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http://hdl.handle.net/2440/90893
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Type: | Journal article |
Title: | 'If you grow them, know them': discursive constructions of the pink ribbon culture of breast cancer in the Australian context |
Author: | Gibson, A. Lee, C. Crabb, S. |
Citation: | Feminism and Psychology, 2014; 24(4):521-541 |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Issue Date: | 2014 |
ISSN: | 0959-3535 1461-7161 |
Statement of Responsibility: | Alexandra Farren Gibson, Christina Lee and Shona Crabb |
Abstract: | The ‘pink ribbon culture’ dominates understandings of breast cancer in Western societies. We describe this as an ‘illness culture’, consisting of neoliberal discourses and practices, which construct the breast cancer experience. We take a feminist post-structuralist approach to review current breast cancer lay materials available to women in Australia, to examine how breast cancer is discursively constructed within this context. Further, we consider how women with breast cancer are positioned and what the implications are for women’s lives. We discuss neoliberal discourses of ‘individual responsibility and empowerment’ and ‘optimism’, and the central practices that focus on individual health behaviours and survivorship. This illness culture has productive and restrictive effects for women’s subjectivity. Whilst women are positioned as ‘empowered’ regarding their health, this comes at the price of self-regulation and responsibility. Support and information additionally reposition women in feminine, heteronormative ways, whilst excluding women who do not fit narrow cultural stereotypes. |
Keywords: | breast cancer; neoliberal; discourse; pink ribbon culture; Australia; women’s health |
Rights: | © The Author(s) 2014 |
RMID: | 0030022483 |
DOI: | 10.1177/0959353514548100 |
Appears in Collections: | Public Health publications |
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