When cancer meets gender
Meidani, Anastasia
When cancer meets gender - 2019.
68
This article studies the qualitative component of the French section of a mixed methodology European research program on experiences of cancer. Drawing on 100 interviews with cancer patients, their families, and the professionals involved in treating them and 400 in situ observations in five different treatment centers, it explores how gender intervenes in the work the patient needs to do and in treatment experiences. There are three sections to the analysis. In the first, we probe the reproduction of gender norms in this area in terms of a two-sided paradox: women’s apparent “vulnerability” goes together with strong social and relational resistance, whereas the supposed endurance of men often gives way to weakened subjectivities. In the second part we discuss the gender-related adjustments brought about by the disease in order to distinguish what aspects of plural versions of masculinity and femininity help patients develop strategies for standing up to the disease. In the third part, we examine relations between patients and treatment givers on the basis of this oscillation between norm reproduction and situated gender adjustments.
When cancer meets gender - 2019.
68
This article studies the qualitative component of the French section of a mixed methodology European research program on experiences of cancer. Drawing on 100 interviews with cancer patients, their families, and the professionals involved in treating them and 400 in situ observations in five different treatment centers, it explores how gender intervenes in the work the patient needs to do and in treatment experiences. There are three sections to the analysis. In the first, we probe the reproduction of gender norms in this area in terms of a two-sided paradox: women’s apparent “vulnerability” goes together with strong social and relational resistance, whereas the supposed endurance of men often gives way to weakened subjectivities. In the second part we discuss the gender-related adjustments brought about by the disease in order to distinguish what aspects of plural versions of masculinity and femininity help patients develop strategies for standing up to the disease. In the third part, we examine relations between patients and treatment givers on the basis of this oscillation between norm reproduction and situated gender adjustments.
Réseaux sociaux