Sonja Boon

Maternalising the (Female) Breast: A Comparison of Marie-Angelique Anel Le Rebours' Avis aux meres qui veulent nourrir leurs enfans (1767) and La Leche League International's The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (1963)

Sonja Boon
Memorial University

This paper compares the trajectories of two influential breastfeeding manuals: Marie-Angelique Anel Le Rebours' Avis aux meres qui veulent nourrir leurs enfans (1767) and La Leche League International's The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding (1963). Situating both works in their respective cultural, scientific and philosophical contexts, I argue for the subversive power of both works to challenge and re-inscribe the relationships between the medical science and the lactating maternal body, thus leading to the possibility of an alternative maternal autonomy. I also demonstrate, however, that they are also fully integrated in cultures of maternal censure, such that alternative maternal autonomy is transformed into obligatory social and cultural duty. Ultimately, I suggest that the reclamation of maternal autonomy can only be realised through a reconceptualisation not only of lactation and the maternal body, but also of the mother herself.