Making Milk and Money: Contemporary Mothers' Orientations to Breastfeeding and Work. Issue 4 (28th October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Johnson, Katherine M.
• Is Part Of: Sociological forum. Volume 34:Issue 4(2019)
• Page Start: 883
• Page End: 903
• Publication Date: 2019-10-28
• Subjects: breastfeeding -- gender -- infant feeding -- motherhood -- parenting -- work and family; Sociology -- Periodicals; 301
• DOI: 10.1111/socf.12557
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0884-8971

Abstract

Abstract : In most Western industrial nations, gains have been made in women's educational and occupational opportunities as part of a larger gender revolution. At the same time, contemporary mothering expectations have expanded and intensified, especially the renewed focus on breastfeeding as the "optimal" choice for infant feeding. How do women perceive the simultaneous pursuit of these activities? Prior scholarship has identified tensions in cultural models of breastfeeding as well as in women's subjective experiences, emphasizing how breastfeeding is shaped and encountered through sociocultural context, especially ideologies that position work and mothering as incompatible. Building on this, I examine how the current generation of working mothers view working and breastfeeding. Through in‐depth interviews with 32 U.S. women, I show how women espouse distinctly different orientations to breastfeeding: instrumentalist, quasi‐maternalist, and pragmatist. I argue that these different orientations both reflect and reframe existing cultural models and discourses about contemporary women's relationships to work, mothering, and breastfeeding.