Breastfeeding, ‘tainted’ love, and femmephobia: containing the ‘dirty’ performances of embodied femininity

ABSTRACT

In this conceptual analysis, we theorise breastfeeding as an embodied ‘dirty’ performance of femininity and draw on Hoskin’s (2019a) work on femme theory to propose that women who breastfeed in public, who do so for an ‘extended’ time, and who enjoy it are subject to femmephobic attacks. We integrate three streams of literature to unsettle the ‘taint’ of breastfeeding. We first theorise breastfeeding as an act of femininity where women perform gender trouble in line with Butler's work. We also draw on Douglas’ work on ‘dirt’ and Rivera’s work on emotional ‘dirty’ work to theorise that ‘taint’ is one way in which society stigmatises the phenomenon of breastfeeding. Specifically, we propose that embodied breastfeeding evokes ‘tainted’ emotions. We then draw on Schippers’ work on ‘containing’ pariah forms of femininity (lest they ‘contaminate’ patriarchy) by showing how femmephobic stigmatisation limits breastfeeding women’s corporeality and presence in shared spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Breastfeeding
• femininity
• femmephobia
• dirt
• embodiment

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Breastfeeding beyond 12 months is considered ‘extended’ breastfeeding (Brockway & Venturato, 2016).

2. Not all women breastfeed, and it is not only cis-gender women who breastfeed; non-binary and trans* persons can also breastfeed or chestfeed. Yet, studies exploring the phenomenon of chestfeeding are extremely limited (e.g. Riggs, 2013) – even those coming from a medical ‘lactation’ perspective (e.g. García-Acosta, Juan-Valdivia, Fernández-Martínez, Lorenzo-Rocha, & Castro-Peraza, 2020; Jaslar, 2018). We, therefore, urgently call for researchers to explore the phenomenon of chestfeeding and, simultaneously, acknowledge that what we discuss in this paper focuses primarily on the experiences of cis-gender women. Recently, there has also been an interest in cis-gender men breastfeeding. For example, the tech firm Dentsu developed a Father’s Nursing Assistant (Marcoux, 2019) that can be worn to allow men to breastfeed and Marie-Claire Springham won the Meaning Centred Design Awards’ (2018, pe1) Grand Title Trophy for her chestfeeding device that ‘deserves particular attention because it challenges the fundamental meanings of male and female, father and mother, parent and child’.

3. According to the New York Post, being a mother is the equivalent of working 2.5 jobs (Welch, 2018.)

4. See Melk in de meterkast photo project: http://www.floorfortunati.nl/portfolio/photos/melk-in-de-meterkast/.

Additional information

Funding

There are no sources of funding to declare

Notes on contributors

Lilith A. Whiley

Lilith is a senior lecturer at Kingston Business School. Her inter-disciplinary research interests bring together Occupational Psychology and Human Resource Management primarily from a critical perspective.

Sarah Stutterheim

Sarah is an assistant professor at the Department of Work and Social Psychology. Her research is mixed-method and focuses primarily on social stigma and its effects, particularly among vulnerable groups.

Gina Grandy

Gina is a professor and dean at Hill and Levene Schools of Business. Her primary research interests are in leadership, gender, stigma, and identity.