Symposium on Women's Health: Breast Health - Health and Ageing
Special Issue of Health Sociology Review
Volume 12 Issue 2 December 2003
88 pages ISBN 978-1-921348-49-5
Editors:
Lynne Hunt
Edith Cowan University
Beverley McNamara
University of Western Australia
Eileen Clark
La Trobe University
'Y'know Mum, those breasts of yours have been really good to me. They fed me for three years' ... 'Well yes, AND they fed me for 18 months'. Their father looks across at me and smiles. 'I think we've all had a lot of pleasure from these breasts', he says.
These words from the two daughters and the partner of a woman, newly diagnosed with breast cancer, taken from one of the articles in this Special Issue serve to remind us that breasts are heavily invested with social significance. They feed babies, inspire lovers and artists, get cancer, cause body-image anxieties, and contribute to personal identities that must be reconstituted following mastectomy.
The focus of this special symposium on women's health in Health Sociology Review is on breasts. As such, it speaks to women's lives and to some of their joys and their greatest fears. In this symposium of papers we see revealed the interrelationship between culture, breasts, life stories and health care.
This special edition contains challenging, thoughtful and delightful accounts of the life, death, work and the role of breasts in contemporary western culture, while the health and ageing symposium explores women's lived experience of ageing, including articles on resilience and wellness in later life.
This symposium in Health Sociology Review not only provides a focus on breast health, it also raises methodological issues about the use of narrative in sociological research. All of the articles are based on qualitative research, often relying on the use of case studies and narrative. Perhaps this is not surprising given the intimate nature of the topic. I
Breast Health
As breast cancer is a significant cause of untimely death in Australian women, a focus on breasts is highly relevant to this symposium on women's health. It speaks to women's lives and to some of their joys and their greatest fears. In the symposium of papers presented we see revealed the interrelationship between culture, breasts, life stories and health care.
The journey is both informative and emotionally engaging. It offers interpretive respect for women's words while explicating the social world of breasted experience.
Women's Ageing
The changing demographic profile of Australia has resulted in the portrayal of ageing as a time of financial dependency and as a period that will have a major impact on national economic wellbeing. These views of ageing present unflattering stereotypes of old people as sick and dependent.
In Australia, most of the discourses on ageing come from a biomedical perspective, with little debate among sociologists about ageing, and no body of distinctively Australian work to match overseas studies in the sociology of ageing.
This symposium seeks to redress this lack and challenges the stereotypes of ageing by focusing on wellness and resilience in old age.
While the links between social capital and good health are widely recognised by health sociologists, few studies look specifically at older people. The examination of social capital in ageing in this symposium informs this lack and demonstrates a different way of understanding old age.
This special issue of Health Sociology Review is an important contribution in understanding health and illness; health policy, promotion and practice; equity, social justice, social policy and social work in relation to women's health and ageing.
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