| This paper analyzes how breast cancer, its diagnosis, treatment regimens, and cultural and societal expectations impacts patients' identity. Diagnosis of breast cancer typically is performed by techno-scientific means. Findings indicate that some diagnoses originate within the patients' body with a form of intuitive knowing. This type of knowing has been largely discounted by expert knowledge as invalid. During treatment the self is deconstructed through abjection of the body and the resulting attributes of stigma. Management of this stigma is done through the use of strategies such as concealment and normalization. Chemotherapy treatment results in hair loss, which participants ritualize through status degradation ceremonies. Western ideals of beauty, patriarchal institutions of medicine, and pink ribbon culture all influence identity rebuilding. This triumvirate actively constructs and disseminates what have become socially acceptable self-identities that influence patients as they go through the process of identity construction.;Assimilation of these pre-formed identities such as the She-Ro and Moral Entrepreneur results in status elevation of the patient. The She-Ro represents masculine strength coupled with feminine beauty. This identity has feeling rules such as positivity, selfishness, and guilt if the representation of this identity is not displayed correctly. The Moral Entrepreneur is an identity that is lived on a daily basis; these individuals adopt a humanitarian purpose to end the scourge of breast cancer by creating rules, fundraising, and supporting other patients. These identities are a form of discipline that acts upon a breast cancer patient's body and self in an unconscious way to maintain larger western ideals of beauty and femininity. |
