NO ONE deserves to get a terminal illness. I don't care if a woman sleeps with every single man on the planet; that does NOT mean she deserves to get cancer. Statements like the ones I just mentioned are slut shaming, a horrendous form of bullying that is usually perpetuated against women by other women, well into adulthood. It is sick, and wrong, and sad.
According to Alan Kaye, the founder of the National Cervical Cancer Coalition (www.ncc-online.org), many people have a tendency to associate a diagnosis of cervical cancer with shame, isolation, and blame towards the person diagnosed. When you are diagnosed with cancer, you need all the support you can get, not people making judgements against you. Kaye also points out that 80% of all women and men would be HPV positive at some point in their lives by the time they're 50. HPV is silent, often asymptomatic, and can go away on it's own.
In my opinion, the stigma also exists because gyn cancers involve the female sex and reproductive organs, specifically the vagina in some form or fashion, and it kind of seems like vagina is a dirty word. If that is how you feel, please take a moment to rethink your position on the matter, because without vaginas, none of us would be here.
I was hesitant to tell people that I even had cancer, let alone what kind, because I was shaming myself. But my need for help and support overrode my reservations, so I made The Big Announcement. And you know what? I heard from tons of friends that they'd had irregular Pap smears, LEEP procedures, cervical cancer themselves. No one criticized me or blamed me, at least not to my face. And as I connected with more and more women facing the same illness as me (thank you, as always, Teal Ladies), I realized that I did not care at all if people were judging me behind my back. I know I did not deserve to get cancer. No matter what I did, or didn't do, I did not deserve to get cancer. No one does.
So aside from being judged, what's the problem with the cervical cancer stigma? First, it's not something that is talked about enough, so women are not always clear on what the warning signs are. Admittedly, the symptoms of cervical cancer can be ambiguous, or even non-existent. Second, it creates a culture of fear, leading women to be less inclined to see a gynecologist when they feel something isn't right. It's ostrich mentality - if I bury my head in the sand, I don't have to face something that I feel uncomfortable and ashamed about. Since early detection is the best way to arrest the disease with as simple treatment as possible, waiting to see a doctor can oftentimes mean waiting too long - that means terminal.
How do we get rid of the stigma surrounding cervical and other gyn cancers? We talk about it, in an informative, compassionate way. We give up the slut shaming. We don't play the blame game. We care about the HPV connection only in that we protect ourselves from HPV as we would any other STI, with contraceptives, or the Gardasil vaccination. We support our friends and relatives when they are diagnosed lovingly and without judgement.
xo jennie
(Information provided regarding Alan Kaye and the NCCC gathered from HPVNews interview with Kaye)
No comments:
Post a Comment