This is the 7th in an ongoing series of posts bringing a critical sociological and feminist lens to my own experiences with endometrial cancer.

Throughout my time in cancer land, people have told me that I’m brave. Early on I was in such a fog that this felt like a vague – nearly meaningless – bit of encouragement. But as time went on, I felt the urge to shout: Fuck bravery! Do you think I chose to enter some sort of cosmic lottery in which I valiantly took this aggressive cancer on myself so that someone else doesn’t have to suffer from it? Or that I opted to be a medical guinea pig to save others from the afflictions and indignities of debilitating treatments? Surely you don’t think that I chose to sacrifice myself to the cancer gods to save the world from a greater, collective tragedy? Or that I’m a courageous warrior fighting the enemy cancer with my bare hands and bald head? 

I must admit I have occasionally said some of these things.

More often, especially recently, I’ve replied  “What do you mean by brave?” Responses are typically along the lines of, “I couldn’t handle what you are going through. You are going on working and socializing and even telling people about your situation. I would just curl up into a ball on my bed.” That may indeed be what some members of my community would do or have done, yet I suspect that most people I encounter professionally and socially would probably respond in pretty much the same ways I have.

That should not be surprising.

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Our seemingly personal responses to pain, loss, sickness, suffering – those unavoidable components of human existence – never take place in a cultural vacuum. Years ago I worked with an Israeli graduate student whose master’s thesis involved interviewing women, from a variety of communities, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She wanted to understand  how women felt about their diagnosis, what helped them cope, and what made things more difficult. Her findings were astonishing. We had hypothesized that women from more traditionally religious communities would have an easier time dealing with breast cancer because they would have the comfort of being able to “do something” helpful (pray) and the security of knowing that God has a plan, earthly suffering is just a blip in the divine scheme, and the real rewards come in Heaven. Contrary to our expectations, we found that traditionally religious women had the hardest time coping. Interviewees explained that in their community, cancer is seen as divine punishment for sin and breast cancer is suspected to be punishment for sexual sins, including immodesty. Therefore they made every effort to hide their illness out of fear that the community would judge them harshly, and that their children (the offspring of a sexually tarnished woman) would not be able to make good marriages. As a consequence, they dealt not only with guilt and shame, but with the loss of the social and practical support I, like many cancer patients, sorely need.

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To take a rather different example, sociologists of religion have long described American religion and culture as happy or healthy-minded. In The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) William James observed that, unlike 18th and 19th century Europeans, Americans developed a religious outlook focusing  on the positive aspects of life, downplaying the existence of evil and suffering, emphasizing human agency to bring about desired outcomes, and encouraging optimism not only as a philosophical stance but, more importantly, as a path to good physical and mental health. For James, as well as for later writers, this orientation was rooted in historically American Protestant ideals of building the utopian “city on the hill” in the new world as well as American experiences of conquest and expansionism together with faith in technological and scientific advancement.

Bravery, implicitly or explicitly, is integral to the American Dream: Puritans courageously taking on life-threatening challenges in the New World; immigrants fleeing familiar poverty for the hope of finding streets paved with gold in an unknown land; pioneers trekking into the western wilderness with only a horse, a mule, and a flimsy cart or wagon; innovators throwing away the shackles of old thinking not knowing if their new ideas would be feasible; the Starship Enterprise venturing into space – the final frontier. Even the idea of democracy itself showcases bravery – the courage to trust that the political collective can and will make decisions ensuring life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all.

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Here in American cancer land, we are praised not only for being brave, but for being brave warriors. Let me say right off the bat: I do not identify as a hero adorned with a pink or teal ribbon (teal is the new color for ovarian cancer). I am not at war with cancer. Cancer is my own body. It’s my own cells doing what cells do all the time: mutating, a multi-edged sword that allows for human diversity and evolution as well as for fetal abnormalities, genetic diseases, and cancer. 

Wars have winners and losers – those who surrender (die) and those who vanquish (live.) I, for one, resent the culture of praise and admiration for cancer “survivors”. We’re not on a reality television show. We live in the real world in which all mortal beings eventually die. It may be a classic example of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, but I decided to decline the services offered (for free) by one cancer support organization that requires applicants to choose between two identities: “Cancer Thriver” and “Cancer Survivor”. That’s it. No other options. No box to check for “muddling through a morass of misery and uncertainty while undergoing frightening treatments for a likely incurable disease.” But I guess that’s the American way.

And so, I have come to think, compliments for my bravery have less to do with me as an individual and more to do with a well-established American cultural ideal that teaches us to obscure or ignore suffering, trust in a better future, and valorize individual healthy-mindedness. To be clear, I truly believe that my friends and acquaintances comment on my courage with all the best intentions. I, in turn, have the good intention to suppress the thought – or at least refrain from saying aloud – “fuck bravery”. But I hope those who are dear to me will try to understand that while I am drowning in the powerlessness of cancer and chemotherapy, it does me good to hold onto my sociologist self, the part of me that analyzes and critiques and rebels even at the risk of annoying my medical providers and discomfiting those who care about me. Bravery? Shmavery!