Reflections on a Mammogram

Turning 40… it brings all sorts of new experiences. Not the least of which was my first mammogram. All I have to say is clearly men invented this device and if you want proof that there is not sufficient funding going towards women’s health issues, consider the process of getting a mammogram. Your breast is treated like an object… okay, that may not be new for women in our society… perhaps the difference is that suddenly your breast has no sexual or social implications whatsoever. The doctor pokes and prods it. The nurse lifts it up and pushes it this way and that. Then this contraption squeezes it harder than you ever imagined was possible. And they take a picture. As one who has never really had anyone poking or prodding my breasts, it was a bit of an uncomfortable experience. I imagine that pregnant women go through similar experiences with various parts of their bodies suddenly assuming different roles and/or significance in the world. I knew that our bodies were culturally as well as physically constructed, but this brought that understanding to a whole new level. It is amazing how our culture has shaped the significance of various body parts. How that construction is related to issues of power, race, and gender. How a body part can have a different meaning in a variety of contexts. As someone interested in art and photography, how can you tell the difference between art and pornography? Who gets to draw that line? Is it the person begin filmed, painted, or photographed? Is it the “artist”? The government and its laws and legislations? Our various cultures? The cultural construction of the body is significant theological discussion in feminist and womanist circles as well as among black theologians and others who reflect on issues of slavery and abuse. We tend to devalue the bodies that we want to use for our own benefit or pleasure. Perhaps we do the same to individual parts of our bodies. Perhaps we do it to ourselves as well as others. It seems clear that God values us as material beings, created with bodies that are to reflect the image of God. It seems clear that we are to treat others, and their bodies, as if they are bearers of God’s image. It seems clear, too, that I must be concerned about how we have constructed our world in such a way that others bodies don’t seem as valuable as mine. When traveling outside of the United States, I am constantly aware of the fact that my body is often more protected than the bodies of people from other countries who don’t have the power and influence to demand that their bodies be treated with respect. I am also aware that my body can become symbolic… one United States Citizen… or one Iraqi… or one Mexican… treated in such a way as to communicate something to the whole… in such a way that the individual body, the individual person disappears… All that from a simple mammogram.