Milk, particularly breastmilk, has connotations of motherhood and domesticity. Breastfeeding is yet another completely natural, life-giving function that is heavily censored. Breasts are acceptable when objectified and on display for the Male Gaze, yet when performing their intended function of feeding, they must be hidden as they become “dirty”. In her essay Breasted Experience, Iris Marion Young explains that through breastfeeding, breasts “lose their sexuality… [and become] undesirable”, breasts are “a scandal because they shatter the border between motherhood and sexuality. Nipples are taboo because they are quite literally, physically, functionally and undecidable in the split between motherhood and sexuality” (Young 88). The female body is so heavily objectified that women begin to fear taking up space. Taking up space opens one up to being looked at, being seen, being sexualized. The woman’s body is often viewed as belonging to others rather than belonging to herself. 


Mon fils, 1968
In Lea Lublin's performance Mon Fils, the artist takes a “private” act: nursing her baby son, and makes it public. She converts the gallery into her baby’s nursery, and takes care of her child. When breastfeeding is made public, an extremely sexualized part of the body stops being objectified. Lublin is asking why domestic labor and duty should be hidden, kept secret, and out of view. Why is the female body only acceptable when it is pleasurable and beautiful, rather than performing its natural functions? There are few options for women: young, sexualized, objectified, or maternal and undesirable. Once women become mothers, they are expected to be self-sacrificing and asexual. Yet, domestic labor and caretaking are not valued, therefore should not be performed publicly. When Lublin breastfeeds in an art gallery, she tells viewers her body is still her own, while simultaneously feeding her baby. She tells viewers her body is life-giving, is performing its intended function, is normal. She is subverting the notion that breast milk is unclean, and should be hidden. Lublin is once again taking back power over her body by showing what is expected to be censored. Lublin also references the idea that women, once they become mothers, must prioritize family over their careers. Mon fils insists that women are capable of having both a successful career as well as a family. This is not an assumption working fathers face, because domestic labor is viewed as the job of women. Lublin merges the two in a poignant work with lasting contemporary relevance. 

Head, 1993
Cheryl Donegan’s Head plays on the ways society puts women into boxes. Young women considered conventionally attractive are sexualized and objectified, but when one becomes a mother she is suddenly viewed as nonsexual, expected to suffer for and serve her children selflessly. Her life is no longer her own. In Head, Donegan uses a spout and a carton of milk. As the milk streams from the carton, Donegan performs the ways women are portrayed in pornography, expected to perform sexual acts, often violent and catered toward the male gaze, eagerly and for his pleasure only. Donegan catches the milk in her mouth, sometimes dribbling it back into the container and sometimes swallowing the liquid. This goes on until the carton is empty and the stream slows. The utilization of milk is very intentional and poignant in this piece. Donegan addresses the strange, suffocating domestic/ motherly or sex object/ fetishized binary women face. These boxes are constricting because they lead to the idea that women’s existence is singular; there is no room for the complicatedness of existence. Femininity is not one thing; there is no one defining trait. Women do not have to look sexy, serve others, be mothers, wives, or housemaids. These are all myths.