Women who breastfeed may be seen as less competent by others and could face difficulties landing a job, according to a new study published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Researchers at Montana State University wanted to see if perceptions of a woman changed based solely upon whether or not she was known to be breastfeeding.
In the first round of experiments, 30 volunteers were asked to share their impressions of actress, author and mother Brooke Shields after being told details about her book on motherhood. Participants who learned that her book contained information on breastfeeding tended to rate the actress as warmer and friendlier, but saw her as less competent overall.
In a second experiment, 55 students were asked to judge a woman based solely on her answering machine messages. One group heard a message which made direct reference to breastfeeding, a second group heard one with a reference to parenting in general, a third group heard a sexualized message about wearing a strapless bra, and the fourth group heard a neutral message.
Both the breastfeeding and sexualized women were generally seen as less competent than the others, but only in the case of the breastfeeding woman did participants say they were unlikely to give her a job based on the voicemail message alone.