Women know their bodies

One of the questions I get is whether the tumour was identified during a routine mammography. In fact, the two times I went for a biopsy were because I felt lumps in my breasts that were out of the ordinary. I have heard of other women who also have the same experience of feeling abnormal lumps and checking with their physician.

I think that breast cancer is something that hovers over every woman's life. It is the most common cancer for women in most countries, and for half of those who are diagnosed with it, there isn't a particular risk factor other than being a woman and over 40. I am now over 50. Already in perimenopause (no night sweats, but some debilitating sleepless nights).

Women don't trust that they know their bodies enough to see if something is wrong. But they do. They may rationalise it, minimise it, but they know when something is off. That is how I knew. Not that it was cancer, but that it was off enough to ask a doctor if I should be worried. I have seen and heard, since my thirties, that many other women do the same. This is how I know that women know their bodies.

It reminds me of two instances in which I heard women's relationships with their bodies described in memorable ways.

In a meeting among African feminists, one recalled how they had been shocked and transformed when radical feminist Patricia McFadden had asked a group of eager young feminists in training: when was the last time they had looked at their own p****.

She meant to point out how our bodies and relationship with them are often marred with shame and avoidance. She means to remind us to reconnect deeply with ourselves. To look at ourselves with radical self-love.

Which brings me to the second instance. In a conversation with a friend, she shared that, with age, she had begun to "see" herself better. To see parts of herself that she had not paid attention to before.

This same friend asked me recently: "Do you feel that you are inhabiting another body or do you recognise yourself in this medicated body?"

I like the questions she asks me. They make me look deep inside. My answer:

"The issue is that this cancer is also part of the hormonal woman which I am becoming. The menopausal woman. I have been thinking (still incipiently) about how we prepare for or accept the propensities, ailments, aches and pains, as well as the more serious illnesses. I am curious about other paradigms for dealing with this transition. So, I don't exactly recognise myself. Because I am leaving behind a body, an existence. And another will emerge. And it is happening with this disease, but the high blood pressure, the sleepless nights, the difficulty focusing... all is part of this transition"

This experience, and the way I am forced to look and listen to my body, has forced me into a deeper and more radical self-love. My attention to my body, in a simple but intimate moment of self-grooming, and my decision not minimise what it was telling me, only makes me appreciate our relationship more. I wish this same relationship and self-embrace for all women.