Cancer Diaries

How are women treated in the medical world? I do not mean medically but how are the perceived by medicinal personnel and how do those perceptions dictate how they are taken care of? In Cancer Diaries by Audre Lorde she is not treated like a person and her feeling on her body are not taken into account. After getting the news she has cancer, the hospital has to determine if she can even pay for her treatment. Lorde recounts

The fist people who interviewed me in white coats from behind a computer were only interested in my health-care benefits and proposed method of payment. Those crucial facts determined what kind of plastic ID card I would be given, and without a plastic ID card, no one at all was allowed upstairs to see any doctor, as I was told by the uniformed, pistoled guards at all the stairwells ( Lorde 150)

This made me think of indirect racism and sexism. Even though Lorde could afford to get treatment, there is an economic barrier that is most-likely going to effect women of color. Unlike in the fifties where laws blatantly excluded groups of people, there are policies that are similar to the Grandfather Clause (where citizens in the U.S could vote if there grandfather could) a, meaning a significant amount of a group will be disadvantaged and discriminated against.