I think few
people would argue that awareness of cancer and attempting to find a cure are
very good things. Necessary things. But that does not mean that the way in
which it is done is necessarily good.
You may
know my beliefs on Susan G. Komen. I don’t care for them. Any organization who
gives more money to its fundraising than to finding a cure for the disease it
represents loses my respect. (No wonder they took “for the Cure” off of their
name.) Add in its support for Planned Parenthood, and you can bank that I’ll
never support that particular organization. But this isn’t about Susan G.
Komen.
It’s also
interesting to note the significantly greater amount of funding that Breast
Cancer research receives than any other form of cancer, even those that have a
much higher death rate. But this isn’t about uneven funding.
Lest you
take me wrong, I am fully supportive of cancer research, Breast Cancer
included. My grandma is a survivor of Breast Cancer, and I’ve known others who
have died from the disease. Rather, I’m attacking a specific section of Breast
Cancer Awareness that I find not only alarming and disgusting, but
counterproductive to the cause and disrespectful to the patients.
Has anyone
else noticed how hypersexualized Breast Cancer Awareness has become?
It started
somewhat harmless, relatively speaking. Wristbands that read “I <3 Boobies”
and bumper stick that say “Save the Tatas”. I don’t care for them. I don’t see
the point to them. Let’s replace the official, appropriate name for this
particular body part with street slang. That’s respectful to the women (and
handful of men) that are battling Breast Cancer.
Because
here’s the deal: We’ve taken the focus away from the disease itself. Rather
than seeing it as a bad thing that happens to one-eighth of all women,
something that has to be caught early and fought, that always has a chance to
come back, with a focus on the body part it affects.
We get it.
Guys like breasts. For whatever attractive quality they have, there tends to be
a focus on them. As if it wasn’t obvious, we’ve tailored this cause and way too
much else to reflect that. Part of it, I believe, stems from the
hook-up/pornography institution that has been growing in our society. Rather
than actually caring about women, men are taught, through peers and family
members and any sort of media, that women are simply a means to our ends. Using
women leads to things like this, where rather than worrying about women
suffering we’re worried about them losing their “boobies” and hence something to
gawk at.
But it only
starts there.
Now, I’ll
admit, researching what I didn’t already know to write this post was a bit
uncomfortable. But it simply further affirmed what I have long thought.
We’re
focusing on the sexual arousal quality of breasts rather than the struggle of
the women afflicted with Breast Cancer. Not only is this immature, it’s quite
unfair to the almost 300,000 diagnoses of the cancer every year.
It doesn’t
take much of a search to find this garbage. I like the idea of Volley for the
Cure, with high school volleyball focusing on Breast Cancer for a game. Its
adult counterpart, “Boobyball”, not so much. So this isn’t really volleyball,
rather it’s a half-glam half-burlesque showcase of female bodies. While the
story behind it is admirable, it sexualizes something that has no need to be
sexualized.
Of course,
there’s No Bra Day. Though there is no official date, the unofficial holiday
seems to at least take place during October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
This one is pretty self-explaining. Women are encouraged to leave their bras at
home and “set the tatas free”. Again, taking Breast Cancer a few steps lower
into the blurring line of “awareness”. (To be fair to them and to show my
support, I did participate again this year.)
Let’s clear
this up: Do we value a woman’s breasts over her actual life? No woman wants to
have a mastectomy, but at this point in our medical advancement, sometimes it
is what is necessary or safest for a woman with Breast Cancer. Slogans like
“Save Second Base” make is seem like a mastectomy isn’t an option, because it’s
important, either for guys’ arousal or for a woman to feel attractive, that she
have her natural breasts. Putting such an emphasis on these body parts shames
women who can no longer have them. We’re telling them that we aren’t really
worried about them, but about their chest. How shallow.
But just
when we thought we couldn’t sledge further downward, alas. We further find
young, topless women representing a disease whose average diagnosed woman is in
her 60s (not at all to say that younger women are not diagnosed). The
“CoppaFeel!” campaign in the UK puts pictures of bare breasts on billboards
along with a word the woman used to describe her breasts. Take, for example,
the word “Squidgy”, whatever it means. What, in the name of all things holy,
this has to do with Breast Cancer is a question that needs to be asked.
But lest we
think our neighbors across the pond are the only creeps, there are a plethora
of examples in the U.S. An online pornography site offered to donate one cent
for every 30 video views. Thankfully, Susan G. Komen came through by rejecting
the offer and telling the site not to use its name. Author of Pink Ribbon Blues, Gayle Sulik, had this
to say:
I
don't see the porn site to be much different from the 'Feel your boobies'
T-shirts. It sexually objectifies women, trivializes breast cancer . . . and
uses the objectified woman as window dressing for the profit-making machine.
I haven’t read her book, but I feel like it would be a good
one.
Perhaps the
crown jewel of objectification of women in the name of Breast Cancer Awareness
would be the YouTube account “Simple Pickup”. To spare you from looking them
up, this is a group of perverts who give tips on how to have a one-night stand
with the woman you choose. One of their particularly disturbing videos is
titled “Motorboating for Breast Cancer Research”. For those ignorant of the
term “motorboating”, I’ll look to the almighty Urban Dictionary to define. I
apologize for any offense:
The
placement of one's face, specifically the mouth, into the area between a
well-endowed woman's breasts, followed by a rapid shaking of the face in a
side-to-side motion accompanied by yelling. The resulting sound that is created
sounds similar to an outboard boat motor.
This was done to dozens of random women found on the
streets. I sincerely hope no girls I know would succumb to such pressure. But
when a camera is put in your face and you are told, “It’s for a good cause!” it
doesn’t make things easier. These degenerates donated about $7000 to Breast
Cancer research which, for the nation’s collective conscience I am thankful
for, was returned after the backlash received. Simple Pickup, naturally, made a
rebuttal video in which they said that a “small minority of haters”, thanks to
their “personal problems”, “literally just lost $7000”. Not the most
intellectual argument supporting their cause, but it will have to do.
Guest
columnist for cleveland.com Mariah Wilson, whose mother had Breast Cancer,
summed it up this way:
The
removal of breasts is no longer a woman's burden to bear, but a man's loss.
Grieving has turned into a grievance of a loss of sexual pleasure, not a loss
of identity for a woman.
To
reiterate, I am not against Breast Cancer research or awareness. Contrarily, I
believe it is important. What I am against is the marginalizing of a serious
disease by people who care nothing about the victims and all about their
pleasure. Anyone who claims to care about Breast Cancer victims should feel the
same.