Examining Ehrenreich, Lorde, and Danquah’s narratives and their resistance to Normalization
Barbara Ehrenreich, Audre Lorde, and Meri Nana-Ama Danquah’s illness narratives do more than recount stories of illness, the narratives depict resistance to normalization or becoming normate by making visible the larger structural inequities. Not only do these narratives show how the systems that are supposed to aid and heal those who are ill, but reinforce the inequities.
Ehrenreich’s “Welcome to Cancerland” narrative resists becoming normate, she is critical of the economics and gendering of breast cancer in the mainstream and biomedicine. The author states that “more so than in the case of any other disease, breast cancer organizations and events …show more content…
Danquah covers her struggle with depression and experiences with therapy (188-195), where she addresses larger structural components connected to them. Danquah notes the stigma around therapy and how she feels excluded from the definition of depression and therapy, because of the lack of representation or acknowledgement of black women with depression in her culture or in biomedicine. In her narrative, Danquah describes that she is unable to afford a consistent and experienced therapist. The relationship between a client and therapist is mainly transactional where the therapist must receive pay in order for the client to receive treatment, which is a critique of the biomedical industry that upholds not only economic disparity, but a class imbalance. Furthermore, Danquah contrasts the experiences of white people who have access to resources, such as prescription drugs and therapy to that of black people. For black people they “take illicit drugs with names as harsh as the streets” and “build churches and sing songs...we march...we are walking around wounded...and we suffer alone because we don’t know that there are others like us” (184). Danquah reflects on the economic and class context of depression that intersects with a racial component. She discusses how white people who usually have financial and knowledge resources regarding depression versus black people who often do not have the financial resources or resources to understand depression. Danquah addresses historical, cultural and social context regarding depression amongst black people, who generally do not have access to resources because of economic, racial, gender, and class disparities that medical institutions continue to
Barbara Ehrenreich, Audre Lorde, and Meri Nana-Ama Danquah’s illness narratives do more than recount stories of illness, the narratives depict resistance to normalization or becoming normate by making visible the larger structural inequities. Not only do these narratives show how the systems that are supposed to aid and heal those who are ill, but reinforce the inequities.
Ehrenreich’s “Welcome to Cancerland” narrative resists becoming normate, she is critical of the economics and gendering of breast cancer in the mainstream and biomedicine. The author states that “more so than in the case of any other disease, breast cancer organizations and events …show more content…
Danquah covers her struggle with depression and experiences with therapy (188-195), where she addresses larger structural components connected to them. Danquah notes the stigma around therapy and how she feels excluded from the definition of depression and therapy, because of the lack of representation or acknowledgement of black women with depression in her culture or in biomedicine. In her narrative, Danquah describes that she is unable to afford a consistent and experienced therapist. The relationship between a client and therapist is mainly transactional where the therapist must receive pay in order for the client to receive treatment, which is a critique of the biomedical industry that upholds not only economic disparity, but a class imbalance. Furthermore, Danquah contrasts the experiences of white people who have access to resources, such as prescription drugs and therapy to that of black people. For black people they “take illicit drugs with names as harsh as the streets” and “build churches and sing songs...we march...we are walking around wounded...and we suffer alone because we don’t know that there are others like us” (184). Danquah reflects on the economic and class context of depression that intersects with a racial component. She discusses how white people who usually have financial and knowledge resources regarding depression versus black people who often do not have the financial resources or resources to understand depression. Danquah addresses historical, cultural and social context regarding depression amongst black people, who generally do not have access to resources because of economic, racial, gender, and class disparities that medical institutions continue to