The day I went to sign the authorizations for the mastectomy surgery, I found that there was one more paper to sign that no one had told me about. Authorization to have breast reconstruction. The gynecologists, to whom I will be eternally grateful for the speed and efficiency with which they had diagnosed me with breast cancer just a month before, assumed that they were going to reconstruct my left breast. It’s not just that at no time did they stop to think that I wasn’t going to reconstruct myself, but they also didn’t realize that before signing that paper it would have been good to dedicate a simple explanation to what that “other surgery” consisted of. that reconstruction process.
I knew I didn’t want to rebuild myself. On my own and with a friend who had gone through that process a few months before, I had already decided. I didn’t want them to fill the expander in my chest with air during the chemo with the risk that it would later be affected by the radio. 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 those 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 unforeseen surprises, such as the involvement of 16 lymph nodes. which have largely determined the recovery in this time of the mobility of my left arm.
Over time I have understood and verified that breast reconstruction, which was not important for me, is important for many women. Basically, I have understood that with reconstruction what is wanted is normalize socially imperfect bodies aesthetically and, in addition, is used as emotional support for women who will at least preserve their feminine silhouette 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 female gender, it has never been especially relevant to have a silhouette of femininity. That patriarchal mandate is not with me. But, in addition, the left breast for me had been a source of concern and concern about the size of the tumor that a private gynecologist refused to give importance to while my nipple receded further and further. That is why I have to recognize that the decision to be a “unite woman” was not the result of activism, although I was unconsciously influenced by my personal and collective experience in a trans-inclusive feminism where the dissidence of bodies, desires and genders did not produce any strangeness, quite the opposite. For me, the normal, the natural, was and is an aesthetically dissident body and in that 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 have been insisted on reconstructing, have not been informed once they have signed the authorization and have even undergone operating rooms and have had to bear 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 represent well the social mandates that women with breast cancer have who undergo a mastectomy or lose their hair and much more as a result of the treatments. Mandates that are patches that seek to silence our oncological grief due to the multiple losses that this disease entails in us: hair, a part of our body, sexual desire, memory loss, difficulties in having routines, changes in the relationship relationship, the feeling of loneliness, the loss of social life, not reaching… The mourning of the role of a woman suffering from breast cancer in a sexist, racist and classist society. Accompanying this emotional experience of grief would be and is what is really important, addressing the judgments and the demand that we feel to have to live up to the task and be brave in the midst of a disease called cancer, which is the biggest cause of death among women, but which It already affects 1.5% of men.
Therefore, 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 have during the process from the hospital centers where we are receiving the treatments. There is also no interest in the problems that affect our sexual life, with many side effects in this sense, problems that 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 match the needs of women diagnosed with breast cancer. It should not be a private non-profit organization (that depends on donations) that should ensure the mental and psychological health of cancer patients. Among other reasons, because once again, whether or not to resort to these types of resources depends on the woman’s initiative when it should be part of the portfolio of oncological services to offer in these processes.
Being a Uniteta has not brought me any health problems, either physical or mental. My body is asymmetrical and I like it. I see beauty in him. I also know that part of my acceptance is thanks to the visibility of other slim and flat colleagues who are going through breast cancer. I am remembering Sandra Monroy in Mexico, always an inspiration, Olatz Mercader, Idoia Miranda or Lucía Vioque. Like them, other fellow feminists and also sexual dissidents are my reference and 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 diaries: “After my mastectomy, it was important for me to develop and encourage my ability to feel internally powerful. I needed to direct my energies towards perceiving myself as a fighter who resisted instead of a passive victim who suffered. At all times it was essential for me to consciously commit to survival. “To love my life instead of mourning my chest.”
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 force us to preserve femininity in times of a disease like cancer. “Sacrificing that imposed femininity” is also an option if you do not want to reconstruct yourself, wear a wig, put on makeup, hide the loss of eyebrow hair, or have sexual relations without desire or have vaginal atrophy… Otherwise, we will be talking of aesthetic violence against women who, diagnosed with cancer and undergoing very aggressive treatments, should not be pressured in any way to be attentive to their appearance. The only thing that should matter when there is a woman with breast cancer, medically and socially, is what is happening inside them, inside our bodies. The goal in breast cancer is to destroy the cells that cause it, not to destroy our self-esteem and mental health.
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