It's when we take things for granted that we are in the most danger of forgetting their value. When we forget something's value, when we forget how important something is, we are also running the risk of having it taken away from us. It's easy for us to forget, for instance, the stigma that used to be attached to any open discussion about health issues facing a woman. In the not too distant past a young woman beginning her menses received no education about what to expect, and was convinced that any discussion about her body and its natural functions were taboo.
While the women's movement of the seventies managed to change some of the attitudes that had made it difficult for women to feel comfortable even talking to their doctors, the current backlash against women in North America could see even those small gains rolled back. Having taken for granted that they had won control over their bodies through landmark cases like Roe v. Wade in the United States, and the Supreme Court Of Canada declaring any law that hindered a woman's right to abortion unconstitutional, women in the United States have gradually seen control over their own bodies taken out of their hands.
Given prevalent attitudes towards women and sex education, it's easy to see a return to the days when women's health issues, no matter how life-threatening, are no longer considered topics for public discussion. It shouldn't take an act of bravery on the part of a woman to talk about the state of her health, but there seems to be a new chill descending over North America designed to silence women's voices. Thankfully, any woman who is searching for a source of inspiration, an example of bravery in those circumstances, doesn't have to look very far.
Nasra Al Adawi, a poet of Omani and Tanzanian heritage, has just published Brave Faces, a collection of poetry and prose in tribute and honour of the African women she has met who are coping with either breast or cervical cancer. The prose sections of the book are either written by Nasra based on her meetings with individual survivors of cancer, individual patients recounting their stories, or by medical professionals discussing the state of female cancer patients in Africa and the disease itself.
With only two exceptions, all the poems are the work of Nasra (Nasra Al Adawi is a pen name), and are without a doubt some of the most purely emotionally powerful poetry I've ever read. In the opening chapter the book, "Breathing Africa", Nasra talks about how the death of her father from cancer roused in her the courage to become a bold poet, and his desire to be buried in his native Tanzania ignited her desire to leave her home in Oman and travel back to the country she was born in.
Article comments