Price: $34.95
Page Count: 272
Publication Date: March 2020
ISBN: 978-1-77258-217-8
Breasts are integral to mothers’ bodies; over the life course, they can swell, droop, be judged, be aroused, lactate, be altered, be removed. A woman’s own breasts may be foremost in her mind during some life events, only to recede into the background at other times. Breasts are complex; they are enveloped by larger cultural meanings that go far beyond their mammary gland function, and we cannot fully understand breasts without examining the myriad discourses surrounding them. Social policies, cultural norms, and interpersonal interactions all help construct localized breast discourses which, in turn, shape mothers’ breast experiences. Through examining commonalities and differences over the lifespan, we can see that women’s breast experiences inform us about the social conditions in which women live their lives.
The chapters in this volume bring together perspectives from Spain, Brazil, Canada, and the United States, among other countries. They include historical and contemporary examinations, and feature diverse types of writing such as first-person narrative accounts, academic interviews, and art analyses. Contributors come from an array of fields including nursing, sociology, English, art history, and psychology. Each chapter offers readers a unique context for understanding how temporally- and geographically-situated breast understandings shape mothers’ personal breast views and breast-related body practices. Taken together, the chapters in this edited collection reveal the significant ways that societies shape mothers’ embodied experiences and breasted selves.
Breasts Across Motherhood stands as an important and engaging contribution to literature on embodiment. Throughout, the collection challenges medicalization, hyper-sexualization, and shaming related to the breast, and offers in their place intellectually rigorous argument, intimate narrative, and calls for celebration.
—Dr. Jen Rinaldi, Legal Studies, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Breasts Across Motherhood is rich with diverse insights into the stigmas, realities, and expectations around what breasts mean to mothers, their offspring, and the many parts of society that influence attitudes and outcomes. This exploration of how breasts are seen across motherhood in different regions and situations provides a unique and essential angle from which to understand women and children’s rights and roles across cultures. Renée E. Mazinegiizhigoo-kwe Bédard’s essay on the sacredness of Anishinaabeg mothers’ breasts, for example, offers deep insight into one cultural approach and its effects. Breasts Across Motherhood’s explorations of public breastfeeding and societal norms, and consideration of issues such as foster/adoptive mothers and their breasts and breastfeeding options, highlight contemporary biases that, ultimately, affect everyone. The diversity of subjects and approaches in this collection, paired with reflective and often touching first-hand accounts, makes for compelling and thought-provoking reading for anyone interested in gender studies, human rights, or the value we place on the well-being of both parents and children.
—Anita Dolman, fiction writer, poet and editor; co-editor, Motherhood in Precarious Times; and author, Lost Enough: A collection of short stories
This is a fascinating book that inspires readers to examine what they think they know about motherhood. Not only is it an informative and entertaining read, I can also see using it in both undergraduate and graduate level courses and referring to it in my own research.
-- Danielle Duckett, PhD, Department of Sociology, California State University Sacramento
Introduction
Patricia Drew
Rosann Edwards
11
Part One
Discourses Surrounding Mothers’ Breasts
31
Chapter One
Breasts: From Functional to Sexualized
Lisa Sharik
33
Chapter Two
The Madonna’s Breast and the Surprise of the Real:
From Ideal to Embodied
Jessica M. Rodríguez Colón
43
Chapter Three
“The Body for Someone Else”:
Mothers’ Breasts in Brazilian Probreastfeeding Discourses
Irene Rocha Kalil and Adriana Cavalcanti de Aguiar
53
Chapter Four
Public Breastfeeding as a Scandalous Practice
MATER Association (Serena Brigidi, Marta Ausona, and Laura Cardús) and LactApp (Maria Berruezo and Alba Padró)
71
8
BREASTS ACROSS MOTHERHOOD
Chapter Five
Tongue Tied:
Medicalization of the Mouth-to-Breast Latch
Kristin J. Wilson and Wendy Simonds
81
Part Two
Early Motherhood Narratives
95
Chapter Six
The Story of My Breasts
Erica Cavanagh
97
Chapter Seven
A Manifesto on the Sacredness of Anishinaabeg
Mothers’ Breasts
Renée E. Mazinegiizhigoo-kwe Bédard
109
Chapter Eight
The Professor’s Breasts: An Alphabetical Guide to
Academic Motherhood and Breastfeeding
Robin Silbergleid
123
Chapter Nine
My Breasts, My Authenticity
Lara Americo
143
Chapter Ten
Going Beyond the Guideline:
Breastfeeding with HIV
Jessica Whitbread and Saara Greene
147
9
CONTENTS
Chapter Eleven
Breasts, Health, and Foster Adoption:
When Breastfeeding Is Considered Sexual Abuse
Debra Guckenheimer
169
Chapter Twelve
Breast Work: My Breasts Deserve A Trip to Hawaii
for All the Work They’ve Done Nursing
Catherine Ma
179
Chapter Thirteen
Older First-Time Moms: Breastfeeding and Finding Their Own Paths
Rosann Edwards
193
Part Three
Breasts in Later Motherhood
207
Chapter Fourteen
Intergenerational Breasts:
Breast Reduction Surgery Patients and Family Breast Talk
Patricia Drew
209
Chapter Fifteen
My Breast Reduction Surgery
Heather Jackson
223
Chapter Sixteen
A Comparative Analysis of Breast Reconstruction
Postmastectomy: German and American Perspectives
Alina Engelman
233
10
BREASTS ACROSS MOTHERHOOD
Chapter Seventeen
Unsent Letters: 1992–2020
Catalina Florina Florescu
243
Chapter Eighteen
Future Breasts, Future Selves: Midlife Women’s Thoughts
Rosann Edwards and Patricia Drew
257
Notes on Contributors
261
Patricia Drew is Associate Professor of Human Development and Women’s Studies at California State University, East Bay. Dr. Drew’s research examines the intersection of health and identity, including studies of identity transformation in weight loss surgery patients, mothers who undergo post-partum breast reduction surgery, and gender messages in the media.
Rosann Edwards holds a PhD in Nursing from the University of Ottawa, a front-line public health nurse, lactation consultant, third degree black belt, and mother of boys. Rosann’s publications analyze breastfeeding among vulnerable populations and, also, older, first-time mothers’ breastfeeding experiences and transitions to motherhood.
