There is much interesting discussion at the moment
regarding employment issues and breastfeeding,
including its implications for issues of special
treatment/equal treatment. With regard to this, I
completed a dissertation in 2000 analyzing these
issues from a three country perspective – the United
States, New Zealand and Sweden. The research involved
an examination of employment policy and practice and
its impact on breastfeeding. It also looked at how
approaches (or, perhaps more accurately at that time
in the United States) NON-approaches to breastfeeding
as a workplace concern had been shaped by feminist
thinking in each context. The United States presents a
particularly challenging context in this regard.

I am including a website to a 1997 article (published
in the journal Feminist Economics) that I wrote on
breastfeeding, maternal employment and gender equity
in the United States prior to the introduction of
state and federal legislation specifically supportive
of breastfeeding. This article, drawing on both labor
market data and feminist writings (particularly from a
policy and economic angle), explored both gender
equity concerns posed by breastfeeding as well as the
implications for breastfeeding of the 1993 Family and
Medical Leave Act. It highlighted how for many
workers, but particularly the most vulnerable, leave
taking is not even an option in the United States due
to lack of payment and restrictive eligibility
criteria characterizing federal and most state
parental leave/ family and medical leave laws.

http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/Organizations/healthnet/maternal/docs/galtry2.html


I really do think things have softened towards this
issue since that time, thanks to powerful efforts by
various organizations and individuals. (To name those
that spring first to mind would only serve to offend
those behind the scenes who have also pushed this
issue along). This is not to say that there is not a
long way still to go.

Since then, I also wrote an article on the various
approaches to breastfeeding as a workplace issue in
both the 1970s and 1980s “equal treatment/special
treatment” debates among feminist legal theorists and,
more recently, by the National Organization for Women
(published in Gender & Society (2000)). I can arrange
to send limited copies of this article if anyone is
interested in this particular angle.

More recently, I have completed a paper at Cornell on
policies and practices supportive of maternal
employment and breastfeeding in the United States and
Sweden.  Again, this focuses also on gender equity
issues in each context. If anyone is interested,
please send me your address and I will arrange to send
you a copy.

Best wishes

Judith



Judith Galtry
Cornell Employment and Families Careers Institute
Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center
Cornell University
Tele: (607) 253-5527
Email: [log in to unmask]


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