Purpose of Research

Breast Cancer’s existing impact on women as a community and as individuals, drove us to research the topic and to conduct interviews that highlight the different ways Breast Cancer impacts the lives of women. The medical and scientific aspects of Breast Cancer are unpleasant, but the purpose of our research is to show the physical, mental, and social aspects involved in this disease. Our three panelist will be able to represent different perspectives of how the disease influences, and has influenced their lives. Our panel of women will contain survivors of breast cancer, and someone who has lost a loved one to breast cancer. Our panel includes, Maureen Lovett, Betty Wingo, and Leslie Berry. Their responses are aimed to create a link between breast cancer’s affects on their lives and possibly create an idea of what the future holds for the disease. We can look at the differences in our panel and how those with the disease coped with it and the support they received from those around them. Then we can look at how those who had a loved one that had Breast Cancer and how they were able to be supportive, and what they learned from that experience. Many aspects of womanhood and feminism are relevant to Breast Cancer. Society views hair and breast as primacies of womanhood, but those with breast cancer have battled this stigma as well. Breast Cancer involves hair loss, and in many times the surgical removal of the breast. In our interviews we want to see how women adapt when their physical characteristics are deviated from societies views, and what methods kept them strong mentally and allowed them to embrace their new image.