Angelina: Separating a Sex Symbol From Her Breasts

Angelina Jolie's New York Times op-ed about getting a preventive double mastectomy is worthy of celebration for many reasons. When the world's most famous actress advocates for preventive women's medicine, the message goes far. There is also the pleasure of marveling, yet again, at Angelina's transformation from enfant terrible to responsible mommy. (Her rationale for seeking the procedure: "I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.") But the feat I most appreciate is that the former Lara Croft, Tomb Raider refuses to equate breasts with femininity. After undergoing reconstructive surgery with implants, she wrote:

It is reassuring that [my children] see nothing that makes them uncomfortable. They can see my small scars and that’s it. Everything else is just Mommy, the same as she always was. And they know that I love them and will do anything to be with them as long as I can. On a personal note, I do not feel any less of a woman. I feel empowered that I made a strong choice that in no way diminishes my femininity.

Angelina walks the reader through her procedure step by step, describing the breasts once considered so flawless that an entire movie franchise hinged on their resemblance to an idealized virtual reality. But Angelina's breasts were not flawless; there was an 87 percent chance that the cells in them, afflicted with a mutation to the BRCA1 gene, would eventually turn cancerous. So she hired doctors to take her breasts apart, replacing mammary tissue with implants.

Via: Angelina: Separating a Sex Symbol From Her Breasts