The fashioned survivor: institutionalized representations of women with breast cancer

This paper explores some institutionalized visual representations of women with breast cancer and examines the rhetoric of the images in the American Cancer Society product catalogue (2000) and the Look Good ... Feel Better pamphlet. I show that these cultural discourses promote notions of appearance that are 'acceptable', 'desirable', and 'beautiful' even when a person is sick. Suggestions and models offered for women when there is a 'problem' with their bodies through the frame of 'helping' them to cope with the effects of cancer--by managing their appearance--provide models for renewed femininity during/after cancer treatment and function to maintain the existing definitions of beauty, femininity, and gendered appearances even in times of crisis. With an emphasis on the 'normalization' of one's changed 'problematic' appearance, the images function to narrow down women's meanings and choices about their bodies and the ways in which they can manage their bodily appearance. Furthermore, this paper points to possible alternative discourses for further exploration. This study aims to enrich our understandings of cultural meanings of illness by making visual materials a significant part of our research.