Women and Cancer

Table Of Contents

Editorial/Éditorial by Brenda L. Blondeau and Eva C. Karpinski 3,5

Challenging Existing Paradigms
A New Understanding of Breast Cancer and Alternatives to Mammography
by Rosalie Bertell

Feminist Perspectives on Breast Cancer, Environmental Health and Primary Prevention:
The Case for the Precautionary Principle
by Dorothy Goldin Rosenberg

The Imperative of Happiness for Women Living with Breast Cancer
by Agnes Vitry

Reading My Mother’s Care: On the Fringes of a Compassionate and Empathetic Ethic
by Anna Natoli

Pyschosocial Impacts of Radiation Tattooing for Breast Cancer Patients: A Critical
Review by Barbara Clow and Janet Allen

Imagerie médicale, corps des femmes et regard occidental: une analyse de l’incertitude
médicale autour du cancer du sein
par Monique Benoit

Intersectionalities and the Biopolitics of Cancer Care

“I Just Didn’t Tell Anybody What I Was Doing”: Aboriginal Women Cancer Survivors
Visualize Social Support
by Carolyn Brooks

Caring for the Self, Caring for Others: The Politics and Ethics of Genetic Risk for Breast Cancer
by Jessica Polzer

“It’s Your Body But…”: Young Women’s Narratives of Refusing Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccination
by Francesca Mancuso and Jessica Polzer

“One of My Better Operations”: Older Women and Cancer
by Christine Sinding and Jennifer Wiernikowski

She Re-membered (A Story of Care) by Laura Mae Lindo

Aiming for Better Than “Nobody Flinched”: Notes on Oppression in Cancer Care
by Christine Sinding, Lisa Barnoff, Patti McGillicuddy, Pam Grassau, and Fran Odette

Cultural Politics of Cancer

The Sense of an Illness and Breast Cancer Culture
by Rita Bode

(Dis)Regarding Pain? Resituating a Feminist “Cyborg” Praxis by Pam Patterson 99
Bearing Cancer in Graphic Memoir
by Dina Georgis

Cancer Publics: The Private/Public Split in Breast Cancer Memoir
by Eva C. Karpinski

Feeling Angry: Breast Cancer Narratives, Cancer Prevention and Public Affects
by Emilia Neilsen

Infertility in Women After Cancer: A Dangerous Metaphor, An Important Dialogue
by Laura Duralija Rocca

Witnessing: Personal Narratives of Illness, Agency and Care

The Club You Don’t Want to Join
by Marlene Mills

Seven Reflections on Breast Cancer by Seven Women Who Worked Together
by Sharon Angel, Teresa Healy, Sandi Howell, Laurie Kingston, Catherine Louli, Doreen Meyer and Cathy Remus

Fremdschläfer / D’ailleurs
par Verena Stefan

Cancer Comedy: Would You Like Hormones With That?
by Meg Torwl

Ovarian Cancer at Twenty-Two: A Survivor’s Story
by Insheera Lachmann

Cancer de l’ovaire: deux témoignages par Cancer d’ovaire Canada

Mole
by Leslie Malchy

Il canto della rosa e dell’angelo (The Song of the Rose and the Angel)
by Angela Marchionni, excerpts trans. by Elena Basile

Jouer, Rêver, Guérir: Un témoignage
by Viva Iny

Unravelling the Ribbon: Learning About Breast Cancer Through Poetic Transcription
by Roanne Thomas-MacLean

Poetry

Welcome to Cancerland
by Mary Trafford

Empathy
by Shirley Adelman

Red Taffeta
by Ilona Martonfi

Poems from Self-portrait without Breasts
by Clare Best

Whimsy
by Malca Litovitz

Radiation
by Diane Driedger

What I’d Like to Hear
by Malca Litovitz

The Black Box
by Ilona Martonfi

Cheap Top
by Malca Litovitz

The Breeze, Resting
by Kay R. Eginton

Rosie’s Eyes
by Farideh de Bosset

Skin Deep
by M. E. Csamer

Oncologist
by Diane Driedger

and round the meadows let the winds rotate (after Rilke’s Autumn Day)
by M. E. Csamer

Recurrence
by Mary Trafford

Cancer Treatment
by Diane Driedger

Sweet Reminder
by Sandra Woolfrey

Hummingbird
by Sandra Woolfrey

Speaking of Isak Dineson, Beryl Markham and Georgia O’Keefe
by Sandra Woolfrey

Chronic Fatigue
by Joan Bond

Keep Childhood
by Joanna M. Weston

Flaming Booze
by Farideh de Bosset

The Accent
by Farideh de Bosset

And There Were Many Birds
by Kay R. Eginton

Classified
by Sandra Woolfrey

Book Reviews

Fractured Borders: Reading Women’s Cancer Literature
reviewed by Eva C. Karpinski

Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermining America
reviewed by Brenda L. Blondeau

Hearing the Stream: A Survivor’s Journey into the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer
reviewed by Allan Burns

Caregiving on the Periphery: Historical Perspectives on Nursing and Midwifery in Canada
reviewed by Karen M. Andres

Pathways, Bridges and Havens: The Psychosocial Determinants of Women’s Health
reviewed by Nanci White

First Day and Slow Dancing: Creativity and Illness: Duologue and Rengas
reviewed by Anna Natoli

Singing Me Home
reviewed by Miriam N. Kotzin

Women Between Construction of Self in the Work of Sharon Butala, Aganetha Dyck, Mary Meigs and Mary Pratt
reviewed by Janice Andreae

Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father and Margaret Fuller: An
American Romantic Life
reviewed by Gisela Argyle

Ile D’Or
reviewed by Anne Gagné

1 Way 2 C the World: Writings 1984-2006
reviewed by Malgosia Halliop

Strangers in Our Midst: Sexual Deviancy in Postwar Ontario
reviewed by Zoë Newman

Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Post-War Canada
reviewed by Dominique Clément

About the Artwork

Front Cover
Diane Driedger, “Self-Portrait with Bandaged Breast (After Van Gogh’s Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear,” 2010, watercolour,
18.25″ x 21.5″.

Back Cover
Diane Driedger, “Me and Frida Kahlo,” 2006, watercolour on paper, 19″ x 20″.

Diane Driedger is a Winnipeg poet and visual artist who has been involved in the disability rights movement for 30 years. Her collection of poetry, The Mennonite Madonna (Gynergy Books), was published in 1999. Her latest book is an edited collection: Living the Edges: A Disabled Women’s Reader (Inanna, 2010).