After Claira Hermet lost her mother and sister to cancer and realized she carried the BRCA 1 gene, which drastically increased her risk of getting breast cancer, the 27-year-old TV and radio presenter decided to undergo a double mastectomy, which is becoming more and more common among women as a preemptive measure to fight breast cancer. The difference between Hermet and those other women, though, was that she decided to throw a goodbye party for her breasts to make this intimidating, challenging, and courageous decision a little bit easier. The party included boob-shaped cupcakes as a goodbye to her 32DD breasts. The operation will take place on January 21st, which she jokingly refers to as Double D day.
Not only is a mastectomy a brave decision for the obvious reason that any complex surgery can pose serious risks and introduce complications to the person having it, but also because, for many women, breasts can serve as a defining factor of their femaleness and femininity. To lose something so integral to identity is not easy, and the negative reactions of other people don't really help at all. Remember when Angelina Jolie wrote about her double mastectomy in the New York Times? She was met with a lot of hatred and abuse online by sexist men who, basically, were telling her she lost her worth as a woman without her breasts.
Hermet doesn't seem particularly fazed by any aspect of it, though. She told The Daily Mail , "[I had to] recognize that my breasts didn't define me and if a man was going to leave me it wouldn't be because I'd lost them," she said. "[When] I set the date for my mastectomy it was empowering."
