IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v29y2022i3p778-799.html

Corporeal generosity: Breastfeeding bodies and female‐dominated workplaces

Author

Listed:
  • Elaine Burns
  • Susanne Gannon
  • Heather Pierce
  • Sky Hugman

Abstract

While gender equality at work and the gendered parameters of workplace conditions are of interest to feminist researchers, this paper brings together sociological and public health perspectives to interrogate factors impacting women who return to work (RTW) while maintaining breastfeeding. Our inquiry is focused on female‐dominated professions, teaching, nursing, and midwifery, and our findings suggest that breastfeeding obstacles exist even when gender‐inclusive policies appear to support women. Workplaces generate both overt and subtle barriers to breastfeeding, which force many women to stop earlier than they intended or create ongoing worry about maintaining breastmilk supply. Interviews with participants who maintained breastfeeding after RTW generated three overarching themes: women's determination to get back into the workforce, not wanting to “rock the boat”, and the difficulty in keeping their “head above water”. Despite workplace policies that appeared to support breastfeeding, the workplace catered to a supposedly gender‐neutral worker and policies did not translate into practice. Given the many sacrifices that women make to maintain breastfeeding, the level of workplace apathy was surprising, especially in female dominated professions. Our research foregrounds breastfeeding corporeality, not as excess but as an inevitable and essential feature of workplaces, which needs to be acknowledged and accommodated.

Suggested Citation

  • Elaine Burns & Susanne Gannon & Heather Pierce & Sky Hugman, 2022. "Corporeal generosity: Breastfeeding bodies and female‐dominated workplaces," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(3), pages 778-799, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:29:y:2022:i:3:p:778-799
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12821
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12821
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.12821?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robyn Lee, 2018. "Breastfeeding Bodies: Intimacies at Work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 77-90, January.
    2. Burns, E. & Schmied, V. & Fenwick, J. & Sheehan, A., 2012. "Liquid gold from the milk bar: Constructions of breastmilk and breastfeeding women in the language and practices of midwives," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(10), pages 1737-1745.
    3. Erin Reid, 2015. "Embracing, Passing, Revealing, and the Ideal Worker Image: How People Navigate Expected and Experienced Professional Identities," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(4), pages 997-1017, August.
    4. Shelly Ronen, 2018. "The postfeminist ideology at work: Endorsing gender essentialism and denying feminine devaluation in the case of design work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(5), pages 514-530, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Aftab, Fari & Della Giusta, Marina & Jewell, Sarah & Rawlings, Samantha, 2026. "The Trade-off Between Breastfeeding and Returning to Work: The Role of Workplace Constraints," IZA Discussion Papers 18427, IZA Network @ LISER.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Emma Banister & Ben Kerrane, 2024. "Glimpses of change? UK fathers navigating work and care within the context of Shared Parental Leave," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(4), pages 1214-1229, July.
    2. Lucie Noury & Stéphan Pezé & Sébastien Gand, 2026. ""Consultants Who Pick Up Their Children Every Day Don't Exist": How Professionals Experience Conflicting Norms Through Successive Gendered Trials," Post-Print hal-05539480, HAL.
    3. Erin A. Cech & William R. Rothwell, 2020. "LGBT Workplace Inequality in the Federal Workforce: Intersectional Processes, Organizational Contexts, and Turnover Considerations," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 73(1), pages 25-60, January.
    4. Carrie Oelberger, 2024. "Work Devotion as Identity Armor? How Single Professionals with Relationship Aspirations Use Career Decisions to Manage Their Identities," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 35(4), pages 1443-1472, July.
    5. George Argyrous & Lyn Craig & Sara Rahman, 2017. "The Effect of a First Born Child on Work and Childcare Time Allocation: Pre-post Analysis of Australian Couples," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 131(2), pages 831-851, March.
    6. Sabrina Tanquerel & Marc Grau-Grau, 2023. "Untangling the characteristics of men who dare to break the “ideal worker” norm," Post-Print hal-04287291, HAL.
    7. Mona Zanhour & Dana McDaniel Sumpter, 2024. "The entrenchment of the ideal worker norm during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Evidence from working mothers in the United States," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(2), pages 625-643, March.
    8. Sunna Símonardóttir, 2016. "Getting the Green Light: Experiences of Icelandic Mothers Struggling with Breastfeeding," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 21(4), pages 82-94, November.
    9. Elizabeth Lauren Campbell & Oliver Hahl, 2022. "He’s Overqualified, She’s Highly Committed: Qualification Signals and Gendered Assumptions About Job Candidate Commitment," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(6), pages 2451-2476, November.
    10. Olenka Kacperczyk & Peter Younkin & Vera Rocha, 2023. "Do Employees Work Less for Female Leaders? A Multi-Method Study of Entrepreneurial Firms," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 34(3), pages 1111-1133, May.
    11. M. Winter, 2023. "Carrie's first academic conference—On the possibilities of feminist storytelling and fiction in management," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(6), pages 2119-2129, November.
    12. Ernestine Gheyoh Ndzi & Amy Holmes, 2023. "Paternal Leave Entitlement and Workplace Culture: A Key Challenge to Paternal Mental Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(8), pages 1-13, April.
    13. Khan, Muhammad Kaleem & Farwa, Umm E & Zulfiqar, Salman & Li, Shanshan & Haq, Inzamam Ul, 2025. "The plight of digitalization: Technostress and accountants’ professional identity," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    14. Elizabeth Humphrys & Jess Rodgers & Nicole L Asquith & Sally Anne Yaghi & Ashleigh Foulstone & Ryan Thorneycroft & Peta S Cook, 2022. "‘To prove I’m not incapable, I overcompensate’: Disability, ideal workers, the academy," The Economic and Labour Relations Review, , vol. 33(4), pages 698-714, December.
    15. Bianca Stumbitz & Ameeta Jaga, 2020. "A Southern encounter: Maternal body work and low‐income mothers in South Africa," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1485-1500, November.
    16. Colleen Flaherty Manchester & Lisa M. Leslie & Patricia C. Dahm, 2019. "Bringing Home the Bacon: The Relationships among Breadwinner Role, Performance, and Pay," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 46-85, January.
    17. Bobbi Thomason, 2022. "Ideal or Idiosyncratic? How Women Manage Work-Family Role Conflict with Focal and Peripheral Role Senders," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 33(3), pages 901-925, May.
    18. Ayesha Masood & Muhammad Azfar Nisar, 2020. "Crushed between two stones: Competing institutional logics in the implementation of maternity leave policies in Pakistan," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(6), pages 1103-1126, November.
    19. Mathias, Blake D. & Williams, David W., 2018. "Giving up the hats? Entrepreneurs' role transitions and venture growth," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 261-277.
    20. Kimberly Gumba, RN, MANM & Joan P. Bacarisas, DM, MAN, 2025. "Personal Characteristics and Coaching Leadership on Teamwork of Nurses in Ormoc City," International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation, International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI), vol. 12(3), pages 459-492, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:29:y:2022:i:3:p:778-799. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.