Well written and interesting*. Lots of insight into what could be called the 'breast cancer cheerleading' industry, and feminist history relating to breast cancer. (And much that women on here may wish to question, including the 'queering' of breast cancer portrayals.)
https://aeon.co/essays/how-breast-cancer-rips-up-conventional-markers-of-gender
What strikes me is how much the writer describes [some] women's identity as apparently existing in how others perceive them.
And also how she uses the word 'queering' - here to mean challenging gender stereotypes. Perhaps this 'double meaning' is part of the problem. Some people use the word to mean one thing, while others use it to mean another:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/12/opinion/it-is-what-it-is.html
'Language change is not merely Old English becoming Modern English or new slang popping up. It involves words and expressions often straddling both earlier and newer meanings, such that designating them as meaning solely one or the other can shed more heat than light.' (McWhorter).
And finally this very good point:
'any research into a cure has to start with the people actually dying of the disease – women with Stage 4 breast cancer – rather than focused purely on prevention. This is what the organisation I am involved with, METUPUK, seeks to do, and is joined in the US by the likes of Breast Cancer Action and METAvivor. All work to raise awareness of the plight of women dying of SBC and of raising funds for and promoting research into SBC – as opposed to primary cancer, which tends to have better outcomes and is therefore more lucrative.'
*the essay's author sadly died last year.