Breastfeeding Rights in the United States

Breastfeeding Rights in the United States shows that the right to breastfeed in this country exists only in a negative sense: you can do it unless someone takes you to court. Kedrowski and Lipscomb catalog and analyze all the laws, policies, judicial opinions, cultural mores, and public attitudes that bear on breastfeeding in America. They then explore the classic double bind: social norms promulgated by the medical and public health establishment say "breast is best"; but social practices in the workplace and in public spaces make breastfeeding difficult. Aggravating the double bind is the prominence of the breast in American culture as a sexual object. The double bind creates coercively structured choices that are incompatible with the meaningful exercise of rights.

Karen M. Kedrowski is professor and chair of the department of political science at Winthrop University. Her research and teaching areas include media and politics, women and politics, American politics, and public policy. She is the author ofMedia Entrepreneurs and the Media Enterprise in the US Congress and co-author ofCancer Activism: Gender, Media, and Public Policy. Her articles have appeared inArmed Forces and Society, Journal of Political Science, Perspectives on Politics, Political Communication,PS, and Teachers College Record.

Michael E. Lipscomb is associate professor of political science at Winthrop University, where he teaches political theory and American politics. His work in critical theory, postmodern political theory, and environmental politics has appeared inNew German Critique and Administrative Theory and Praxis.