The Gendering of Cancer Survivorship

This article examines the relationship between gender and cancer survivorship. I argue that gender is as critical as a category of analysis for understanding cancer survivorship as it is missing from survivorship studies, particularly as concerns the identificatory basis of survivor culture and clinical studies regarding survivors’ quality of life (QOL). This under-studied question of the gendering of survivorship is critical because the consequences of the social production of disease is far-reaching, from the nature of medical research to social awareness, to funding to the well-being of cancer survivors themselves.