Abstract
This manuscript is concerned with a key tension in health communication: How women’s pain is rhetorically constructed and culturally consumed. To date, there has been much research devoted to communicating the language of pain, rather, pain’s expressibility (Scarry, 1985), as well as the construction of health narratives from private pain into public action (Kimball, 2000). Building on that literature, we make a rhetorical turn, and argue for a more critical rhetorical approach to pain literacy. To that end, the primary goal of this essay is to explore the rhetorical nuances and ideological limitations in pain literacy and pain response, from the point of when pain is expressed to how that expression is perceived. Through a critical cultural lens, we critique dominant narratives of pain, and argue for an intersectional heuristic of rhetorical care that promotes cultural competency and awareness to bridge gaps in the expression and perception of pain literacy.
Highlights
In January 2018, Serena Williams, arguably the greatest and most recognizable tennis player in the world, especially in women’s tennis, shared with Vogue Magazine (Haskel, 2018), and in an HBO (HBO, 2018) documentary, that she nearly died, twice, after giving birth to her daughter
Building on the literature of pain expression (Scarry, 1985; Kimball, 2000; Bustan, 2016), we argue that a key factor in pain literacy goes beyond gaps in epistemology, or the language and vocabulary of pain, but is an ideological endeavor, where women’s pain narratives are disciplined or managed through normative health narratives
With those medical and health communication perspectives in mind, we ground our rhetorical analysis through a critical race lens (Crenshaw, 1989) in order to assess and perhaps intervene in pain literacy gaps tied to race and gender incompetence
Summary
In January 2018, Serena Williams, arguably the greatest and most recognizable tennis player in the world, especially in women’s tennis, shared with Vogue Magazine (Haskel, 2018), and in an HBO (HBO, 2018) documentary, that she nearly died, twice, after giving birth to her daughter. We know that there are material health consequences to patient care rooted in racism and discrimination—from racial disparities in pain prescription delivery (Tamayo-Sarver et al, 2003) to the condition of weathering (Geronimus, 2003) where African Americans experience the literal and structural weight of health conditions brought on by physical and psychological consequences from slavery and centuries of oppression in the United States With those medical and health communication perspectives in mind, we ground our rhetorical analysis through a critical race lens (Crenshaw, 1989) in order to assess and perhaps intervene in pain literacy gaps tied to race and gender incompetence. We introduce rhetorical care, as an organic critical cultural speculative lens, and defined as having two criterion: First, rhetorical care is intersectional, meaning an awareness of how and why overlapping identities challenge dominant oppressive ideologies; and second, a necessary fluidity for how healthcare epistemology is shaped by hegemonic status quo narratives that inherently exclude and marginalize certain voices
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