But most importantly, how does she look?

When Angelina Jolie, a famous beauty icon in the modern media, made the choice to get a double mastectomy people in the public had a lot to say about her choices. A lot of the commentary about what she went through was inappropriate and insensitive to the seriousness of the situation.  

Jon Kopaloff/Film Magic

 The Daily Beast, a mostly gossip and news article cite,  posted an entire article about Angelina Jolie's double mastectomy. The article starts off by saying that, “There’s nothing sexy about a double mastectomy”. This article is instantly reducing the seriousness of a double mastectomy by sexualizing it. Not being “sexy” is far from the most important issue when one is dealing with a potential life threatening illness like cancer. The articles main purpose is to figure out whether or not Jolie's breasts will look normal again. They are only interested in the cosmetic aspect of the whole operation. They care little for her actual well-being and health.

            Media outlets such as this think it is okay to sexualize these cancer survivors because that is what people care about the most. People are more focused on beauty and appearance post cancer than they are with genuine emotional hardships and struggles with mortality that come with cancer. Focusing on appearance is a Band-Aid solution to a much deeper and sensitive topic that people do not want to have.

            Look Good Feel Better is a campaign that is built on helping cancer patients combat the appearance related side effects of cancer treatments. This program goes about helping individuals through makeup tutorials and demonstrations. The quick and easy fix to cancer is to put makeup on and feel better. Because if you look good, clearly nothing can be going below the surface.

This program is clearly not concerned with getting to the real conversations that could help. Not focused on why women are struggling so much or why cancer is so difficult to deal with. It is focused on fixing the surface level problems and making people seem happier and better. They could be encouraging conversations and discussions about how to feel good and confident despite maybe no longer fitting the “traditional beauty” standards. Instead, they push for conforming and ignoring what is really going on.

The Cancer Journals 

Audre Lorde, the black, feminist, lesbian, writes about her post mastectomy experience and how she felt the pressure from outside forces to cover up and move on. In her narrative about her experience, The Cancer Journals, Lorde writes that when leaving the hospital, the nurses strongly recommended that she wear the prosthesis given to her. Lorde did not feel comfortable or happy wearing the prosthesis but she did it anyways, because she did not feel like fighting it. Lorde realized that the prosthesis was pushed on her not necessarily for her own sake, but for others.

The nurse insisting that Lorde wear the prosthesis to keep up the appearance and moral of a breast cancer survivor is similar to what. Look Good, Feel Better is trying to do. The prosthesis just makes Lorde look “normal” to an outsider perspective, so no one has to know what she went through. But she will always know the difference and have to cope with it. Similarly, the Look Good, Feel Better campaign is about making women look and appear normal and healthy. Despite what they may have gone through all that matters is that they look normal to others.

It can be understood and respected that in fact some women do appreciate and enjoy campaigns such as the Look Good, Feel Better. For them, they may find comfort and solace in the connecting with their physical appearance post cancer. And there is nothing wrong with that. If it makes them feel good and better than that is great. However, the problem lies with when it becomes not about what the patient wants, but what other people want to see. People care what Angelina Jolie’s breasts are going to look like post mastectomy, not because they care that her decision makes her happy, but because it they want to still find her sexually attractive. If Jolie, a popular sex symbol, had decided not to go about implant reconstruction, people would have had things to say about it.

This all ties back to the obsession of the sexualization of women. Jolie is not the first or only women to experience being overly sexualized and be scrutinized post mastectomy. Women are constantly being forced to conform to beauty standards, even when they are dealing with life or death situations. They are encouraged to slap some makeup on and no one will know that they are suffering. No one will have to no what kind of pain they went through. All that matters is that they can still be traditionally attractive in the eyes of our society.

Sources

Lorde, Audre. The Cancer Journals. San Francisco, Aunt Lute Books, 1980. 

When things go wrong, blame the women

Younger women, typically teens, who go to receive the IUD often get informed of the “dangers” and risks that multiple sexual partners bring to them as an IUD user (Takeshita, 93).  When women put full faith and trust in their doctor, they are letting their bodies become a scapegoat. Because doctors, unfortunately, do not always have the answers to everything. But they present this information as fact and truth to patients who do not think to question them.

The IUDs historically poor reputation, because of products such as the Dalkon Shield, has left doctors and patients concerned about the IUD. This fear that started when the product was first introduced has manifested into a false understanding about the current IUDs on the market. These misconceptions about the safety if the current IUD has led some physicians to not wanting to give women who have never had children the IUD. The fear of what had happened before is leading to doctors making ill-informed decisions about the IUD. The natural instinct for these doctors is to put the blame or the problems on women's bodies not being fit instead of really looking at the product.

Kylenna TM

When the IUD was being introduced back onto the market there was a push and focus women who had children already. This was because the “research” seemed to suggest that the IUD was “safer” for these women and that women who had never given birth before where “riskier” users (Takeshita, 95). Women who had never had given birth before, or younger/teen women, were being excluded from potentially using the IUD because some research suggested that their bodies “reject” the IUD and cause complications. The reality of the situation is that the research on teens and the IUD is lacking a full understanding of how the product works with young women.

Doctors are giving out misleading information about the IUD, instead of taking the time to fully study or come to understand how the IUD works within the teen and younger women population. By relying on the history of the IUD and a small set of information about the IUD, doctors are putting blame on women's bodies not working with the product, instead of why the product does not work for these women. Young women are “high risks” for the IUD because of the potential sexual behaviors (Takeshita, 93). By calling a group of women a “risk” for the product, the responsibility and blame is put on the women if something goes wrong. This is how doctors are making up for a lack of knowledge and understanding about the IUD. Make it the users job to take care of herself if something goes wrong. The IUD is not to blame for any complications, the women are.

CDC

The way doctors are handling and treating women in regards to the IUD is not an isolated situation. Historically, doctors have opted out of taking the time to understand women's bodies. It can be seen with medicine and pregnant women a lot (Dusenbery). Many medications have not been tested amongst pregnant women so often doctors do not know the potential side effects of a medication for someone who is pregnant. This leaves women with two choices, take the medication without knowing how it will affect them, or don’t take the medicine and potentially suffer from not using it. Women are put in dangerous and damaging situations when there is not enough evidence about medical products and their bodies. Young women who chose to use the IUD could have extreme and harmful reactions, or they could not and it would be fine. There is simply not enough understanding for young women to make the most informed decision possible about the IUD.

Doctors are attempting to cover up the fact that the science and knowledge of the IUD is just not all there by using women as the scapegoat. They tell young women that they are the ones who are “risky”, not that the product is problematic to women's bodies. Whether or not the IUD is actually dangerous to women is not the point. The important thing is that some doctors have chosen to think it is because they accept this excuse of women's bodies not being fit or appropriate for the IUD. Doctors making these uninformed comments and suggestions to young women about the IUD is leading them away from something that could be a positive birth control method for them.

Sources

Blakemore, by Erin. “Why Do Some Doctors Refuse to Give Women IUDs?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 15 Oct. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/why-do-some-doctors-refuse-to-give-women-iuds/2017/10/12/ee1e881e-a3c9-11e7-b14f-f41773cd5a14_story.html?utm_term=.a00fbdf075bb.

DUSENBERY, MAYA. DOING HARM: the Truth about How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed,... Misdiagnosed, and Sick. HARPERONE, 2018.

Stacey, Dawn, et al. “Should Teens Use IUDs and Nexplanon?” Verywell Health, Verywellhealth, 28 Aug. 2018, www.verywellhealth.com/iud-birth-control-for-teenagers-906757.

Takeshita, Chikako. The Global Biopolitics of the IUD;. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012. Print.DUSENBERY, MAYA. DOING HARM: the Truth about How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed,... Misdiagnosed, and Sick. HARPERONE, 2018.

The War Inside the Home

 Violence Against Women is a long-standing issue that affects women from all different walks of life. There is for the, most part, a universal consensus that this is wrong and that women who experience gender-targeted violence are suffering. And yet, when faced with an opportunity to help women escape violence, women are turned away.

This past June America saw first-hand how little the government cares for the safety of refugee women. Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed and immigration appeals court ruling that allowed for women to seek asylum in the U.S due to credible fears of domestic abuse. This decision now limits all women who are experiencing domestic violence from seeking shelter in our country. 

Alex Wong/Getty Image

 

Sessions considers violence against women done by their partners to be an issue of, “private violence”. When you make the abuse women have to suffer a “private” affair then it is easier to turn a blind eye to it.  Private violence is something that the individual should handle or stop themselves. Private violence is not a national issue or a global concern. Sessions believes that it is not our country's responsibility to, “provide redress for all misfortune”. Using the word “misfortune” to describe the abuse that women experience at the hands of a partner is a gross invalidation of their suffering.  The abuse these women are experiencing at the hands of their partners can often be life-threatening if it goes on for too long.

It is should be noted that when Sessions talks about those seeking asylum he is referring to those individuals as “aliens” or “immigrants”. This changing of wording is used to help support the claim that this violence is a private matter. “Aliens” or “immigrants” are typically individuals who choose to leave their countries because they want to. Refugees, on the other hand, are described as individuals who leave their countries because they are no longer safe to live in. By not referring to the women who are trying to seek shelter in this country as refugees. Sessions delegitimize the danger these women’s lives are in due to domestic violence. He is claiming that violence of a partner, in a country that will not take action to support, is not a good enough reason to feel the need to seek safety elsewhere.

ANWAR/AMRO/AFP/Getty Image

It is clear that the opinion regarding women from other countries suffering violence from partners is none of the U.S concern. People that support Sessions on this decision are ignorant to the fact that often times the violence women are experiencing in their homes is an effect of the violence they are experiencing in their countries. Therefore, making domestic abuse a less privatized or isolated situation and more of an effect of war.

Violence against women during wartime takes on many forms such as rape, genital mutilation, and murder. Often soldiers from opposing sides are the ones that take part in these violent actions. There is an understanding that the violence done by the opposing side during war is the greatest and the most prevalent. Though women do experience a great about of gendered violence that is directly caused from the other side, it is not the only violence they are getting exposed to because of the war.

Domestic violence is heightened during times of conflict and often become lingering effects of war. One reason for this is the poverty and stress that goes along with wars, causes more martial disputes that can turn violent (Murray 153). Another reason is that war creates an environment that is adjusted to everyday violence and at a certain point accepts it. A society that has seen extreme violence as a way to end conflict within the nation becomes much more accepting of using violence as a way to end conflict within the home (153).

War disrupts and changes peoples through long-lasting trauma and stress. The violence does not end when the soldiers leave but continue when they come home.  Women are experiencing a significant amount of violence; it shouldn’t matter who is causing it. By deciding that domestic abuse is not a cause to give women asylum the U.S ignoring a whole other effect of war. Domestic abuse may not be the most public or salient issue within the news but it still something that is putting women’s lives in danger.

Nicolas Economou

This is an issue affecting women who still reside in their native countries and for the refugee women who have left their countries. An Arab community center in Toronto has noted that a large population of Syrian women are coming forward about domestic abuse going on in their life. One reason that the center has found that women stay silent for so long is that they were in “survival mode”. They are focused on getting out of the violence and conflict in their home countries. Unfortunately, sometimes they leave one violent situation to enter into another in their own home.

War breeds an environment that becomes adjusted and accepting of violence. Women are the ones that getting the worse effects of this. Instead of trying to offer help, our country is turning a blind eye to a serious issue. It is, quite frankly disgusting to see how little we value women’s lives and safety. As a country, we have become tolerant of witnessing the violence of war and letting women take the worse of it. If women cannot be safe in their own countries, then they deserve to be able to feel safe in their homes at the very least.

Sources 

Murray, Anne. From Outrage to Courage. Maine, Common Courage Press, 2008. 

Benner, Katie, and Caitlin Dickerson. “Sessions Says Domestic and Gang Violence Are Not Grounds for Asylum.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 June 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/us/politics/sessions-domestic-violence-asylum.html.

Lee-Shanok, Philip. “Syrian Refugee Coming Forward with Domestic Violence Allegations | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 21 May 2016, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/syrian-refugee-violence-1.3592679.