*Shutting Down Misconceptions about Clothing & Culture's Effect on Breast
Cancer*
Published on Muslimah Media
Watch<http://muslimahmediawatch.org/2011/05/title-tk/>| shared via
feedly <http://www.feedly.com>
Earlier this month, *Ms*. *Magazine* ran an article that looked at breast
cancer stigma in Saudi
Arabia<http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/05/06/breaking-the-breast-cancer-stigma-in-saudi-arabia/>.
The article provides breast cancer statistics in Saudi Arabia (without
citation or link), breast cancer statistics in the United States, and
American expat Carol Fleming <http://americanbedu.com/>'s experience with
breast cancer in Saudi Arabia. Fleming suggests that promoting pink products
for breast cancer awareness might help to curb the stigma associated with
the illness in Saudi Arabia. An nameless image of a pink burqa-clad woman
without context greets readers at the site, despite the fact that the burqa
is worn in Afghanistan.
A pink burqa, *Ms. Magazine? *Really?
Over at *Gender Across Borders*, Ashley Lauren responds to the Ms. Magazine
article<http://www.genderacrossborders.com/2011/05/12/shame-and-breast-cancer-in-saudi-arabia/>with
the following:
The fact is that, in a country where women wear burqas in public, there is a
lot of shame that surrounds the female body. This can become problematic
when it comes to breast cancer screening, as many medical technicians and
doctors in the country are men. For a woman to bare her breasts in front of
a man in Saudi Arabia is something that is still seen as taboo.
Deciding who to "bare one's breasts" to or whether your OB-GYN is a man or
woman is a highly personal decision that should be made based on one's
individual comfort level—making assumptions about a woman's comfort level
based on whether or not they wear a burqa is ridiculously reductive. The way
the last sentence of Lauren's paragraph is written is overly sensational:
isn't it taboo to bare your breasts in front of just any man
*anywhere?*Obviously, she means in instances for one's health and
well-being, but why
didn't she include that in her sentence?
Lauren promotes the idea that hijab/niqab/burqa-wearing woman—related
distinctly to a Muslim woman's identity—is associated with shame, and thus
attributes lack of breast cancer screening and awareness as the norm among
these women, without considering larger contextual and cultural factors that
affect a woman's understanding of preventative health measures.
Not one but *two *feminist websites failed at this story. I was disappointed
to see that neither article included interviews with Muslim or Saudi Arabian
women and their personal experiences with breast cancer. Lots of Muslim
women and non-Muslim women, not only in Saudi Arabia but around the world,
would be hesitant to have male practitioners examine them, for a variety of
reasons—just like plenty of Muslim and non-Muslim women are okay with male
providers. Pointing to shame surrounding the female body as a reason why
Muslim women wouldn't want to be examined by a doctor ignores that this
isn't something that's unique to Muslim women.
We often forget that breast cancer is not the leading cause of death for
women in the United States—heart disease is <http://www.cdc.gov/women/lcod/>.
And that African-American women in the United States have lower incidences
of breast cancer than white women, yet are more likely than white women to
die <http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/statistics/race.htm> from the
illness. Or that when considering the leading causes of disease in women
around the world, breast cancer is not even among the top 10 causes of
death<http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs334/en/index.html>,
and only becomes so in middle and high-income countries:
* *
<http://muslimahmediawatch.org/2011/05/title-tk/chp1_table3_full/>
"10 Leading Causes of Death in Females by Income Group, 2004" WHO
While it is true that Muslim women from many ethnic backgrounds do not
participate in screening
efforts<http://www.annalsofepidemiology.org/article/S1047-2797%2805%2900196-1/abstract>(at
least in the United States, according to this link ), the reasons for
why they do not do so are complex and should be considered relative to their
overall health risk, cultural understanding of health and illness, and
personal experience with their healthcare systems and providers.
From my own anecdotal evidence, Muslim and non-Muslim women I have spoken
with—both hijab-wearing and non-hijab wearing alike—discussed their
oftentimes horrendous, awkward experience with reproductive healthcare
providers—both male and female—who come across as distant and oblivious to
different cultural understandings of health and preventative measures.
What kind of impact might bad experiences with providers have on women who
are already disenfranchised from partaking in preventative health measures?
How do cultural understandings of health and illness influence whether one
seeks preventative health measures at all? These nuanced questions are lost
in the reduction of women's wellbeing to how their burqa-wearing prevents
them from seeking preventative care.
Stigma associated with illnesses, especially related to reproductive health,
exists and is serious and needs to be addressed, but reducing it to
"burqa/niqab/hijab wearing women are shameful of seeing male providers and
that's why they don't get screened" narrative is simplistic and harmful to
promoting and advancing women's health and wellbeing.
Feedly. Feed your mind. http://www.feedly.com <http://www.feedly.com/#mail>
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