Abstract

The women in my case study enter the realm of leadership by joining the public conversation about cancer's meaning through the creation of their resource center. Leadership is the process of making meaning in community, of deciding what's important in living our lives together. When people, as unique individuals embedded in a social system, notice those elements of their world that may need rethinking, and then cooperate with others in the search for alternatives, they participate in shared meaning--they contribute to the process that "makes leaders out of people" . Just so, when the women in my study come together in the creation of their resource center, they weave from their combined stories a critique of the way our culture names cancer. In renaming cancer they begin to repair credibility, examine context, temper complexity and face the consequences of the way cancer has been named. Connecting the limitations they see in women's lives with the cancer puzzle, the women question cultural assumptions that perpetuate both. ;To answer the question why so little progress has been made in the fight against cancer, the women suggest failure is due to naming cancer too narrowly. The responsibility they assume for finding a cancer solution binds them in a community of practice that draws their private cancer memories into the public cancer conversation. Addressing the personal needs of women with cancer, the center's programs rename cancer, not only as an integral part of our lives, but also as a symptom of powerful patterns depleting our resources--human and natural--and so creating a threat to peace. Through their programs the women's leadership produces tangible results. ;The metaphor the women use to restructure old assumptions renames cancer broadly. The symbol they choose proposes a different world picture, one of people living cooperatively in a healthy world. It recognizes not so much the consciousness they have of cancer, but the energy they draw from one another as they work to eliminate it. Through symbols and celebrations they model imaginative leadership that renews the spirit