When a 52-year-old Rumi narrates how embarrassing it was for her to undergo a mammogram as no one had counselled her in advance what the procedure was going to be like and advises other women not to ever go for the most embarrassing screening test, and women listen to her, it is a social context……
When you end up in a premier institute for training of women and you get asked” Oh! It is you we had heard was coming to talk to us…you are so young……should you not be doing all this after retirement?” is a social context……
When you reach the office of a police officer and he tells you “police women don’t need any awareness on breast health, there is no reason why they would suffer from breast cancer, is a social context……
When an unidentified lady sends you an SOS on messenger saying that she feels a lump in the breast but would not want to go to a doctor for examination, and that I should manage her via messenger, is a social context……
When a lady Principal (PhD in physics) of an all-girls college in Delhi tells you that her college’s students who are 18 years plus, for them, this topic of breast awareness is too sensitive to talk about, and faculty members are too vulnerable to listen to it is a social context……
When a 38-year-old Ganga, after hiding the small lump for over a year, finally asks her friend for help, and that friend of hers takes her clandestinely to a Baba(Quack) for treatment, and within a few months Ganga dies, is a social context……..
When a 46-year-old Rajani goes to a surgeon in his OPD with abdominal pain abdomen and he misses out the opportunity to screen the breast because of the very obvious in India, it is a social context…….
When a 34-year-old Janet tells you that doctor whatever you are saying about breast cancer is not correct, and the correct answer is given in the Bible,it is a social context…..
When a 52-year-old Sunil, after finding out about his wife’s breast cancer of his wife doesn’t take his wife for completion of the treatment and instead finds another girl to marry and waits for his wife to die as cancer is considered to be incurable, is a social context…….
When a 47-year-old Hana, with a suspicious-looking lump, was asked to go for a mammogram, she returned without getting the investigation done. This was because the lady technician was unavailable on the day of her appointment, and she didn’t feel safe getting the investigation done by a male technician. This is a social context.
These lived realities remind us that breast health is never just about medicine—it is about breaking silence, challenging stigma, and creating a society where no woman feels alone in her journey.
