Discourses of Concealment

This week's lecture is on women's health in the media, focusing on breast cancer.  Media analysis of women's health is my THING so this week should be a fun class.  I chose breast cancer despite myself (or to spite myself) because I think it is area that has been way over done.  There are a bunch of media analyses of breast cancer and frankly I think academics have both contributed to and have been influenced by the breast cancer awareness raising and related pink ribboning that has consumed women's health discussions in the last decade.

I'm not against raising awareness etc., and what I say next is not directed at individual women and their experiences but is a critique of the social construction of breast cancer in the media consciousness.  I think this breast cancer/pink ribbon phenomenon has occurred at the expense of other very pressing public health issues that affect Western women and women around the world.  I also think the media discourse on breast cancer does not encourage women's activism, anger or collective thinking instead focusing on individuals, consumerism (buy something pink because the company will donate money to breast cancer), and reinforcing of gender stereotypes and illness metaphors of courageousness and valour.

That being said, it is important for students to discuss an issue as pervasive on the women's health in the media landscape as breast cancer, and well, it is breast cancer awareness month and the students have to do a media analysis assignment so I'm betting 99% of the papers will be on breast cancer.

So breast cancer it is.  There are a bunch of different things I could have taught them (and if you email me I can send you some sources) but I decided to focus on what I'm calling the discourse of concealment (which I'm borrowing from others) because of this photo. 

That is not the image of breast cancer we get in the media.  Instead we get this. 

No, it's not porn, it's from Canadian Living (a popular women's magazine like Ladies' Home Journal). 

Why?  Well, even though breast cancer is ubiquitous in the media, we are taught through the images and stories that while we need to discuss breast cancer and take on preventative protocols and present women's triumph over tragedy stories, we are not to show the real breast cancer.  The mutilating surgeries, the hair loss, the pain and suffering, the vomiting and crying and moaning and pity and anger and losses and fear. 

Instead, through stories of women beating the odds, or fighting hard but failing to survive and dying courageously, of pressures to Look Good and Feel Better, to fight, to eat right and exercise regularly and eat flax and avoid estrogen and buy organic, and not smoke and have babies and breast feed and avoid too much stress and take every treatment and new therapy and be guinea pigs for the next treatment, and paddle in dragon boats and have breast reconstruction surgery and be super-women fighting cancer... we are taught that breast cancer is something to talk about but hide at the same time. 

And that is why there are no pictures of women's breasts in articles about breast cancer that are not sexual and mysterious (or headless)-- women with faces and saggy breasts and fat bellies.  Women with dark skin or older women or other women or do not conform to society's ideas of what a woman with breast cancer really looks like.  That's why we think women who don't wear wigs or prosetheses are courageous because they defy the discourse of concealment and show us what having this disease is all about.

That's why that picture of Twisty is so shocking.  It's real and it sucks.  No pink ribbon or buying a blender so 2 cents can go to a charity makes that better.  Because that would be just too much. Too close to home and too ugly. 

Comments

[megan]

hear hear!
on all fronts. the media only likes its dirty things pretty, and if they can't be pretty, there will only be representational drawings (see breastcancer.org and click on "pictures of breast cancer"). It's not only what we ordinarily think of as media either -- the health organizations we look to for "real" information are just as guilty. We're kept in the dark until we're actually going through it - be it surgery, birth, or any other number of things to do with our bodies.

[marti]

amen.

[Dani]

Well put.

On top of all of that, you could also get into the fact that the breat cancer "charities" have one of the worst percentages of money actually going towards research for the disease. That is a whole other topic though

[M-H]

Steph, this is great stuff. I get terribly frustrated with 'pretty' fundraising for breast cancer. A friend of mine in New Zealand did a photo exhibition featuring the scars of cancer survivors and it was horribly controversial - people didn't think it was appropriate to use photos of amputations and other scarred bodies for fundraising!

[Miriam]

Amen sista!

I keep going back to that picture of Twisty since she posted it. I stare at it, with my fingers over my mouth. Just shocked at the physical pain it causes me. Terrified so badly that if it weren't excessive and inappropriate to take off my shirt at work, I would do a breast self exam right then and there.

[Mary]

Hear Hear!

I rarely comment on blogs I read, but this needed a cheer. I rarely go into shopping malls, but did last weekend. I was horrified by the fact that you couldn't look anywhere without seeing something in pink to buy for Breast Cancer Awareness month. How much better the money could be spent on actual research than on someone buying something they probably don't need anyway!

[Carol]

Thank you. A dose of reality would be more effective, to my mind, in the education and fund-raising around this issue. Perhaps it would also cause us to think on a global level of the treatment of disease.

I simply can't imagine the lives of women diagnosed with breast cancer in second- and third-world countries.

[Mardel]

Thanks for the post and the picture, and reminding us about what is important, and in a way, what is not. Breast cancer has become a big media and public campaign with more funding and more attention than any other thing, and yet the real suffering and consequences are ignored.

Thank you for also mentioning that there are many other pressing women's health issues that are shoved aside by the attention on breast cancer. (and I do not intentionally belittle the suffering of anyone with breast cancer here, I am just thinking of women with overlooked heart disease, GERD and its very high risk for esophogeal cancer which is almost ignored in women, and many other things). We as women need to becomce educated and aware activitists concerning all the issues that affect our health and not be swayed by popular culture into worrying about just one.

But that too would be just too ugly, wouldn't it??

[Vicki]

There's a hall I pass every other day on my way to class that is where the pharmacy school has class. Because of the awareness month, there are several posters up and one says "Keep Your Figure Over Time" and then says to do the self exams, etc. It just really bothered me, but I wasn't sure why. Hmm, maybe because the only thing they're worried about is not having the perfect figure anymore? I may worry about breast cancer, but it certainly isn't because I worry that I may have to give up "my figure."

[Emma.]

Exactly ! A wonderful piece of incisive analysis.
Heart disease in women isn't sexy enough to be covered by the media,apparently,but is a major issue in the west.

[Erika]

Thanks for linking this.

I have a friend undergoing chemo right now and it always bothered me that she ... a PhD in drama and very aware of these issues ... felt compelled to buy a wig. She's also thoroughly stressed by the pressure to eat organic, do juice fasts, take scads of expensive supplements, etc. ... how can this emotional stress be healthy?

[Janine]

congratulations on a very thought provoking post. I recently lost a good freind to breast cancer and you are right everything has to be pretty and "nice" and cancer ( any kind) just isn't. I hope Twisty's prognosis is good

[Cameellie]

Wow. Just freaking Wow. Who the hell cares about pink ribbons when you see what packages they tie?

[Beth]

Well done, Steff. You won't be surprised that I whole-heartedly agree. It's the opportunity cost that's distressing - as some commenters have pointed out, we hear little about cardiovascular disease, a serious cause of female disability, illness and death. Cervical cancer is preventable, and a problem worldwide and for disadvantaged North American women, too busy surviving to lobby. We'll do more for the health of the population by defending our public health gains in water testing, etc., and by a focus on access to affordable housing and to nutritious food, than on these pretty disease-specific campaigns.

[Kathy]

Wonderful commentary. It's so true that breast cancer has become the cause of choice for women, even though heart disease is far more deadly to *both* sexes. The media paints this cancer in such a pretty light - pink ribbons, curvaceous models showing how to do exams, grateful survivors. Nothing at all like my mother in law who had a radical mastectomy, lost her hair, and lost a husband along the way as well. Nothing pretty about that. She *is* a survivor, but the process and it's aftermath weren't attractive or easy to package. We do everyone a disservice by giving this kind of focus to breast cancer.

[Kathy]

Wonderful commentary. It's so true that breast cancer has become the cause of choice for women, even though heart disease is far more deadly to *both* sexes. The media paints this cancer in such a pretty light - pink ribbons, curvaceous models showing how to do exams, grateful survivors. Nothing at all like my mother in law who had a radical mastectomy, lost her hair, and lost a husband along the way as well. Nothing pretty about that. She *is* a survivor, but the process and it's aftermath weren't attractive or easy to package. We do everyone a disservice by giving this kind of focus to breast cancer.

[juno]

You said it. The first time I saw that picture I was jolted...and then ashamed of myself for feeling surprise and then incredibly proud of her for putting her reality out there to make me and everyone think again. For not pretending.

[Twisty]

Great post, Steph! And may I say you have excellent taste in reality-mastectomy photos?

I won't be wearing a wig or getting reconstruction or stuffing my bra, but it's not because I'm courageous (although that may certainly be true of other women). It's because I'm lazy, and also because wigs are hot and uncomfortable, and mastectomy bras are hot and uncomfortable, and reconstructive surgery hurts. I may have cancer, but I'm a spinster aunt first, goddammit, and spinster aunts are all about the comfort, baby!

[Em]

Hell yeah, Steph. Fantastic post.

[Juti]

Great post.

A friend of mine, all of 34 years old, came up with breast cancer last year. When T. lost her hair, she sported a bright green wig. Shocked the heck out of the conservatives but we loved her for it. Went beautifully with the braces on her teeth.

[Philoillogica]

A great post indeed, Steph. I'd love to sit in on one of your classes sometime.

Have you seen this? I've been so swamped workwise I can't offer the blistering rage it deserves.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/10/25/pink-ribbon051025.html

One of these billboards is right on my campus, and I have to pass it every day too.

[fillyjonk]

You know, you touched on something I've thought about. That often times it seems that the media goes for the distraction, that it wants people to be "busy" consuming rather than actually doing, because that's easy.

A case in point: the yogurt I eat almost daily has a campaign where if you save (and wash, and send in) the foil lids off the top, they will donate some pittance to breast cancer research....first, I started saving the lids. And then I thought, what the heck? Why not, instead of saving these lids AND taking the time and water to wash them AND finding an envelope AND trucking down to the post office because it'll be an odd weight and cost extra postage....why don't I do something more direct, like actually sending a check myself?

I think there's a problem with the "simple activism" in that people either get fooled into thinking they're doing more than they are (I read the fine print and IIRC, it's not more than a dime per lid that's being donated...I'd rather send a quarter or even a buck directly to bc research rather than mess with those silly lids) or it's a distraction to keep people from the more serious side of things.

I also hate all the media pressure that "if you don't eat organic, you'll get cancer" or "if you don't think positive, you'll get cancer." To me, it feels too much like it's giving people an out to blame people who contracted the disease - that they didn't do the Magick Cancer Preventative Steps the right way, or with enough faith, or whatever. And from what I've read, in some cases, cancer can be kind of a random disease, and you can be doing everything "right" and still get it...

I also grow frustrated with the fact that the only models ever shown are young, white, tanned, and thin.

[Steph]

fillyjonk,

Exactly! I like what you said about the nature of "doing something". It also serves to distance use from the disease.

Thanks for the great comment!

[Ingrid]

Great post - I am sure you uncovered the piece Barbara Ehrenreich did in Harpers a few years ago -- a great commentary on someone with breast cancer not "going pink."

Also, my mother died of lung cancer this year, which if I am not mistaken, kills more women every year than breast cancer. I am glad for all of the enroads made in breast cancer research, but there are more pressing health care concerns for women in the US. It is hard to make lung cancer look sexy though.

[claudia]

Thanks for the kick in the ass.