So, Angelina Jolie opted to have a double mastectomy because it was discovered that she carries the “faulty” gene, BRCA1, which sharply increases her risk of getting breast and ovarian cancer. I don’t know about you, but I was stunned. Not because I’d never heard of such a thing – choosing to lop off one’s breasts as a pre-emptive strike, that is, on the mere possibility that one could end up with breast cancer. Truth is, I’d read about it somewhere. But it had seemed quite unsavoury, and I guess I just never thought someone would actually do it. This wasn’t any old someone, however; this was Angelina Jolie, for God’s sake.

Let me just say right now that I was never caught up in the public fascination with Angelina. Or even Brangelina, for that matter. Fact is, I’ve always thought of Angelina as a middling kind of actress. Don’t care much for her movies. She’s one of those John Travolta types of actors, as I like to call them. You know the emotionless ones who only have two switches: on and off. Their faces are kind of waxy, wearing the same expression whether they’re happy, sad, excited, whatever.

What has always impressed me about her, however, is the personal evolution she’s undergone. She went from tabloid vamp to modern-day Mother Teresa in a few short years, and I admire her passion for underprivileged peoples and the way she has immersed herself wholeheartedly in the role of tireless global humanitarian. She works as a United Nations goodwill ambassador and never misses an opportunity to speak up on the behalf of women in conflict who are dealing with sexual violence perpetrated on them. That, in my estimation, cancels and supersedes her non-existent acting abilities for which she is handsomely paid as a Hollywood A-lister. Say what you want about her, but look at the mini United Nations she’s assembled, by way of adopted children, to give her life – and theirs – meaning. Other actors making her kind of cheese are putting it up their noses or in their veins. Good for her and her efforts to make the world a better place. That’s the point of celebrity, as far as I’m concerned.

Still, seeing her kiss her brother like that full on the mouth that Oscar night, a few years back (there may even have been tongue involved) made me realise that the girl was serious. So when she supposedly stole Brad Pitt away from Jennifer Aniston, I silently cheered. I thought to myself, Well, there you have it. The lessons to be learnt here are: don’t ever believe your own press, the way Jen obviously did about herself. America’s sweetheart, my ass. Just because you’re all blonde and pretty, don’t assume that the skinny, dark-haired chick you never thought of as a threat won’t spirit your man away. Angelina wore a vial of blood around her neck for a long time, Jen. That’s a woman who doesn’t play. And look how she devastated poor Billy Bob Thornton. Has he even made a decent movie since they broke up? And please don’t say Bad Santa because that’s just pitiful, especially when you think about the height from which he fell with such fine work as Armageddon, Tombstone, A Simple Plan, and, yes, the exceptional Slingblade, for which you will remember he won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. No slouch, this guy. Plus, remember he was also a singer, songwriter for a blues-rock band in the 1990s that actually released three albums. Again, no slouch.

But after their short-lived affair, what happened? So Jen was dumb to send Brad off, alone, to God-knows-what frozen tundra to shoot the film Mr & Mrs Smith. You just know Angelina had him swinging from the chandeliers after filming each day. Jen never stood a chance, is what I’m saying. You can tell Angelina’s one of those women who are not afraid to get their hair messed up during sex.

(I’m just saying. There are two types of women in this world: the ones who don’t mind getting their hair messed up during sex and the ones who do. That’s it. It must be, because Brad’s never looked back, umpteen years and a million kids later.)

Angelina, last week Tuesday in a stunning revelation in an op-ed in the New York Times, admitted she’d elected to do surgery three months prior to remove both breasts. First things first. How the hell huge news like this was kept under such careful wraps in Hollywood with its aversion to privacy is beyond me. That said, isn’t it kind of ironic that this person who these days lives to keep her private life private, decided to put it all on the line, sharing the most intimate details about something so deeply personal. But her reason for doing it makes sense. She stood an 80-odd per cent chance of ending up with cancer since she carried the gene; her own mother died of ovarian cancer at a mere 56 years old. And as a celebrity with considerable clout, Angelina wants to become a kind of mouthpiece for women’s health issues.

She wrote: “I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene-tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.”

Already, her openness is paying dividends; by the sounds of things across social media and the blogosphere, the conversation has started. All I can say is God bless her and the other high-profile women like Katie Couric, who brought colorectal screening for women to the fore, and Melinda Gates who, in spite of her staunch Catholicism, is trying every day in sub-Saharan Africa to empower women there to take control of their lives and make informed reproduction choices by making birth control accessible to them. These women understand that we are, above all else, a sisterhood. The boys have their boys’ club still alive and well in this here 21st century. Women should look out for each other instead of tearing each other down.

I salute Angelina. It’s a brave, brave thing she’s done. A double mastectomy could not have been an easy decision. Honestly, I don’t know if I’d do it. I don’t know that I’d even do the screening. I’m one of those women who, were I to get pregnant, wouldn’t want to know the baby’s gender until it was born. Our breasts are to us what men’s penises are to them. Would a man remove his penis if there were a chance it would lengthen his life? But, mercifully, men don’t have to make those kinds of tough decisions, do they?