Lactating Teachers: Misfits in the Institutional Design

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 11:25 am
  In Roundtable Session: Transforming Social Spaces Toward Equity and Justice (Table 23)

Abstract

Teachers in the U.S. face significant barriers when they need to express milk during the work day. This is due to a mismatch between the time and space required for expressing milk and the institutional design of schools. In this paper I analyze two transcription poems, each written from an interview with a participant conducted as part of a larger qualitative study about the experiences of lactating teachers. I use Garland-Thomson’s concept of misfits, and Ahmed’s subsequent application of this concept, to show how the onus is put on lactating teachers to navigate incompatibilities between their bodily needs and the school day regime.

Author

• Elise Toedt, University of Minnesota