The Lactating Body on Display: Collective Rhetoric and Resistant Discourse in Breastfeeding Activism
Date of Award
Spring 5-6-2012
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
George Pullman
Second Advisor
Elizabeth Sanders Lopez
Third Advisor
Renée Schatteman
Abstract
This thesis analyzes public “nurse-ins” and breastfeeding activism of the past decade, examining public breastfeeding demonstrations as an example of collective rhetoric in which the individual is empowered in its relation to the masses. The author discusses the potential of collective rhetoric to reintroduce feminist activism at a time dominated by postfeminist discourse. Staged nurse-ins force the public to confront realities of the maternal body; however, the self-proclaimed “lactivists” seldom discuss the inseparable sexuality of the breast and the underlying narrative of “natural” and “good” motherhood. Addressing Foucauldian discursive formations, the author acknowledges that even though the resistant discourse cannot exist outside of the dominant discourses that continue to act upon it, collective demonstrations nevertheless hold the power to disrupt public perception of the maternal body.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/2766965
Recommended Citation
Saxon, Amy M., "The Lactating Body on Display: Collective Rhetoric and Resistant Discourse in Breastfeeding Activism." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2012.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/2766965