Regulating Milk: Women and Cows in France and the United States

Take politics off the table: A study of Italian youth’s self-managed dairy restriction and healthy consumerism

“…This result is not related to the theses of movements that are critical to the consumption of milk and dairy products. Vegan ideas are known only by a small number of respondents; however, we argue that this is linked with the previous decades that have claimed children and adolescents benefit more from milk than do adults (Cohen, 2017; Daftary, 2019). Self-diagnosis plays a major role, and general practitioners are not essential figures for guidance in dietary decision-making.…”

“…In the past, milk was a fundamental right, an essential and key component of any healthy diet that was promoted by the state, international organizations, local governments, and philanthropic bodies. Today, the withdrawal of public investments in dairy consumption schemes, the decrease in fluid milk consumption as a beverage, a return to breast milk – which is perceived as safer and healthier than cow’s milk – and the anti-species criticism against animal exploitation and cattle diseases (Cohen, 2017) all seem to point to a very different structure of citizens’ attitudes towards lactose-based food. Surprisingly, this supposed new attitude structure has not been analyzed by population segments.…”

Missing Microbes and Other Gendered Microbiopolitics in Bovine Fermentation

“…While research that directly links the milk microbiota of humans and cows is novel, gendered relations are at the root of even eighteenth-century orderings of human and bovine bodies together. From Linnaeus's development of the class Mammalia out of the reproductive capacities of female bodies (Schiebinger 1993) to the metaphorical usage of "cow" for women (Dunayer 1995), from historic instances of gendered dairy production (Kaarlenkaski 2018) to the mid-nineteenth-century use of cow milk as a substitute for breast milk (Cohen 2017), metaphorical and material practices tie bovine and human bodies together. While the gendering of cow bodies through attachment to human bodies has been written about extensively, one unique contribution of this paper is its attention to the gendered nature of the bovine milk microbiota, which I do first through a discussion of the treatment of bovine bodies as simultaneously sexed and unsexed in productive practices and, second, in explaining how and why this form of gendering comes to matter for bovine microbes.…”

“…To return to the issue of microbial exchange, one result of the come lately approach to the bovine milk microbiota is that the models of the entero-mammary pathway come from other mammalian bodies (mostly humans and mice) despite the differences in the lactational physiology between humans, rodents, and ruminants. 7 The development of reproductive technologies is again useful for thinking about the directionality of milk microbiota research, the manner in which sex and gender are inextricably bound to production and reproduction, the manner in which these technologies assist in the decoupling of sex and reproduction (Cohen 2017), and especially the reversal of animal to human modeling. Accompanied by the professionalization of new forms of expertise, knowledge, and control, dynamics developed during the industrialization of animal husbandry that were applied to human fertility, making it less thinkable for "transfer[s] in the opposite direction [to be] discussed" (Gaudillière 2007:523).…”

The World Health Organization has Global Guidelines on Handling Cells, Tissue, Blood and Semen-- So Why is Breast Milk Left in the Dark?

“…This also extends to non-binary or non-gender identifying couples, or single fathers. (35) Lastly, there are several "wholesome" or "natural" food movements contributing to a preference for "natural" breast milk over "artificial" infant formulas. (17) For those parents with the resources to choose, many are opting for donated human milk rather than formulas derived from plants grown with pesticides and fertilizers.…”