Pink Ribbons and Public Private Parts: On Not Imagining Ovarian Cancer

Abstract

Ovarian cancer is the deadliest of all gynecological cancers. Diagnosis is often late-stage when the disease has spread and is harder to manage. Primarily non-visual and sometimes ambiguous early symptoms are exacerbated by the rarity and metaphoric/metonymic character of representations of the ovaries or ovarian disease in television, film, and literature. More representations of ovarian cancer in public and popular culture, as well as images that appeal to a wider range of sensory experience, may help the problem of late-stage diagnosis by producing greater practical awareness of the ovaries and ovarian disease.