Maternity and breastfeeding: identity, body and gender

Breastfeeding is a multifaceted phenomenon involving the complexity of the social world, the roles assumed by women, their attributes and social expectations. This theoretical essay proposes a reflection on motherhood, problematizing the experience of breastfeeding and the construction of social identity in line with Anselm Levi Strauss's sociological concepts of interactionism. This article sought to make associations between body, identity, and socialization processes in adulthood, generated by new social demands in fulfilling the roles of woman and mother, focusing on the breastfeeding experience. The way motherhood is conceived in contemporary society and the register of breastfeeding as a phenomenon of nature are problematized to give the woman a vocation to motherhood and breastfeeding, producing a social expectation of the innate ability to perform them.