Best for Whom? Experiences of Breastfeeding

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.1332/policypress/9781529207934.003.0004 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 57-72

Author(s):

Patricia Hamilton

Keyword(s):

Public Attitudes ◽

Women’S Experiences ◽

Women's Experiences ◽

Good Mother ◽

Normative Practice ◽

Individual Success

This chapter begins with an analysis of the slogan 'breast is best', which is considered a universal refrain that captures state and public attitudes towards breastfeeding. It looks at the interviews with women that expressed broad support for breastfeeding in varying degrees of individual success and described it as the normative practice of the good mother. It also examines the support for breastfeeding and the tensions it creates for women as they invoke the language of nature to justify its superiority, account for breastfeeding failures, and risk breastfeeding for too long. The chapter explores women's experiences of breastfeeding as evidence of the diversity of socioeconomic circumstances. It expands the predominant thinking around black women's breastfeeding experiences beyond claims that they reject breastfeeding for its risky proximity to nature.

Download Full-text

Leaving violent men: A study of women’s experiences of separation in Victoria, Australia

Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology ◽

10.1177/0004865817746711 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 51 (3) ◽

pp. 339-354 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Crystal Bruton ◽

Danielle Tyson

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Domestic Violence ◽

Public Attitudes ◽

Influencing Factor ◽

Male Partner ◽

Women’S Experiences ◽

Women's Experiences ◽

Decisions To Leave ◽

And Control ◽

The Relationship

Despite decades of feminist efforts to educate the community about, and improve responses to, domestic violence, public attitudes towards domestic violence continue to misunderstand women’s experiences of violence. Underlying such responses is the stock standard question, ‘Why doesn’t she leave?’ This question points to a lack of understanding about the impacts and threat of violence from an abusive partner on women’s decisions to leave the relationship. Moreover, it places sole responsibility for ending the relationship squarely upon women, assuming women are presented with numerous opportunities to leave a violent relationship and erroneously assumes the violence will cease once they do leave. This study explores women’s experiences of separating from an abusive, male partner through women’s narratives (n = 12) in Victoria, Australia. Findings reveal that fear was a complex influencing factor impacting upon women’s decision-making throughout the leaving process. The findings show that women seek to exercise agency within the context of their abusers’ coercively controlling tactics by strategically attempting to manage the constraints placed on their decision-making and partner’s repeated attempts to reassert dominance and control.

Download Full-text

The happiness imperative: Exploring how women narrate depression and anxiety during pregnancy

Feminism & Psychology ◽

10.1177/0959353517735673 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 28 (2) ◽

pp. 173-193 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Aleksandra A Staneva ◽

Britta Wigginton

Keyword(s):

Maternal Identity ◽

Depression And Anxiety ◽

Negative Experiences ◽

Discursive Strategies ◽

Women’S Experiences ◽

Women's Experiences ◽

Good Mother ◽

Pregnancy Distress

This article explores how women account for their experiences of pregnancy distress in light of cultural imperatives to be the perfect, happy mother. Our analysis is based on the accounts of 18 Australian women, interviewed during pregnancy on the basis of their reports of experiencing depression and/or anxiety. Working within a feminist discursive framework, we focus on the discourses that informed (and threatened) women’s positions as a good mother. In particular, we focus on the discourses women relied on to explain their distress and the discursive strategies they used in the construction of their (“distressed”) maternal identity(ies). We ask how women articulate and label distress, and with what rhetorical effects. Our analysis explores how women’s experiences of negative moods and distress were in direct opposition to cultural imperatives for mothers to stay happy and positive during pregnancy and beyond, posing rhetorical challenges to women’s accounts and hence their capacity to make meaning of their (negative) experiences. Three discursive strategies are explored: distancing from the depressed self, speaking between/around/without words, and in search of a balance. We close by considering the implications of the complex ways in which women account for idealised motherhood and how this serves to oppress vulnerable women.

Download Full-text