Finding A Place in Society as a Young Infertile Cancer Patient

Abstract

Record ID: 90

Award(s): Excellence in Research Communication

Project Affiliation: Project Supported by the Taft Research Center

Student Major: Exploratory (declaring Political Science in the fall)

Project Advisor: Amy Lind

Abstract: In this essay, I will be conceptualizing what it means to be a "woman" to a young person with cancer. In our patriarchal society, we expect women to look, behave, and act a certain way. However, with a cancer diagnosis, these expectations feel impossible. Before our diagnoses, we were able to reap the benefits of a patriarchal society, but when we became sick, we could no longer. We are forced to consider our femininity as our perspectives of what matters is flipped upside down. I will be discussing navigating the pandemic while chronically ill and the struggles of "disclosure" when making new friends or pursuing a relationship. I will also be looking at the intersectionality of being chronically ill, a woman, and queer. In much of the research I have done for this paper, the perspective is from family members, from oncologists. I want to give cancer patients the opportunity to create their own narrative, one that is from the inside rather than from a medical or a romantic perspective.