Got Milk?: Breastfeeding as an 'Incurably Informed' Feminist STS Scholar
- ASU Author/Contributor (non-ASU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Martha McCaughey Ph.D., Professor (Creator)
- Institution
- Appalachian State University (ASU )
- Web Site: https://library.appstate.edu/
Abstract: 'Got Milk?' considers the author's own commitment to and experience of breastfeeding as a mother/intellectual, examining ways of theorizing embodiment and complex bio-social practices while also showing just how complicated living/ embodying feminist STS theory can be. Many breastfeeding advocates are naive about nature, technology, and gender issues, and many feminist STS scholars focus on the pregnant body, rather than the lactating body, to discuss gender, technology, and embodiment. Pro-breastfeeding materials often represent breastfeeding as an organic practice free from the intervention of medical experts and technologies. The author's experiences of the physical difficulties of breastfeeding, the management of breastfeeding by medical experts, the lack of social support for the practice, and the lack of a non-essentialist feminist discourse about the importance of breastfeeding left her wondering on what grounds she could and should justify her commitment to breastfeed her children. Ultimately, recognizing that breastfeeding is an embodied practice that is not free from technological intervention or other social and political contexts can counteract the romanticized, essentialized representations of breastfeeding for a stronger, if more contingent, 'cyborg' breastfeeding advocacy.
Got Milk?: Breastfeeding as an 'Incurably Informed' Feminist STS Scholar
PDF (Portable Document Format)
307 KB
Created on 12/8/2014
Views: 3072
Additional Information
- Publication
- McCaughey, Martha. (2010) “Got Milk? Breastfeeding as an ‘Incurably Informed’ Feminist STS Scholar,” in Science As Culture 19:1: 79-100. (ISSN: 0950-5431) This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/09505430903557940 (March 2010)
- Language: English
- Date: 2010