Summary

Bad Mother / Good Mother is an audiovisual performance involving a projection, a modified electronic breastpump as a sound generator and an exaggerated pumping bra. The project extends my previous feminist technology work into the realm of science and technologies that are specifically marketed towards women like breastpumps and fertility extending treatments such as egg freezing (social freezing). The idea is to use workplace lactation as a departure point to uncover a web of societal politics and pre-conceived ideas (pun intended) of ideal and non-ideal motherhood. I am exploring perceived ideal / non-ideal motherhood as it relates to women, men, and the workplace.

Context

Like many people who birthed and then breastfed another human, I used a breast pump at work. It is a useful technology because it is efficient at extracting breast milk. It is a postpartum privilege: Many women either do not have access to the technology or work in places where it is not possible for women pump and store breast milk without losing their job. While the breastpump is a machine of workplace privilege, it is also a major time suck: Someone who pumps has to adhere to a schedule of pumping and will spend a significant amount of time pumping. Hannah Rosin said in an article in the Atlantic that breastfeeding and by extension pumping is “only free if a woman’s time is worth nothing” [1]. Yet women are strongly encouraged by hospital staff, lactation consultants, and pediatricians to breastfeed their baby for at least six months and are made to feel like a bad mother if breastfeeding is not possible for them.

During pumping sessions, I spent a lot of time listening to the rhythmic sounds of the pump motor and identified it as a sound resembling a kind of unique angsty house or techno music. It was clear to me that I needed to turn it into a sound performance.   Bad Mother / Good Mother and extends my previous feminist technology work [2] into the realm of science and technologies that are specifically designed for women like breast pumps and fertility extending treatments such as egg freezing (social freezing).

There is an existing history of music made with household technologies. most of these compositions do not take into account however that the larger share of unpaid (household) work, including breastfeeding, is still being done by women. So instead of just making sound with the breast pump and treating it as a sonic curiosity, I am using it to explore perceived ideal / non-ideal motherhood as it relates to women, men, and the workplace.

The Songs (audio and visual)

The audiovisual performance has four “songs” consisting of sound and connected visuals that are projected during the performance. In the first and last song, the breast pump is treated as the solo instrument, in the two middle songs, the breast pump sound is part of an arrangement.

The first song uses the breast pump sound as a solo instrument. Thematically, the song is about different aspects of pumping breastmilk at work. It has two basic sounds: The sound of the milk letdown which is slower and the sound of the pumping which is faster. In the performance, I am switching between the two modes, playing them at different intensities. The visuals are still images of different breastpumping situations and the stresses related to pumping.

The second song is about maternity leave. In the US, parental leave is not mandated by law. The visuals show (US) politicans displaying fake reverence towards women. The breast pump is playing in the background, defamiliarized by vocoding.

The third song is about freezing eggs to delay motherhood. Egg freezing is an elective medical technology that is sold to women as empowering because it allows women to delay motherhood by freezing their eggs. Because the motivations are social and not primarily medical, the procedure is also called “social freezing”. It is big business especially since large tech companies like Facebook have announced that they will pay for employees’ eggs to be frozen. Facebook was criticized for using this “benefit” to pressure women to delay motherhood [3].  As if successful employeehood was not compatible with motherhood. The song uses the breast pump as the heavily vocoded lead vocals in a cover of Daftpunk’s “Get Lucky”.

The fourth song is improvisation, using filters to distort different aspects of the sound signal. The visuals are of a woman pumping. Individual movements are repeated  rhythmically along with the sound. It signifies the repetitiveness of the pumping routine.

The Costume

The costume is an exaggerated pumping bra. Around the holes where the breast pump shields attach to the breast, it has seven rows of LED pointing outward like a star. The LEDs are attached to a microcontroller board. Each arm represents a frequency band. The LEDs therefore pulse along with the sound. However, the bands are lit individually depending on the energy content in this frequency band. It is designed similar to a rock star’s costume. It glamorizes the profoundly unglamourous act of using a breastpump in a world where women are encouraged to breastfeed or pump in private rather than use their pump in public.

[1] Hanna Rosin, “The Case Against Breast-Feeding”, The Atlantic, April 2009. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/04/the-case-against-breast-feeding/307311/

[2] Annina Rüst, “A Piece of the Pie Chart”, http://www.anninaruest.com/pie

[3] Laura Sydell, Silicon Valley Companies Add New Benefit For Women: Egg-Freezing, National Public Radio, October 17, 2014, https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/10/17/356765423/silicon-valley-companies-add-new-benefit-for-women-egg-freezing