Violence Against Women and Cancer in Women - Essay Example

Women’s Health of Learning Violence against Women and Cancer in Women Worldwide, women are faced with many problems, which have extremely negative consequences for their health. Various data confirm the fact that many women suffer from violence that comes from their intimate partners. In fact, intimate partner violence takes various forms, namely psychological, physical, and sexual. Often, physical violence is inextricably linked to sexual violence (Robinson, 2003). According to Robinson (2003), "violence has medical, behavioral and psychological consequences." The harm caused by violence against women takes numerous forms, since it involves not only their physical, but also their mental state. As in the case of cancer, women face a particularly difficult psychological state, which is described as depression and can lead to quite different results. Faced with cancer, many women may also fall into despair. Both situations can lead to a variety of insanity, even to suicide. In addition, in both situations, the physical health of women is being seriously tested. Not only beatings inflicted by the result of violence but also chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer have an extremely negative impact on the physical condition of women. The idea is that the internal organs undergo various negative changes that prevent women feel good. Thus, one can find a similarity between the physical and psychological states of women in both cases. Nevertheless, one should not completely identify these two experiences. In the case of intimate partner violence, women experience fear for their lives, but many of them get used to the situation. This is particularly being observed in those societies where male domination and violence against women are common and if not encouraged, but not prohibited by the culture (Robinson, 2003). With regard to the experience of women facing cancer, it is rather existential. Often the diagnosis is a surprise for the women who had not suspected that they may become a victim of cancer. Such a sudden illness like cancer poses a particular extremely heavy and tense atmosphere, which for women is associated not only with questions about whether they will remain alive. Women are also concerned about what kind they will have as a result of successful treatment. Various studies as well as the stories of women, women face with the question whether they will remain women after treatment. Unfortunately, such form of cancer as breast cancer often leads to surgical removal of the breasts. This means that women have to learn to accept themselves in a new guise that it is difficult to do given that society imposes its own requirements for what a woman should look like. The requirement to "look normal" (Batt, 2002) makes women to solve the problem of the appearance adequate to public standards. Thus, when women fight against cancer, they have to contend not only with their internal state, but also to a certain extent with the society in which they live. They have to re-start their lives and build the image of a woman who was able to beat cancer. 2. Women’s Health and Environment “Environmentalh health is an arena for health policy that emerges from the inextricable link between human health and the environmental context within which people lead their daily lives "(Kettel, 1996). Environment has a very important impact on human health, since what air people breathe as well as what food and water they consume largely determines their health status. However, studies indicate that womens health is in a much closer connection with the peculiarities of the environment rather than the men’s (Kettel, 1996). This is due to the fact that women have much more frequent and intense contacts with the environment than men. Firstly, according to generally accepted standards, women must perform a variety of household functions that are directly related to the elements of the environment, such as soil, water, sun and air. Given that the environmental situation in the modern world has a high degree of contamination it is not difficult to guess that because of the specificity of their basic responsibilities women are the first "victims" of a bad environment. In addition, women are often employed in the field of agriculture that also involves regular contacts with the environment, which in most cases could have a negative impact on their health (Duncan, 2007). In order to see this, one needs to recall the conditions of womens work in developing countries, which do not involve any measures to reduce the negative impact of the environment on womens health. Women work in such conditions, which are associated with the occurrence of many serious diseases, and some of them are fatal. "The leading causes of death in the developing countries are diarrhoeal diseases, acute respiratory conditions such as pneumonia and bronchitis, other infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, and vector-borne diseases such as schistosomiasis and malaria" (Kettel, 1996). In addition, studies show that the female body is more sensitive to the level of atmospheric temperature. A significant increase in temperature because of global warming causes the death of a large number of women that exceeds the number of casualties among the men. "Women are less able to tolerate heat stress" (Duncan, 2007). In particular, in 80s years due to a sharp rise in temperature "elderly women were at highest risk of heat- associated death: among those aged 75-84 years, death rates rose 39% for men, and 66% for women; among those over 85 years old, increases were 13% for men and 55% for women"(Duncan, 2007). Climate change leads to other negative consequences in the form of tornadoes, floods and so on. In this regard, the women as homemakers, who perform the role of wives and mothers equally with children are a particularly vulnerable part of the population. Furthermore, the lack of food and drink also has a negative influence primarily on women and their health, since as mothers and wives "women are likely to experience a decrease in nutritional health, as they are often the first to go hungry in an attempt to protect their families "(Duncan, 2007). Researchers find a link between environmental pollution and using various chemicals (such as members of the pesticides) and the development of cancer in women (Mitra, Faruque, & Avis, 2004). 3. The “Beauty Myth” and Cancer As is well known, in the modern world, the concept of beauty has its own idiosyncrasies. In particular, it suggests to women such requirements as a trim and slim figure, the lack of pale skin, beautiful and tightened breasts, and more. In this case, the myth of beauty necessarily implies the presence of these parameters. In their absence, women face different complexes and psychological problems because society constantly tells them that they do not conform to the ideals of modern beauty. Unfortunately, not only the individual characteristics of the body do not give all women the opportunity to meet all the parameters of feminine beauty. Often serious diseases are the obstacle that prevents women feel beautiful and live in harmony with society, which sets out the criteria of feminine beauty. One of the most common disease that results in the death of hundreds and thousands of women worldwide is cancer. In turn, "breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer morbidity and mortality in women" (Mitra, Faruque, & Avis, 2004). Treatment for breast cancer involves the use of various techniques. Chemotherapy does not always produce effective results. For this reason, doctors use other methods of treatment, such as surgical removal of the breasts. As a result, if the treatment is successful women continue their lives without their natural breasts. In this context, women are faced with a serious problem caused by the fact that the community does not pay any attention to what happened to them and continues to insist on compliance with the standards of female beauty. This means that women have to use artificial limbs to no one knew about their illness. The need to comply with the "beauty myth" makes women take various attempts to meet the standards of female beauty, while no one is trying to understand what suffering and difficulties they had to go through to stay alive. Stories of many women can ensure in the foregoing. In particular, the stories told by Sharon Batt allows one to see how cruel and unjust are the modern standards of beauty that categorically do not take into account the fact that any woman could face a serious disease that once and forever change her appearance. In Batt’s stories, women who went through breast cancer but have lost their breasts face the fact that they are required to use breast prostheses or implants. The main argument is that a woman should "look normal" (Batt, 2002). Society exert pressure on these women and does not make any favors to them. As well as other women who do not suffer from breast cancer, such women have to meet the ideals of feminine beauty. This in turn requires them to conceal the consequences of any treatment whether it is the loss of hair or breasts. The stories of these women are full of resentment and frustration towards the society that does not provide any moral support, even considering the trials the women have gone through. References Batt, S. (2002). “Perfect people”: cancer charities. In K.S. Ratcliff. (Ed.). Women and heath: Power, technology, inequality and conflict in a gendered world (pp. 110-118). Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Duncan, K. (2007). Global climate change and womens health. Women & Environment, 10-11. Kettel, B. (1996). Women, health and the environment. Social Science and Medicine, 42 (10): 1367-1379. Mitra, A.K., Faruque, F.S. & Avis, A.L. (2004). Breast cancer and environmental risk: Where is the link? Journal of Environmental Health, 66 (7): 24-32. Robinson, G.E. (2003). Violence against women in North America. Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 6, 185–191. Read More