The Cultural Interpretation of Breast Cancer

Authors

Jessica Gregg, Emory University

Abstract

By attaching meaning to illness, cultural demystifies seem­ingly random conditions, while simulta­neously entrapping them in inescapable webs of significance. Humans are caught between the need to and give meaning to illness, and the danger of giving illness an interpretation that ul­timately proves deleterious to victims of disease, and to society itself. This paper argues that in the de­veloped Western cultures*, breast cancer is an example of an illness "marked with cultural salience" and saturated with cul­tural meaning. I contend that within the developed Western nations, breast can­cer has developed a pervasive, culture-specific meaning, and that as Western culture has created this inteipretation for breast cancer, that creation in turn shaped Western culture. The meanings associated with breast cancer permeate the Western consciousness, bringing with them stringent, and perhaps ill -conceived definitions of the "normal" and the "abnormal" breast.

Relational Format

journal article

Recommended Citation

Gregg, Jessica (1992) "The Cultural Interpretation of Breast Cancer," Southern Anthropologist: Vol. 19: No. 3, Article 3.
Available at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/southern_anthropologist/vol19/iss3/3