Underkastelse och motstånd. Litterära bröstcancerberättelser och Rosa bandet-kulturen i 2010-talets Sverige

Abstract

The article examines how literary breast cancer narratives published in Sweden in the 2010s performatively do breast cancer in relation to the so-called pink ribbon culture. The focus is on Karin Björkegren Jones Jag vill fan leva. Kampen mot bröstcancer (I Want the Hell to Live. The Fight Against Breast Cancer) from 2014, and Annelie Babitz Inte bara ett bröst. En bröstcancerpatients dagbok (Not Just a Breast. A Breast Cancer Patient’s Diary) from 2018. With theoretical insights from Judith Butler, Lisa Diedrich and Eve Kosovsky Sedgewick, among others, the article analyzes how these breast cancer narratives both reproduce and resist the gendered norms and ideas considered to be characteristic of the pink ribbon culture. The analysis shows how Jag vill fan leva largely submits to the ideology of this culture, distinguished as it is by positive thinking and a strong individualistic view of breast cancer as the individual woman’s project. On the other hand, Babitz in Inte bara ett bröst challenges the discursive norms that surround the traditional breast cancer narrative by taking what Emilia Nielsen calls the role of “the cancer killjoy”. At the same time, it would be too simplistic to see these narratives as polar opposites. Even if Jag vill fan leva predominantly does breast cancer in line with the pink ribbon ideology, it also problematizes it. Conversely, Inte bara ett bröst reveals how difficult it is for a woman with breast cancer to escape the normative ideals that characterize the pink ribbon culture. Thus, the article concludes with underscoring the need for more research taking into consideration how gendered norms and ideals connected to the pink ribbon culture performatively are both reproduced and challenged in 2010s Swedish breast cancer literature.