October was breast cancer awareness month, in case you all missed the pink NFL uniforms. Breast cancer affects so may women, and many women I know, so I thought I might write something about it for the blog. Then I ran into a Facebook status that looked something like this: “I like it on the floor” or “I like it on the kitchen table.”
When I first saw a status like this I was shocked—what was my sweet friend doing publicly posting something so suggestive and inappropriate! Then I saw it on more and more status updates, what was going on here? I Googled it and found out—Breast Cancer Awareness.
Or at least it claimed to be breast cancer awareness. But here is my question-- how is posting sexually suggestive messages that do not ever mention breast cancer really raising awareness? This isn’t promoting monthly self breast exams or regular mammograms. This isn’t providing support for survivors. And it is certainly not raising money for research for a cure!
I want to make sure I am clear that I am not down on breast cancer awareness. I applaud those who volunteer to work at a local clinic during a breast cancer-screening day, or give talks to lower income communities sharing information, or participate in walks to raise money for research. I applaud those who simply send a card to a survivor they know, attend a fundraising dinner, or participate in an office wear-pink-to-work-day to raise money.
But to treat something as serious as breast cancer as something to write a cryptic innuendo laden Facebook post about is offensive in light of the tragedy of breast cancer. And just to get there before you do, no, this doesn’t count as awareness…the post doesn’t even mention breast cancer! No, it doesn’t matter that it made me look up what it meant because I did not become any more aware of breast cancer issues in doing that.
This particular fad is a follow up to a previous one in which women simply posted a color as their status, which, upon investigation, turned out was supposed to be the color of their bra that day. Another sexual innuendo masquerading as a good deed.
Are we so lazy that all we can manage to do in support of breast cancer is to type a phrase unrelated to breast cancer on our Facebook wall and feel proud of ourselves? Purses and bras, although inevitably associated with women have little to do with a terrible disease that kills 1 in 35 women in the US. And by the way, men can get breast cancer too.
When did activism become a way to make yourself look cute? When did women’s health issues become an excuse to throw around sexual innuendo? And when did we stop actually caring about breast cancer?
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"When did activism become a way to make yourself look cute?"
ReplyDeleteWell I certainly think you nailed the problem.
I remember those posts and I thought they had something to do with purses. Silly me.
I suppose my main problem with this is that people don't need breast cancer awareness anymore. They need mammogram awareness, proper breast health awareness, self-examination awareness, and so on.
Breast cancer isn't one of those diseases that people don't talk about, it doesn't have a cultural stigma, so why not be direct about it? I guess I'd rather see people being proactive for women's health and posting links to promote warning signs and such, but I do realize it's hard to make people care so you have to get their attention any way possible.
I agree Kelly, in many ways it signifies a victory that breast cancer discussions are at a stage that is past "awareness" and is ready to move on to more specific initiatives. Breast cancer, precisely because everyone is aware of it, has become a socially acceptable disease to talk about, even NFL football players publicly talk about it with sensitivity. So seems like it is time to move on to becoming more "aware" of those struggling with other diseases and shift our focus to working on the treatment/prevention of breast cancer.
ReplyDeleteWatching Project Runway recently there was a young man so afraid of sharing his HIV diagnosis that he had not told his family or friends even though he had known for 10 years. Thank God I don't know anyone who is ashamed of having breast cancer, they are free to ask for and receive support from their families and friends.
Yeah, let's talk about HIV/AIDS. When will THAT become a household word? Probably never. And it is a disease that the church cares very little about because there is a possibility for scandal attached. People come out in droves wearing pink, but there were only 4 faith-based organizations at the AIDS Walk in Austin this year. Many treat those with HIV/AIDS as if they were lepers in our community trying to contaminate everything with their AIDS & sinful lifestyle. How dare we think that everyone with a disease deserves it? Do we think that about breast cancer? And what preventative measures are we taking so that AIDS does not spread further and hurt more families? Few, because awareness is about wearing pink and not informing people.
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