Until the 18th century, the Middle High German term Vrouwenmilch/Frauenmilch (women’s milk) was common. That is, until it was displaced in the context of breastfeeding campaigns and hygiene writings such as the Nutrix Noverca by the so-called naturalist Carl von Linné. Frauenmilch was thus excluded from the market as an economic commodity and the word Muttermilch (mother’s milk) was invented. Muttermilch implies that only the biological mother is responsible for the nutrition of her own child, excluding the possibility of milk from others. The wet nurse system, i.e. the redistribution of the work of breastfeeding, was previously reserved for privileged women. For these privileged mothers, this created the possibility, especially in 16th/17th century Europe, to participate in social life again despite motherhood, to show themselves, to be visible. Meanwhile, the wet nurses were well-paid and could even feed their own families with their wages. But it is also known that workers, especially silk workers in Bordeaux in the 17th century, gave their children to wet nurses in more rural regions. Through the symbolic power of Muttermilch constructed by Linné and also the writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau, mothers were consequently banished indoors to the private, domestic sphere. Breastfeeding became unpaid and invisible work and was legitimised by the premise of motherly love. This created a gender differentiation with clear role assignments: the man was responsible for the outside and the woman for the inside — for the private sphere, so to speak. These gender roles are still effective today. Breast milk is still labelled in breastfeeding guides as the most natural and therefore the best. In 'Milchmaschine', I deliberately use words like Frauen*milch, Brustmilch (breast milk), Reproduktionsarbeit (reproductive work) or Milcharbeiter*in (milk worker) because I am looking for an adequate language to describe this activity that does not reproduce this gender construction.
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