"These are the Labors": Constructions of the Woman Nursing Her Child in the Mishnah and Tosefta
2000; Indiana University Press; Volume: 3; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1565-5288
Autores Tópico(s)Anthropological Studies and Insights
ResumoSome variant of this picture can be found in almost any issue of any parenting magazine published in this decade in the United States: A woman is seated in a (rocking) chair, a baby at her breast (which is discreetly covered). The lighting in the photo is gauzy, and the look on the woman's face is tender and soft. The ad copy, at least in part, touts the benefits of mother's milk to a baby's health and well-being. This is arguably the dominant image of the nursing mother, at least in the (upper) middle classes in America today. Of course, it is a construction, a creation of a particular cultural moment and place, and only one of many possible constructions, many possible cultural images, of the nursing mother. Only a generation or two ago, the construction of the nursing mother in America was quite different bottle-feeding was the dominant practice, and the nursing mother might be viewed as backward, even primitive. Even today, the positive image of the nursing mother is less stable than it seems. Many of those ads are placed by companies that manufacture the artificial formulas meant to replace the breast-milk the ads ostensibly endorse.
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