Gottschang Suzanne Zhang
Anthropology Department, Smith College, USA.
Med Anthropol Q. 2007 Mar;21(1):64-80. doi: 10.1525/maq.2007.21.1.64.
Urban Chinese women in the 1990s formulated their infant-feeding decisions in the context of a society undergoing radical transformation as the nation moved from a centrally planned socialist economy to a global, market-oriented one. Narratives of new mothers in Beijing in the 1990s provide insights into the multiple forces that shaped their infant-feeding practices. These personal histories also illustrate the limitations of multilateral breast-feeding programs that emphasize breast-feeding as a natural interaction between mother and infant. The cases I present here demonstrate instead that the material, bodily manifestations of breast-feeding require nursing mothers to continually renegotiate relations with husbands, coworkers, and family. Chinese women's accounts also add insight to theoretical deliberations on gender and the body, for they demonstrate that cultural expectations and the demands of the lactating body must be considered to understand fully the process of women's decisions in a social and not strictly reproductive context. On a larger scale, the data also illustrate how global intervention, in the form of the WHO-UNICEF-sponsored Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative, promotes breast-feeding as a woman's primary duty at the same time that market forces counter this message as women redefine their individual expectations and social relationships.
20世纪90年代，随着中国从中央计划社会主义经济向全球市场导向型经济的激进转型，城市中国女性在这样的社会背景下做出了她们的婴儿喂养决策。20世纪90年代北京新妈妈的叙述为塑造她们婴儿喂养行为的多种力量提供了见解。这些个人经历也说明了强调母乳喂养是母婴之间自然互动的多边母乳喂养项目的局限性。我在这里呈现的案例反而表明，母乳喂养的物质身体表现要求哺乳期母亲不断重新协商与丈夫、同事和家人的关系。中国女性的叙述也为关于性别与身体的理论思考增添了见解，因为它们表明，要在社会而非严格的生殖背景下充分理解女性的决策过程，必须考虑文化期望和哺乳期身体的需求。从更大的范围来看，这些数据还说明了以世界卫生组织-联合国儿童基金会发起的爱婴医院倡议为形式的全球干预，是如何在市场力量向女性重新定义个人期望和社会关系的同时，将母乳喂养宣传为女性的首要责任，从而与这种观念背道而驰的。
