Feminism, Breasts and Breast-Feeding

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. The Great Breast-Feeding Question

   • Pam Carter

   Pages 1-33

3. A Tidal Wave of Good Advice

   • Pam Carter

   Pages 34-70

4. Infant Feeding in Women’s Lives

   • Pam Carter

   Pages 71-105

5. Public Space and Private Bodies

   • Pam Carter

   Pages 106-132

6. Breast-feeding, Sex and Bodies

   • Pam Carter

   Pages 133-160

7. ‘She Said the Baby Belonged to the State’: Health Professionals and Mothering

   • Pam Carter

   Pages 161-188

8. Control and Resistance in Infant Feeding Regimes

   • Pam Carter

   Pages 189-213

9. Feminism and Infant Feeding: Theory and Policy

   • Pam Carter

   Pages 214-240

10. Back Matter

    Pages 241-266

    PDF

This book uses a feminist approach to examine the vast amount of material on breast-feeding. Baby milk manufacture is usually seen as the sole cause of the decline in breast-feeding. Using interviews with women the author looks at other dimensions: the sexualization of breasts; the conditions under which infant feeding takes place and professional interventions into mothering. Policy documents and popular breast-feeding books are shown to be preoccupied with getting women to do what they deem natural rather than with women's real needs.

• feminism
• health
• intervention
• interview
• state
• women

• Sociology Division, University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

  Pam Carter

PAM CARTER is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Women's Studies at the University of Northumbria. She has published in the fields of social work and education and is currently engaged in research on sexuality in higher education.

Policies and ethics