The day I went to sign the authorizations for the mastectomy surgery, I discovered that there was one piece of paper left to sign that no one had told me about. Authorization to undergo breast reconstruction. The gynecologists, to whom I will be eternally grateful for how quickly and efficiently they had diagnosed me with breast cancer just a month before, assumed they would reconstruct my left breast. It’s not only that at no time did they think that I wasn’t going to rebuild myself, but they also didn’t realize that before signing this paper it would have been good to devote an explanation simple to what this “other surgery” means. » consisted of this reconstruction process.
I knew I didn’t want to rebuild myself. Alone and with a friend who had gone through this process a few months before, I had already decided. I didn’t want them to fill the expander in my chest with air during chemo, or it would then be affected by the x-ray. I also didn’t want to spend several more times in the operating room, deciding whether to tattoo one nipple and touch up the other breast to ensure symmetry. Furthermore, public health was not going to financially cover all these steps. The only thing I wanted at that traumatic moment was to focus all my attention and energy on the sixteen cycles of chemo that would begin a month later, in addition to recovering well from an operation that brought me unforeseen surprises. , such as the involvement of 16 lymphatics. nodes. which largely determined the recovery in this period of the mobility of my left arm.
Over time I understood and verified that breast reconstruction, which was not important for me, is for many women. Basically, I understood that with reconstruction, what we want is normalize aesthetically socially imperfect bodies and, in addition, is used as emotional support for women who will at least preserve their feminine figure and symmetry.
I didn’t think about any of this at the time. Now, I am certain that, for me, a feminist dyke closer to non-binaryism than to the feminine gender, it has never been particularly relevant to have a feminine silhouette. This patriarchal mandate does not belong to me. But, in addition, the left breast had been for me a source of worry and worry about the size of the tumor to which a private gynecologist refused to give importance while my nipple receded more and more . This is why I must recognize that the decision to be a “united woman” is not the result of activism, even if I was unconsciously influenced by my personal and collective experience in a trans-inclusive feminism where the dissidence of bodies, desires and genders has not produced any strangeness, quite the contrary. For me, the normal, the natural, was and is an aesthetically dissident body and in this context, my breastless body, my asymmetrical body, was and is accepted and recognized as valid and valuable.
When the doctor who stitched me up after the mastectomy fully respected my decision not to want reconstruction, I was lucky. There are too many cases of other women who insisted on reconstructing, were not informed once they signed the authorization and even underwent surgeries and had to endure the decision (not consulted or informed ) of their surgeons, on the operating table itself, left extra skin on their scar for future reconstruction in case they regretted it. Decision that has nothing to do with health or the oncological process. Decision based solely on an aesthetic mandate to “save the femininity” of women. A sexist mandate.
Breast reconstruction or wigs are just two of the aspects that well represent the social mandates of women with breast cancer who undergo mastectomies or lose their hair and much more as a result of treatments. Mandates which are patches which seek to silence our oncological sorrow due to the multiple losses that this disease causes in us: hair, part of our body, sexual desire, memory loss, difficulties in having routines, the changes in the relationship, the feeling of loneliness, loss of social life, of unreached… Mourning the role of a woman with breast cancer in a sexist, racist and class society. Accompanying this emotional experience of mourning would be, and this is what is really important, responding to the judgments and the demand that we feel to have to be up to the task and to be courageous in the midst of a disease called cancer, which is the main cause of death among women, but which already affects 1.5% of men.
Thus, this medical interest in preserving the femininity of a woman diagnosed with breast cancer contrasts with the lack of emotional and psychological support that we receive throughout the process from the hospitals where we receive treatment. Nor are we interested in the problems that affect our sexual life, with many side effects in this sense, problems which should be addressed by sexology professionals within public health.
It is true that the AECC offers free professional services, they are useful, but they are temporary, with a start and end date that do not always correspond to the needs of women diagnosed with breast cancer. It should not be a private non-profit organization (dependent on donations) that should ensure the mental and psychological health of cancer patients. Among other reasons, because once again, the use or not of this type of resources depends on the initiative of the woman while it should be part of the portfolio of oncological services to be offered in these processes.
Being Uniteta has not brought me any health problems, neither physical nor mental. My body is asymmetrical and I like it. I see the beauty in him. I also know that part of my acceptance is due to the visibility of other thin, flat colleagues who are suffering from breast cancer. I remember Sandra Monroy in Mexico, always an inspiration, Olatz Mercader, Idoia Miranda and Lucía Vioque. Like them, other feminist colleagues but also sexual dissidents are my reference and are part of my genealogy. Among them, Audre Lorde, who showed me how to rebel against the oldest patriarchal mandate, that of being docile and feminine. She wrote in The Cancer Journals: “After my mastectomy, it was important for me to develop and encourage my ability to feel internally powerful. I needed to direct my energies to see myself as a fighter who was resisting rather than a passive victim who was suffering. At all times, it was essential for me to consciously commit to surviving. “Love my life instead of crying my chest out.”
With this text I do not want all women who undergo a mastectomy to stop reconstructing themselves. At all. All I want is for you to know that our individual right and freedom to make informed choices is above the social mandates of patriarchy that require us to preserve femininity in the time of a disease like cancer. “Sacrificing this imposed femininity” is also an option if you do not want to reconstruct yourself, wear a wig, wear makeup, hide the loss of eyebrow hair, or have sexual relations without desire or have vaginal atrophy… Otherwise, we will be talking about aesthetic violence against women who, diagnosed with cancer and subjected to very aggressive treatments, should not be subjected to any pressure to be attentive to their appearance. The only thing that should matter, medically and socially, when a woman has breast cancer is what is happening inside her, in our bodies. The goal of breast cancer is to destroy the cells that cause it, not to destroy our self-esteem and mental health.
