Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T19:08:53.404Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feeding the Hungry Other: Levinas, Breastfeeding, and the Politics of Hunger

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Robyn Lee
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Breastfeeding has become a subject of moral concern as its benefits have become well known. Encouraging mothers to breastfeed has been the goal of extensive public health promotion efforts. Emmanuel Levinas makes absolute responsibility to the Other central to his ethics, with giving food to the Other the paradigmatic ethical act. However, Levinas also provides an important critique of the autonomous individual who is taken for granted by breastfeeding promotion efforts. I argue that the ethical obligation to feed the hungry child must be recognized as coextensive with meeting the needs of women, especially given the current absence of important social and economic supports for breastfeeding. Under a Levinasian framework, each of us is ethically responsible for feeding children; this responsibility is not limited to mothers. This ethical responsibility needs to be expressed through improving social and economic supports necessary for those individuals who wish to breastfeed, instead of attempting to convince women to breastfeed. This ethical responsibility must also be understood in a broader context of a politics of hunger, which provides access to quality food for all, and goes beyond mere nutrition to include the importance of culture, touch, and intimacy in the enjoyment of food—what Levinas calls “good soup.”

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Spring 2016 , pp. 259 - 274
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akre, James E., Gribble, Karleen, and Minchin, Maureen. 2011. Milk sharing: From private practice to public pursuit. International Breastfeeding Journal 6 (8). http://internationalbreastfeedingjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1746-4358-6-8 (accessed November 17, 2015).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Apple, Rima D. 1987. Mothers and medicine: A social history of infant feeding, 1890–1950. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Alison. 2005. Maternal sexuality and breastfeeding. Sex Education 5 (1): 67–77. http://doi.org/10.1080/146818142000301894 (accessed November 17, 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beauvoir, Simone de. 1989. The second sex (reissue). London: Vintage.Google Scholar
Bevis, Kathryn. 2007. “Better than metaphors”? Dwelling and the maternal body in Emmanuel Levinas. Literature and Theology 21 (3): 317–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blum, Linda M. 2000. At the breast: Ideologies of breastfeeding and motherhood in the contemporary United States. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Callen, Jennifer, and Pinelli, Janet. 2004. Incidence and duration of breastfeeding for term infants in Canada, United States, Europe, and Australia: A literature review. Birth 31 (4): 285–92.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chanter, Tina, ed. 2001. Feminist interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas. University Park, Penn.: Penn State Press.Google Scholar
Davy, Barbara Jane. 2007. An other face of ethics in Levinas. Ethics and the Environment 12 (1): 39–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1999. Adieu to Emmanuel Levinas. Trans. Pascale‐Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, Jared. 1995. Father's milk. Discover. February. http://discovermagazine.com/1995/feb/fathersmilk468 (accessed November 17, 2015).Google Scholar
Emmersen, Pernille. 2008. A case of well‐established breastfeeding for a 61‐year‐old woman after menopause. Journal of Human Lactation 24 (2): 217–18.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Field, Tiffany M., ed. 2014. Touch in early development. New York: Psychology Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geraghty, Sheela R., McNamara, Kelly A., Dillon, Chelsea E., Hogan, Joseph S., Kwiek, Jesse J., and Keim, Sarah A. 2013. Buying human milk via the internet: Just a click away. Breastfeeding Medicine 8 (6): 474–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Goldstein, David. 2010. Emmanuel Levinas and the ontology of eating. Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 10 (3): 34–44.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grosz, Elizabeth. 1994. Volatile bodies: Toward a corporeal feminism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Guenther, Lisa. 2006a. “Like a maternal body”: Emmanuel Levinas and the motherhood of Moses. Hypatia 21 (1): 119–36.Google Scholar
Guenther, Lisa. 2006b. The gift of the other: Levinas and the politics of reproduction. Albany: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Guenther, Lisa. 2007. Le flair animal: Levinas and the possibility of animal friendship. PhaenEx 2 (2): 216–38.Google Scholar
Hassan, Narin. 2010. Milk markets: Technology, the lactating body, and new forms of consumption. WSQ: Women's Studies Quarterly 38 (2): 209–28.Google Scholar
Hausman, Bernice L. 2003. Mother's milk: Breastfeeding controversies in American culture. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hausman, Bernice L. 2010. Viral mothers: Breastfeeding in the age of HIV/AIDS. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herzog, Annabel. 2002. Is liberalism “all we need”?: Levinas's politics of surplus. Political Theory 30 (2): 204–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hormann, Elizabeth. 2007. Breastfeeding an adopted baby and relactation. Schaumburg, Ill.: La Leche League International.Google Scholar
Irigaray, Luce. 1991. Questions to Emmanuel Levinas. In Re‐reading Levinas, ed. Bernasconi, Robert and Critchley, Simon. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Katz, Claire Elise. 2003. Levinas, Judaism, and the feminine: The silent footsteps of Rebecca. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Knaak, Stephanie J. 2010. Contextualising risk, constructing choice: Breastfeeding and good mothering in risk society. Health, Risk & Society 12 (4): 345–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kukla, Rebecca. 2005. Mass hysteria: Medicine, culture, and mothers’ bodies. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Kukla, Rebecca. 2006. Ethics and ideology in breastfeeding advocacy campaigns. Hypatia 21 (1): 157–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
La Leche League International. 2010. Pain in breast. January 11. http://www.llli.org/faq/pain.html (accessed March 4, 2013).Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1981. Otherwise than being: Or, beyond essence. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1988. Useless suffering. In The provocation of Levinas: Rethinking the other, ed. Bernasconi, Robert and Wood, David. Trans. Richard A. Cohen. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1990a. Judaism and revolution. In Nine talmudic readings. Trans. Annette Aronowicz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1990b. The name of a dog, or natural rights. In Difficult freedom: Essays on Judaism. Trans. Sean Hand. London: The Athlone Press.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1994. The nations and the presence of Israel. In In the time of the nations. Trans. Michael B. Smith. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1996a. Emmanuel Levinas: Basic philosophical writings, ed. Peperzak, Adriaan T., Critchley, Simon, and Bernasconi, Robert. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1997. Difficult freedom: Essays on Judaism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1998. Secularization and hunger. Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 20 (2): 3–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 2007. Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority. Trans. Alphonso Lingis. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.Google Scholar
Llewelyn, John. 1991. Am I obsessed by Bobby? (Humanism of the other animal). In Re‐reading Levinas, ed. Bernasconi, Robert and Critchley, Simon. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
McCarter‐Spaulding, Deborah. 2008. Is breastfeeding fair? Tensions in feminist perspectives on breastfeeding and the family. Journal of Human Lactation 24 (2): 206–12.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Metzl, Jonathan M., and Kirkland, Anna, eds. 2010. Against health: How health became the new morality. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Oliver, Kelly. 2009. Sexual difference, animal difference: Derrida and difference “worthy of its name.” Hypatia 24 (2): 54–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Overall, Christine, and Bernard, Tabitha. 2012. Into the mouths of babes: The moral responsibility to breastfeed. In Philosophical inquiries into pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering: Maternal subjects, ed. Lintott, Sheila and Sander‐Staudt, Maureen. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Palmquist, Aunchalee E. L., and Doehler, Kirsten. 2014. Contextualizing online human milk sharing: Structural factors and lactation disparity among middle income women in the US. Social Science and Medicine 122: 140–47. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.10.036 (accessed November 17, 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plant, Bob. 2011. Welcoming dogs: Levinas and “the animal” question. Philosophy and Social Criticism 37 (1): 49–71. http://doi.org/10.1177/0191453710384361 (accessed November 17, 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reyes‐Foster, Beatriz M., Carter, Shannon K., and Hinojosa, Melanie Sberna. 2015. Milk sharing in practice: A descriptive analysis of peer breastmilk sharing. Breastfeeding Medicine 10 (5): 263–69. http://doi.org/10.1089/bfm.2015.0009 (accessed November 17, 2015).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rippeyoung, Phyllis L. F. 2013. Can breastfeeding solve inequality? The relative moderating impact of breastfeeding on poverty gaps in Canadian child cognitive skills. Canadian Journal of Sociology 38 (1): 65–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robbins, Jill, ed. 2001. Interview with François Poirie. In Is it righteous to be? Interviews with Emmanuel Levinas. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Rosato, Jennifer. 2012. Woman as vulnerable self: The trope of maternity in Levinas's otherwise than being. Hypatia 27 (2): 348–65. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2011.01189.x (accessed November 17, 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandford, Stella. 2001. Masculine mothers? Maternity in Levinas and Plato. In Feminist interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas, ed. Tina, Chanter. University Park, Penn.: Penn State Press.Google Scholar
Sandford, Stella. 2002. Levinas, feminism, and the feminine. In The Cambridge companion to Levinas, ed. Bernasconi, Robert and Critchley, Simon. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shildrick, Margrit. 2002. Embodying the monster: Encounters with the vulnerable self. London: Sage Publications Ltd.Google Scholar
Sichtermann, Barbara. 1986. The lost eroticism of the breasts. In Femininity: The politics of the personal. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Skitolsky, Lissa. 2012. Tales from the tit: The moral and political implications of useless lactational suffering. In Philosophical inquiries into pregnancy, childbirth, and mothering: Maternal subjects, ed. Lintott, Sheila and Sander‐Staudt, Maureen. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, Paige Hall, Hausman, Bernice, and Labbok, Miriam. 2012. Beyond health, beyond choice: Breastfeeding constraints and realities. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Erin N., and Wallace, Lora Ebert. 2012. For shame: Feminism, breastfeeding advocacy, and maternal guilt. Hypatia 27 (1): 76–98. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2011.01238.x (accessed November 17, 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
The new Oxford annotated bible: New revised standard version with the apocrypha. 2010. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tronto, Joan. 1993. Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethic of care. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Turner, Paaige K., and Norwood, Kristen. 2014. “I had the luxury…”: Organizational breastfeeding support as privatized privilege. Human Relations 67 (7): 849–74. http://doi.org/10.1177/0018726713507730 (accessed November 17, 2015).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willett, Cynthia. 1995. Maternal ethics and other slave moralities. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Williamson, I., Leeming, D., Lyttle, S., and Johnson, S. 2012. “It should be the most natural thing in the world”: Exploring first‐time mothers’ breastfeeding difficulties in the UK using audio‐diaries and interviews. Maternal and Child Nutrition 8 (4): 434–47. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740-8709.2011.00328.x (accessed November 17, 2015).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolf, Joan. 2007. Is breast really best? Risk and total motherhood in the national breastfeeding awareness campaign. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 32 (4): 595–636. http://doi.org/10.1215/03616878-2007-018 (accessed November 17, 2015).CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wolf, Joan. 2010. Is breast best?: Taking on the breastfeeding experts and the new high stakes of motherhood. New York: New York University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wyschogrod, Edith. 2000. Emmanuel Levinas: The problem of ethical metaphysics. 2nd ed.New York: Fordham University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 2005. Breasted experience: The look and the feeling. In On female body experience?: “Throwing like a girl” and other essays. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar