Abnormal Mothers: Breastfeeding, Governmentality and Emotion Amongst Regional Australian Women

Abstract

Australia’s apparently poor rates of breastfeeding are a frequent feature in mainstream news reports. Underpinning these discussions is the breast is best discourse, which implies that not breastfeeding is indicative of bad motherhood. Alongside this dominant discourse is the persisting construction of breastfeeding as a private, corporeal act. This article examines the governing gridlock formed by these two dominant discourses, analysing interview data gathered from mothers in regional Western Australia about their complex experiences with breastfeeding. I aim to highlight how the governance of these breastfeeding discourses disguises the various ways in which women’s choices about breastfeeding are constrained. While these discourses may govern women in different ways, combined they represent a cultural paradigm clash which silences women about their difficulties with breastfeeding—the challenges women encounter in negotiating breastfeeding in contemporary daily life—both as a corporeal act and because of its corporeality. I argue that to avoid making women who do not breastfeed feel abnormal, this clash needs to be challenged in—and by—the wider Australian populace.