Surgical Intervention: Critiquing the Representation of Breast Cancer Surgery in US Women's Magazines

Contemporary narratives of breast health must be understood within the context of the history of published writing about breast cancer. Written mentions of breast cancer appear as early as Egyptian papyrus. However, until the 1960s the majority of the published writing about breast cancer came primarily from the medical field. In the 1960s some women, mainly outside of the medical field, responded to the prevailing medical discourses of breast health by writing and publishing their own experiences. These narratives of breast cancer questioned surgeons’ authority, revealed the uncertainty regarding treatment effectiveness, and questioned male doctors dictating to female patients. Doctors and many patients did not easily accept the philosophy that breast cancer treatment should be decided by personal choice. Surgeons who were not used to having their authority challenged were not happy to be confronted by patients who had read about breast cancer in a magazine or popular press book. However, women’s personal narratives related to breast health resonated with readers, and they became an established and prominent genre. For over three decades feminists, including Audre Lorde and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, have deconstructed medical and popular discourses of breast cancer to illustrate how they are both influenced by and serve to influence perceptions of women’s bodies. Feminist theorizing and women’s health activism have successfully challenged an earlier climate of silence and shame, resulting in the current landscape of near ubiquitous breast cancer awareness. However, mediated breast cancer content continues to support narrow beauty ideals while largely failing to place breast health within the social and cultural contexts of the oppression of women, medical paternalism, and economic disparity. Recent feminist attention has focused on “pinkwashing,” a term that highlights the commercialization of breast cancer awareness and calls attention to the numerous companies who are profiting from the disease. Today women have access to a variety of discourses about breast health, some of which are empowering; however, a significant portion continue to reinforce traditional femininity and narrow ideas about gender. In the United States