Cancerland & Patriarchal Medicine

I mentioned this blog last night in class as one that has a unique and compelling voice. Originally, I visited the blog because I was looking for new voices in feminism, but I return again and again for her writing, her beautiful food photography, and the real-life drama of living with breast cancer. Browsing her archives, I also ran across this article by Barbara Ehrenreich about her journey through "Cancerland." In the United States, one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point. The chances of her surviving for five years ore 86.8 percent. For a black woman this falls to 72 percent; and for a woman of any race whose cancer has spread to the lymph nodes, to 77.7 percent. There's been a lot of focus on "awareness" as a public health response to this, and Ehrenreich does a fantastic job of dissecting this cultural phenomenon. Here's one clip:

"What has grown up around breast cancer in just the last fifteen years more nearly resembles a cult—or, given that it numbers more than two million women, their families, and friends-perhaps we should say a full-fledged religion. The products—teddy bears, pink-ribbon brooches, and so forth—serve as amulets and talismans, comforting the sufferer and providing visible evidence of faith. The personal narratives serve as testimonials and follow the same general arc as the confessional autobiographies required of seventeenth-century Puritans: first there is a crisis, often involving a sudden apprehension of mortality (the diagnosis or, in the old Puritan case, a stem word from on high); then comes a prolonged ordeal (the treatment or, in the religious case, internal struggle with the Devil); and finally, the blessed certainty of salvation, or its breast-cancer equivalent, survivorhood. And like most recognized religions, breast cancer has its great epideictic events, its pilgrimages and mass gatherings where the faithful convene and draw strength from their numbers. These are the annual races for a cure, attracting a total of about a million people at more than eighty sites—70,000 of them at the largest event, in Washington, D.C., which in recent years has been attended by Dan and Marilyn Quayle and Al and Tipper Gore. Everything comes together at the races: celebrities and corporate sponsors are showcased; products are hawked; talents, like those of the “Swinging, Singing Survivors” from Syracuse, New York, are displayed. It is at the races, too, that the elect confirm their special status."

The entire article, linked above, is long but definitely worth reading if you care about women's health.