July 10, 2007
“To the extent that current methods of detection and treatment fail or fall short, America’s breast-cancer cult can be judged as an outbreak of mass delusion, celebrating survivorhood by downplaying mortality and promoting obedience to medical protocols known to have limited efficacy. And although we may imagine ourselves to be well past the era of patriarchal medicine, obedience is the message behind the infantilizing theme in breast-cancer culture, as represented by the teddy bears, the crayons, and the prevailing pinkness. You are encouraged to regress to a little-girl state, to suspend critical judgment, and to accept whatever measures the doctors, as parent surrogates, choose to impose.” Welcome to Cancerland
by Barbara Ehrenreich
Harper’s Magazine, November 2001
The first weekend after my diagnosis I made Janice and Sz take me down to the Dragon Boat races where there was a whole slew of ABreast in a Boat breast cancer “survivors”, paddles in hand, taking to the water with style and great energy. After their race, the survivor teams held carnations in the air high above their votes in tribute to those women who had died. I knew that watching was going to be hard, but I needed to begin to imagine myself in one of those boats, and soon, paddling my way to survival. I was haunted by the voice-over narration during this very moving event. Maybe I am just an over-achiever, but I was struck by an intense pressure both to meet the challenge of being a “survivor” and to feel a fearful guilt that I might be always-already a loser in the survival game. What if the probability of death and the will to agency don’t actually intersect in a Lance Armstrong moment of skilled determination?
There is a hard kernel of an obscured Real - a residual by-product of deliberate ideological distortion - in the “survivor” discourse that is foundational within the breast cancer community. I am supposed to be learning how to “be a survivor” of breast cancer. How can I not want to survive? After all, I have just undergone radical surgery and will in all likelihood be faced with countless further treatments all aimed at producing enhanced longevity in the face of an illness characterized at its root by its relentless capacity to cut life short. Do I just have a bad attitude? What is wrong with the discourse of “survival”?
Go and watch Alien Song, an animation created by Victor Navone that went viral online a while ago. It’s a perfect enactment of the Real that lurks in the survival discourse. Full of energy and passion, mid-song, our friendly alien is crushed by the disco ball. I loved it when I first saw it years ago, and it seems especially insightful now.
Yeah, I want to survive. But cancer is a process of cellular proliferation. It just takes one cell. If it shows up somewhere else, well, there goes “survival” and I don’t want to always-already feel guilty that somehow I have just not been strong enough, or virtuous enough, and have therefore failed the survival challenge because I didn’t try hard enough, or I wasn’t cheerful enough. And I am no god damn hero.
July 10, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Way to go head on with life, to look it in the eye and tell the truth, to be alive. I hope that if I ever get this illness I’ll come out swinging like this. I don’t know how I would define a hero, exactly, but you are one real and tough woman. And the original Hero was a woman, who threw herself, I believe, into an ocean of trouble, and swam anyway. I bet she wasn’t sweet and virtuous, and I bet she wasn’t always strong, and I bet she was angry.
So rock on!
July 10, 2007 at 11:15 pm
How could I merely lurk on such a moving and thought-provoking site? I’m thinking of you Mary and of you Janice and in doing so am filled with memories of your wonderful company. Mary, I am glad to find you so genuinely robust, so full of life, as you come to grips with the scariness of cancer, the idiocy of gender, the profound love of family and friends, and the “good girl” narrative of breast cancer survival. I didn’t know (or didn’t remember) that your chest tattoo is for Ange. Such a beautiful tribute. Our children want to meet Loki! I have described Liza’s immense sweetness to our ten year old and she is excited about Great Danes. Love and powerful visions, Ann
July 11, 2007 at 11:46 pm
Mary: I have just visited the blog and find myself awash in tears and amazement - did you know you evoked an enormous fan club of lesbians/dikes/wishful thinkers when you visited Pg how many years ago? Everything in you that sparked such interesting discussions (and many fruitful fantasies) is here in these pages. (is pages the right word for a blog?) Cancer may have invaded your body but - like the tatttoo that still remains despite the invasion- the markings that make you are clear and strident (a good term in my mind). Stay strong, or weak, or passive or enraged - whatever is real and know that admiring and loving thoughts are yours, whenever you need them. And for Janice - if she needs them too, they are hers also love and gentle hugs
Tess xoxoxoxxo
October 2, 2007 at 3:14 am
[...] October 2, 2007 Bad Days, Good Folks Posted by brys under Women::Queer::Cancer , breast cancer , survivor discourse I knew when I saw the pink t-shirt in my CIBC Run for the Cure bag that I wouldn’t be running the race. Yesterday was not a good day. My bag of t-shirts, identifying number tags and other race paraphernalia contained an extra t-shirt. A pink t-shirt. A survivor t-shirt. And I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t even look in the bag once I realized what was lurking there. I “earned” that pink t-shirt because I have an embodied relation to breast cancer that is recognized in this particular fashion. I am, in some way, symbolically aligned, now, with the motivational engine that runs the race - that makes the race run. No survivors, no race. And yet, I can not identify with the survivor emblem, nor the survivor discourse. I have written about this before. [...]