‘I had the luxury . . .’: Organizational breastfeeding support as privatized privilege

Abstract

To make the combination of breastfeeding and work feasible, women who return to work full time in the USA need some measure of organizational breastfeeding support. Yet, many organizations do not have lactation policies in place, co-worker and supervisor communication can be discouraging, and predominant cultural Discourses in the US position breastfeeding at odds with organizational values, often requiring women to define and negotiate support themselves. Drawing upon Structuration Theory, we analyzed interviews conducted with US women who breastfed and worked to illuminate the meanings they held for breastfeeding and organizational breastfeeding support and how those meanings challenge and reproduce social systems that make breastfeeding and working a potentially difficult combination. We argue that their construction of breastfeeding support as a privatized privilege re/produces cultural Discourses that marginalize women’s bodies in organizations. In order to engender support for all bodies that challenge the borders between public/private, feminine/masculine and personal/professional, meanings must be changed at both macro and micro levels of communication.

Breastfeeding Bodies: Intimacies at Work

“…Gatrell uses the term ‘maternal body work’ to refer to the work professional women carry out in order to balance care for children and compliance with workplace bodily norms (Gatrell, ). Although some women find ways to integrate work and motherhood, this is often achieved through individualized strategies rather than through organizational policies and practices (Buzzanell et al , ; Gatrell, ; Turner and Norwood, ). For instance, in her study, Gatrell found that mothers either ceased breastfeeding or concealed their breastfeeding activities to comply with workplace requirements (Gatrell, ).…”

Contextualizing online human milk sharing: Structural factors and lactation disparity among middle income women in the U.S.

“…Despite the fact that recent epidemiological trends, such as population-wide increases in obesity, metabolic disorders, mental illness, and mood disorders, appear to have a substantial impact on lactation physiology and breastfeeding outcomes (Mehta et al, 2011;Stuebe et al, 2014aStuebe et al, ,2014b, structural inequalities are still considered the greatest barrier to breastfeeding. In the U.S. the ability to breastfeed as recommended by the AAP is strongly tied to social status and privilege (McCarter-Spaulding, 2008;Turner and Norwood, 2013). For example, returning to work is associated with breastfeeding cessation in the U.S. (Kimbro, 2006).…”

A Phenomenological Investigation of Counseling Doctoral Students Becoming Mothers

“…A family-friendly policy or facility change may be simple, such as lactation rooms on campus, which were suggested by several participants in our study. Turner and Norwood (2014) suggested that national law enforcing lactation rooms at work may be necessary to ensure that such policies are created. Similar to the suggestions from our participants, Lynch (2008) identified affordable, timeflexible, on-campus day care as a potential resource to graduate student mothers.…”