The Case of the Missing Areolae: Race and Breast Reduction Surgery — Page 2:
6 As a start, finding resources on the topic of female breast reduction is difficult. This complexity contrasts with numerous references and citations to breast cancer, as well as to breast augmentation. It would appear that a continuum of perception of need exists.
7 So, Trinh Minh-ha declares, “to seek is to lose, for seeking presupposes a separation between the seeker and the sought, the continuing me and the change it undergoes” (“Not You / Like You” 371). However, in order to be with the reality of the surgical cutting away of a specific part of her breasts, the areolae, she must seek in order to gain, go back to her center, realizing that even so, with their loss, she has not lost. Taking up this quest for her areolae, to which she had no awareness of attachment before they were taken without her consent, has opened her up to layers deep within which now peel away, slowly, as she thinks, writes, stops, puts aside the writing for weeks, months, consults with others, live and on pages, goes back again, thinks some more, not digging, not tapping, as it’s all there already waiting for her readiness to face the loss as gain.
8 At one end of the continuum is breast surgery for breast cancer. At the other end are procedures for breast augmentation. In the middle at an unfixed place breast reduction surgery quivers. Its place wavers as a result of conflict about whether this procedure results from vanity, therefore putting it under the rubric of “cosmetic surgery” thus closer to the site of breast augmentation, or whether this procedure is “medically necessary” putting it closer to the situation of breast surgery for cancer.
9 This whole discussion about being in the middle really bothers her, as someone who’s so tired of attempts to fragment her whole. Having her breasts sliced down seemed an effective way to internalize erecting that middle finger at the universe, unaware. But why breasts, since they seem more clearly markers of female-ness rather than race markers? Or was she missing something?
10 Looking at the conflict over the procedure, having to tease out articles relating to breast reduction is bloody frustrating. Here again male domination of the agenda in the so-called objective paradise of scientific research makes the skewed appear the norm. They make her work extra hard, yet again, to get to a place where she wants to be, which is other than flat on her back, except as an act of power.