Thinking with neoliberal neopatriarchy to understand lactation amongst US classroom teachers

This study investigates the material-discursive contexts available for lactation amongst US teachers who wish to continue nursing and/or pumping milk for [an] infant child(ren) upon returning full-time to the classroom. Guided by critical feminist methodologies, I conducted interviews with 5 teacher–parents who chose to nurse and/or pump milk for their infants while at school. I found that teachers face overwhelming obstacles to merging the conflicting demands of their private lives as parents alongside the work demands of their public lives as teachers. I offer the concept of disembodied neoliberal parenthood as a way to understand how the intersecting forces of neoliberalism and sexism converged in the bodies of my participants to render their experiences with lactation in schools emotionally and bureaucratically violent.