Women themselves find most breast lumps. Some women in general and African American women in particular are often embarrassed to touch their own bodies. They grew up with the notion that it was somehow bad to touch their own body except for bathing. They do not look at their bodies, do not examine their bodies, and have been told from older mothers to keep your dress down, do not look at it, do not touch it, and do not let anybody else touch it. The personal and cultural messages a woman receives or fails to receive from her mother affect the way she behaves (Boyd, 1984). Consequently, early screening was not an option made available to some African American
women in this study.