%0 Journal Article
%T Cancer, Body, and Mastery at the Intersection of Gender and Race
%A Tetyana Pudrovska
%J Society and Mental Health
%@ 2156-8731
%D 2018
%R 10.1177/2156869317719484
%X Using the 2006-2014 data from the Health and Retirement Study, the author compares changes in personal mastery after a new cancer diagnosis among white men, white women, black men, and black women. The author further examines the physical burden of cancer (incontinence, fatigue, pain, and decreased strength) as a mechanism mediating the effect of cancer on mastery in each group and finds that white men experience a substantially more pronounced decline in mastery after the onset of cancer than all women and black men, despite white men¡¯s advantaged material resources and favorable cancer-related symptoms. This steepest decline in mastery among white men is entirely due to a disproportionately adverse effect of physical symptoms on mastery. The author argues that the physical burden of cancer might pose a profound threat to white men¡¯s cultural privilege by undermining the masculine body¡ªa critical and highly visible resource for ¡°doing¡± masculinity
%K gender
%K mastery
%K psychosocial resources
%K socioeconomic status
%K race/ethnicity
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2156869317719484