The Cancer Journals

Lorde’s interactions with the health care industry, from her hospitalization and treatment to her recovery, illustrate what seems to be almost a conspiracy to get women who suffer from breast cancer to cope with the illness in a manner that best suits the medical industry. Lorde is critical of what she terms the Cancer Establishment, particularly the American Cancer Society (ACS), for its suppression of information about the environmental causes of breast cancer. Her use of capitalization helps the reader understand her belief that the industry is a specific enterprise with a business agenda, like any other corporate entity. Lorde classifies the Cancer Establishment as part of the “american medical establishment” (33). She uses lower-case throughout the text to refer to America and any aspect of American culture and industry. Lorde, who is meticulous and intentional with even the smallest facets of language, seeks to diminish, in the reader’s mind, the United States’ monopoly on cultural power, importance, and influence.

Her greatest ire is directed at Reach for Recovery and the plastic surgery industry. Lorde is explicit about Reach for Recovery’s agenda being directed less toward women’s emotional and psychological recovery from breast cancer than it is toward women being reintegrated into society with little personal consideration of the illness’s impact on their lives and its political implications.