Apart from the date of Kushner’s text itself, I noticed a few particular nuances in her writing that elucidate the era in which Kushner’s chapter exists. That is, that Kushner is writing in the unsettled space between second wave feminism and post feminism, as indicated by the various rhetoric she uses.

To begin, Kushner stresses female bodily integrity when asserting the necessity of qualified physicians. The idea of female bodily integrity is highly attributed to second wave feminism with the advent of the book Our Bodies Ourselves. Under every heading and every sub heading, Kushner stresses the need for highly skilled and specialized breast cancer physicians. In doing so, she simultaneously puts a positive value on the female body, a value denoting that the female body deserves to be embraced, and treated with the best available technology.

Furthermore, and despite that Kushner was not a medical academic, she structured her life writing in a way that resembled the writing of an academic text book. I feel as though her choice of writing this way is perhaps a response to the contemporary medical literature of that time, insofar as it did not provide an in-depth analysis of women’s health specifically. Although it can be contested that she was conforming to a strictly ‘masculine’ way of writing and representation, I personally feel as though she cleverly used ‘objective’ and ‘factual’ writing as a tool to have these issue taken more seriously…Perhaps.

Now to move onto the part where I feel as though Kushner is lingering on the cusp of post feminism. Kushner’s assertion that steps need be taken to screen oneself for breast cancer at an early age echoes Lucas’s video (a video made well into the post feminist era), and the ways in which she (Lucas) overstates the need for early screening. Coupled with early screening, Both Kushner and Lucas also promote self-screening, and personal responsibility for health. Self-screening and discourses of personal responsibility for health, however, are arguably a pervasive rhetoric of neoliberalism, and, as McRobbie states, it is not uncommon for post feminism accommodate neoliberal and capitalist desires. This takes pressure off the state to be rigorous when addressing women’s issues, simultaneously assuming that there is no longer a need for a politicized women’s health movement.