Philosophy in the Contemporary World

Volume 11, Issue 1, Summer 2004

Feminist Apporoaches to the Body

In memory
Women’s experiences of (dangerous) breasts

Women’s embodied memories of “Dangerous Breasts”, generated as part of a wider collective memory project on women’s breasts, I construct women as always at risk of our bodies turning against us. We trace through memory stories how we inscribe our bodies as “dangerous” through practices involving silence, fear, surveillance and diagnosis. We examine how regimes directed at the prevention and treatment of breast cancer serve, in our memories, to increase anxiety and distance us from our bodies and any sense of agency.