Beautiful Suffering: Women must be beautiful and desirable even when sick

The entirety of the breast cancer awareness movement revolves around warrior women and how they fight breast cancer. And encouraging people to beat cancer and showing that you're their for them any way that you can is a great thing. That's not what I'm questioning. I'm questioning why women and the movement can't talk about the days where they're to tired to fight

The days where they can't keep food down and don't leave their beds
The days when its to exhausting to smile

Why does disease, breast cancer, depression, have to be beautiful for people to  have marches about it? Why are women expected to only have a hopeful attitude even when they are literally dying?

Everyone knows the image of the strong warrior women who fight breast cancer. They are seen in commercials, TV and movies. We are obsessed with these strong glorious women and what they represent. The documentary Pink Ribbons Inc. talks about while its good to inspire people, this movement around the warrior-ness of cancer patients pushes out the people who are suffering from it(Pool, L., & Din, R. (2012). Pink Ribbons, Inc. First Run Features.). They may have stage four or be having a bad day but they don't feel like warriors fighting cancer. They feel like what they are sick people doing their best against a horrible situation. Audre Lorde in The Cancer Journals also brings up a good point(Lorde, A. (1997). The cancer journals: Special edition. San Francisco: Aunt Lute.). She is visited by a women directly after surgery. This women attempts to get her to wear a false breast which isn't her size or skin color. The women wasn't evil or attempting to be cruel but the beautification of breast cancer means that no one can know that you're suffering. That means that if you have had a mastectomy then no one can know that you did because that's not beautiful. Even you can't know, the woman with the fake boobs kept saying that 'you won't know the difference'. What she was actually saying was you won't mention the difference because it ruins the image.

Depression is also not represented accuratly in the media(https://www.everydayhealth.com/depression/depression-in-the-media.aspx). It is another disease that is beautified especially in women. In TV shows and movies women with depression demurely refuse to eat while maintaining a healthy weight and draw or write beautiful things. They sleep and don't care about their appearance but are clean and effortless beautiful with no dark circles or bed head. This just isn't true. Depression is devastating to the person and effects their lives in every way. Also if the depressed person commits suicide or tries to its used as not a cry for help but as a way for everyone else to heal. Thirteen Reasons Why has come under a lot of criticism for this exact thing(https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/opinions/13-reasons-why-gets-it-wrong-henick-opinion/index.html). Hannah is used a a plot device in her own depression, which is never actually called depression, and suffered beautifully even after death to make life better for other people. Men with depression are also beautified on TV. Their angsty artists who have witty one liners. But for both men and women with depression this beautification ignore their struggles. It ignores the wasting away or eating to try to fill avoid. It ignore the sleeping all day or not being able to sleep. It ignore the pain and numbness and the rough un-beautiful emotions. It ignore the whole truth opting instead for the beautiful one.

Disease and suffering are not beautiful things but we make them especially when women are the ones with the disease and are suffering. Because women in our society are supposed to be beautiful and not have emotions except for happy and helping. Disease and suffering makes it almost impossible to be happy and helping so we ignore it and tell everyone the disease shouldn't win and change you. But It does, like any experience does. So let it change you. Let it make you feel shitty and unsure because you can feel those things and no one should stop you from feeling the way you need to. From fighting in your own un-beautiful way