the general
politicisation of the body. We could, therefore, 'read' the
rejection of breast-feeding by many V\Testern women as com
plicity with commercial interests, but in doing so we would
ignore the powerful argument which suggests that in reject
ing breast-feeding women may he refusing the endless re
sponsibility for feeding others which culture assigns to them.
Equally, we have to consider that deeply felt emotions are
at stake in feeding, and that the sexualization of the breast
VII
VIll Foreword
by adults fits uneasily, to say the least, with infant needs
and demands.
Of all the many instances of the body as a locus ,of politi
cal struggle, the debates about the breast, and breast-feed
ing, provide one of the clearest examples of the fragmentation
of the body which is part of Western, twentieth-century,
experience. Thus the female body as a site of adult hetero
sexual pleasure is divorced from that body as a source of
infant pleasure and gratification. The women interviewed
by Pam Carter, and whose experiences attest to the diverse
pressures about the body experienced by women, demon
strated that they were often distanced from the construc
tion of their bodies as anything other than a resource in
heterosexual relationships. But the crucial issue is then -
and here Pam Carter strikes a radical and important note -
to investigate the cause of this limitation and alienation. It
is not, as she rightly says, that women simply collude with
male sexual fantasies about the breast which exclude real
infaRts, rather than the infant in men. Rather, that women
are engaged in a complex negotiation about the control
and autonomy of their bodies. All too often, and sadly, the
pressures on women are such that the infant is excluded
from the mother's body. It is not, therefore, that only lit
eral loss is involved, but equally metaphorical loss of the
experience and understanding of the female body as essen
tially different, autonomous and empowering. Regaining and
maintaining that sense of female possibility is part of the
project of feminism; within that context Pam Carter's sym
pathetic and woman-friendly study illuminates the strategies
for constructing and extending real choices about the most
basic of human needs.
University of Kent at Canterbury MARY EVANS
Acknowledgemen ts
There are a number of people to thank for their help in
the production of this book. Mary Mellor and Jeffrey Weeks
were encouraging and thoughtful in supervising the research
on which it is based. Mary Evans and Michelle Stanworth
gave me interesting comments which I have tried to utilise.
Thanks also to .10 Campling for enabling the book to be
come a reality, and to Chris Johnson for being so positive.
Special thanks must go to Angela Everitt who has been
unflaggingly enthusiastic even when I've been a bit daunted
myself. Jake Carter played an unintentional and unconscious
part in my recognition that breast-feeding was not as straight
forward as it might seem. Thanks also to Jake and to William
Everitt and Sarah Everitt for believing that book writing is
just another household chore.
I am also grateful to the women who shared their experi
ences with me during the research. Interviewing them was
probably the most enjoyable bit of the whole process.
PAM CARTER
IX
