At the Breast

the long version

Blum reveals that a discussion about the seemingly private and individual practice of breastfeeding is really a larger conversation about sexuality, class, race, and the control and construction of maternal bodies. Interviewing three distinct groups of women, she discovers that the desirability and possibility of breastfeeding varies greatly. The white middle-class married mothers of La Leche League that Blum talks to find breastfeeding to be a deeply gratifying experience of embodiment despite our society's rigid disciplining of female bodies and their appetites. But the white working-class mothers she interviews often find breastfeeding an anxiety-evoking reminder of uncertain respectability and diminished expectations. And in her interviews of Black working-class mothers she finds that breastfeeding is frequently considered an undesirable practice that carries reminders of the painful history of relations between Blacks and whites in the U.S. For women seeking greater understanding of their experiences, for readers interested in the history of the body, and for anyone interested in how society constructs and constrains women's choices, At the Breast offers an innovative view of our society from a unique angle.