From an age of silence and secrecy, breast cancer has evolved as the “biggest disease on the cultural map, bigger than AIDS, cystic fibrosis, or spinal injury, bigger even than those more prolific killers of women—heart disease, lung cancer, and stroke” (Ehrenreich 2001, 45). Currently, numerous organizations are engaged in spreading awareness about breast cancer, but the credit for visibilizing it appertains to the feminist movements of the 1960s and the 1970s. Breast cancer attracted generous literary representations from the 1970s, which was widely believed to be the product of the feminist movement. Taking these cues, the present paper seeks to investigate the following: (i) How did feminism as a sociopolitical movement influence and alter the breast cancer discourse? (ii) How did feminism help the sick person confront the disease or did it merely add to the dilemma of the disease? Further, the paper also aims to delineate a specific historical trajectory of the breast cancer narratives in relation to the feminist movements. |
