Breastfeeding & Feminism
Thursday, June 10 2010
by Frank Stasio and Katy Barron
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A provision in the new health care legislation aims to make it easier for new mothers to return to work and continue to nurse their babies. The provision revives a long-simmering debate in the field of feminist scholarship about the impact of breastfeeding on the status of women. Some say it shackles women to a life of domesticity, some say it is the personal duty of a “good” mother and others suggest both arguments are short-sighted. Host Frank Stasio discusses how something so personal became so political with: Paige Hall Smith, professor and director of the Center for Women's Health and Wellness at UNC-Greensboro; Alison Stuebe, Maternal-Fetal Medicine physician and professor at UNC-Chapel Hill; Jackie Wolf, professor and chair of the Department of Social Medicine at Ohio University; Bernice Hausman, professor of English at Virginia Tech; Beth Messersmith, member of Triangle chapter of MomsRising.org; and Jeannine Sato, director of Durham Connects.
