Analysis of “Welcome to Cancerland”

Barbara Ehrenreich is a freelance writer and feminist activist who wrote the award-winning article “Welcome to Cancerland”, to express her own personal battle against breast cancer. A monthly magazine of literature, arts, and politics, Harper’s Magazine first published “Welcome to Cancerland” in 2001. Barbara starts her article with how her struggle against cancer first began. She uses explicit imagery to convey her experience and attempts to make the readers feel as if they were in her shoes. Since Barbara received her Ph.D in cellular immunology, she understood how cells are shaped and how they function and knew how to illustrate these cellular terminology and knowledge to readers. She constantly uses similes and comparisons to help create images in the reader’s mind which helps make her experience more relatable. She described the cancer cells as “suburban houses squeezed to a cul-de-sac” (44). Barbara makes this simile to help readers visualize and understand how these cells look like because she understands that the general public has very few or no scientific background.

Barbara provokes  thoughts from the readers with her direct approach to topic of breast cancer. A cancer “survivor” herself, she disapproves and criticizes the perception that people have for breast cancer societies. She calls them cults and discredits the pink symbol. She sees these organizations as businesses that promote breast cancer awareness for their own financial gain. She mentions that American Cancer Society only give up “under 0.1 percent of its 700 million annual budget to environmental and occupational causes of cancer” (53). A good majority of the people who supports these societies are cancer survivors themselves. Barbara wishes that these survivors understand the bad intentions of the pink ribbons and teddy bears. It is indeed an interesting and very different point of view from a breast cancer survivor. Throughout the article, Barbara uses a defying tone in a very blunt manner to express her side of story on “cancerland.”

Apes of Wrath

Barbara Smuts is a anthropologist and psychologist. She is a professor at the University of Michigan and an author of fampus books and articles. In this essay called “Apes of Wrath” is about her observing chimpanzees. She saw as a female chimpanzee got attacked by a potential mate and was interested to know why. She began to realzie this is a method males use to get a woman to mate with them. By atatcking the female she then fears him and gives into having to mate with him. She continues to give examples of how these primates act and then begins to compare it to humans. She also talks about the bonds between animals especially male to male and how they get together to attack women when they are vulnerable. Then lastly she talks about female bonds and how they get to together to support each other. By observing these primates she was able to get a snapshot of human behavior and see some common behavorial patterns.

Are We Apes?

Barbara Smuts’ “Apes of Wrath”, discusses the similarities of male dominance over female. In this essay she describes the process of showing dominance of various species of apes. The majority of these apes control the females by fear and force; the reason being that they will “be more likely to surrender to his subsequent sexual advances.” And although there have been cases when female apes have banded together to go against aggressive males, the event of any group of female apes forming together is rare. There are also cases where female primates form friendships with males so they could protective them in return for sexual favors. Smuts then connects primate society to human society, saying that this is male-dominance behavior is similar to the male-female relationship between humans. For example, similar to forming bands to go against aggressive male apes, in a community in Belize, women form bonds with their female friends in order to prevent male dominance by banding together.

In our society, women have been primarily shown in media as vulnerable people. Although media is starting to drift away from this traditional image of women, people’s first impression on women would be either of vulnerable or fragile. Often you hear of women being kidnapped, raped, or abused by males, which sounds very similar to the ape society. And you see feminists banding together to go after a cause to help bring more power to women. I know that in the Chinese culture, men are the ones who provide the women with support, while women provide maintenance; the stereotype being: men make the money, women take care of their lives. This traditional view, however, is breaking and a new view of women is forming in this era. Many things have changed, such as better women taking higher roles in society, yet many things have stayed the same, such as men abusing their wives. Are we still apes? Have we really evolved?

Response to “Apes of Wrath”

Barbara Smuts is a psychologist, anthropologist, author, and researcher who teaches at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.  Her article “Apes of Wrath” was first published in 1995 in Discover Magazine and deals with the fundamental problem that many women have faced for centuries in which they are inferior to their male counterparts and are often beaten and abused by them.  Opening the piece and this idea she explains to the reader a time during the 70’s when he was doing research in Africa on chimpanzees and other similar species of apes.  This anecdote explains a personal experience that she has had with the abuse of females that occurs in other species than humans.  Part of the recounting of her experience deals with the fact that often the chimps would beat the female up prior to mating to make them feel inferior to them, or will force the females to “leave their birth communities at adolescence and spend the rest of their lives cut off from their female kin.” in order to avoid resistance from the other females when they abuse their “mates” (79).  But there isn’t always a lack of resistance on the female’s part.  Often they will form a bond with a male in the community and will then use him as an alliance when coercion arises, although the drawback is that he receives sexual gratification in return.  Occasionally, such as in the group for the “Tai Forest on the Ivory Coast,” females will form bonds with one another and fight the power, but this is only one small example and is not commonly true (80).  To close the essay, Smuts relates her findings in apes back to humans and explains possible reasons as for the similarities and differences that we have gained in our community and lives in regards to female abuse to the apes.  Discussing the fact that, not as much in today’s world, but in the past, women have commonly been labeled in-superior to men and are the less dominate sex.  That humans have been known to form “sisterhoods” with their female friends in order to protect one another as if they really were sisters (82).  She also states that since we are clearly more advanced in regards to reasoning and rationalized thinking when compared to the chimps that these are the reasons as to why females are more equal to males in our societies today whereas the story is different in the primates lives.  Smuts final statement is an ultimatum to women in society basically stating that they have to stand up to the males and take action, form alliances, and gain the respect that they deserve.

I found this essay to be rather interesting because when I first read it I thought it was strictly going to be discussing the topic of apes and their sexual interactions and harassment patterns.  When Smuts began to tie in the comparison between apes and humans I was intrigued to see the similarities that existed between our “close relatives” and us.  I am aware that this piece is rather old, but I still don’t feel that such a problem of sexual abuse and injustice exists as much as Smuts is conveying in her essay.  There are always the cases of an abusive relationship and while it is true that many times it is the male who is the abusive one, the female can be equally abusive, especially in today’s world.  With that aside I think she did a good job of using narration in the first half of her essay by explaining her personal experience in the field when she was researching the apes of Africa, and then compared that to humans very well too.  By citing Jane Goodall’s book on page 78 she gives an example that she has read and knows her reader can understand regarding a study on the abusive habits of chimpanzees, and she does define certain anatomical terms regarding the chimps and apes numerous times within her writing.  Her closing doesn’t directly speak to the reader, but it does give them a mission to complete.  Clearly Smuts feels that women deserve more justice than they have and she’s telling them how to get it.  While I don’t completely agree with this, I do think that she clearly and strongly gets that point across.