Breast cancer has acquired unprecedented visibility in Spain. Although the origins of the breast cancer movement were concerned with the oppressive
patient role and the increasing incidence of the disease, the last three decades
have been marked by a focus on diagnosis through screening and awareness
campaigns. Some would say that we need to celebrate this progressive
politization of breast cancer that has placed the disease on the national agenda.
However, I argue that its political purpose is in crisis and has depolitised the
disease without raising any suspicions among the most critical sectors,
including feminist circles. Building on my work on breast cancer from the past
14 years, in this article I take a cue from Mari Luz Esteban’s (2017) critique of
the ‘overinvisibilization’ of breast cancer to demonstrate how it has been
depoliticized. I will reinterrogate how breast cancer is spoken about, how
women are represented, what topics make headlines and which ones are
silenced or remain taboo. In particular,I will illustrate how the
‘overinvisibilization’ of breast cancer results in various forms of discourses and
practices. These include the hypervisibility of hegemonic and monothematic
messages that are compounded with sexism; and the invisibilization of those
differential experiences and discourses about the disease that questions the
status quo of the industry of cancer.