It's a No-brainer: Navigating Mastectomies and Reconstructive Options

• In Event: 336 - Section on Body and Embodiment Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 04. Bodies and Gender

Abstract

In this chapter I explore two crucial decisions faced by cisgender women with breast cancer: whether or not to have a bilateral mastectomy and how to reconstruct their bodies following this surgery. Breasts have many meanings both culturally and individually. Drawing on interviews with 14 BRCA positive women and 20 women with breast cancer, I explore the processes by which women choose mastectomies when not medically necessitated and the ways in which they explain their decisions about reconstructive surgery. While the decision to have a mastectomy is straightforward for most of the women in this study, the decision about what to do with their bodies after surgery draws on complex understandings of the feminine body, personal integrity, bodily autonomy, and aesthetics.

Author

• Piper Coutinho-Sledge, University of Chicago