Motherhood and academia: a story of bodily fluids and going with the flow

Contemporary French feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray asks us to celebrate mucus for “its abundance… its availability, its joyfulness, its flesh” (1993a, pp. 110-111). A word association: mucus, slippery, overflowing, sticky, dripping, secretions, fluid, leaking, excess, slimy, viscous, moist. Mucus, the substance, is a mixture of water, mucins, cells and salts that is secreted by the mucous membranes of the body. You have more, and more varied, mucus than you realise: in the nose, mouth, eyes, ears, trachea, stomach, intestines, anus and genitals. Mucus protects the cavities of living bodies that open to the outside and to other bodies. Mucus lubricates the difference between one and other, and enables safe passage between the inside and outside of the body.