When I wrote my PhD one of the hardest bits (although it turned out only to
be about a page or so) of the 'ontology' chapter was the section on
feminism. I found Mother's Milk: Breastfeeding Controversies in American
Culture by Bernice L. Hausman really helpful and useful. She discusses a
number of other authors and helped me come to a critique and understanding
of Pam Carter, who I don't like all that much, but who has some interesting
and useful things to say. She also has a useful critique which helped me
with my struggles with Linda Blum's book. Although this is about N America,
much is universal for the western type English speaking cultures.
I remember in my mock viva, the professor doing it asked me about my
feminist stance, and I had to explain that I am a feminist but I wasn't
doing a feminist piece of research (which would have involved a different
consideration of ontological and epistomological and methodological issues,
phew). He then moved on to saying that he wondered why, in such an
obviously Marxist piece of work, I hadn't been more explict about Marxist
criticim, ontology, etc. This was *even more flabbergasting*, since, as I
pointed out to him, I went to King's College Cambridge and did a history
degree in the 1970's, and boy oh boy do I know I am not a real Marxist (in
the analytical sense), but obviously the ethos of the place rubbed off. The
prof said that in nursing research I would qualify as a pretty heavy-duty
Marxist as well as a staunch feminist. (It was pretty funny, he was
actually really nice about it, and nothing quite as freaky as this came up
in my real viva!) I think it is interesting that nursing and midwifery
research (the latter is where a large amount of breastfeeding research in
the UK is done) should be so 'feminist lite'.
And speaking of male people keeping you on your toes, I remember when my
kids were small, I was feeding my daughter (aged 2+) and told her 'you've
had a lot today, I don't think there's anything left'. My son's head lifted
up from his Duplo and he said 'Mummy, the more she feeds, the more you will
make'. So I really had to sit and let her have milk, didn't I?
Magda Sachs, PhD.
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