Deconstructing reconstructing: Disability theory as a path to additional breast cancer identities through acts of bodily resistance

conferences

2016

Conference paper presented at the Canadian Disability Studies Association Conference, Calgary, Alberta, 2016.

Over the last decades the exploration of diverse bodies have been effectively applied in feminist disability studies and disability studies more generally. Considering the increased incidence of advanced breast cancer resulting in mastectomy in young women (Johnson, 2013) ideas about divergent bodies are touching the mainstream to a greater degree. Looking to my own experience with breast cancer and the host of physical changes that have emerged as part of this journey, I have looked to disability studies and theoretical concepts of the body to explore my lived reality. This paper uses my own physical transformation to explore a medical system entrenched in traditional standards of female beauty during cancer treatment. More specifically I explore my experience of the hesitance of the medical community to allow women to diminish their femininity in the name of making them feel better about themselves. This paper calls for those who have undergone and are undergoing treatment to engage beyond the pink ribbon script of breast cancer and to instead look to the value of diverse bodies in spite of medical advice to the contrary. Acts of bodily resistance are explored as an additional path to wellness and a way to challenge normative gender based scripts of traditional femininity. At this time, having had my reconstructed breast implants removed and adorning my scarred chest with tattoos of my own choosing, I demonstrate the reclamation of my body from the medical space that it previously inhabited. My own example, along with the nonconventional transformations of others demonstrates the power of an act of bodily resistance as an effectual way to value and celebrate diverse bodies.

Bodily resistance

Body image--Psychological aspects
Breast cancer--Psychological aspects
Disability theory

Not peer reviewed