October (or “Pinktober”) is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. This month, there’s a good chance you’ll see students around campus sporting an “I love boobies” bracelet or a “Save the Ta-tas” T-shirt.
The large amount of attention given to breast cancer is undoubtedly important, as one out of every eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at some point in her life, according to the National Cancer Institute. However, the problem with the rising societal attention to breast cancer since NBCAM’s inception in 1985 (NBCAM.org) is the relatively recent phenomenon of sexualizing the disease. Western society publicly values breasts over women.
Breast cancer has been sexualized through a number of campaigns, such as Save the Ta-tas, Keep a Breast (makers of the “I love boobies” bracelets) and Save 2nd Base. These operations sexualize breast cancer in their propaganda (shirts, bracelets, bumper stickers, etc.) by telling society to “save the breasts” instead of “save the cancer victims.”
For example, one video advertisement by the Canadian organization Rethink Breast Cancer shows a woman walking around in a bikini with both men and women staring at her breasts as she passes by. Most of the video is a close-up shot of her chest. At the very end of the video, a message reads, “You know you like them, now it’s time to save the boobs.” Just like the aforementioned campaigns, this advertisement is centered around breasts, failing to acknowledge the woman behind them and the victims of breast cancer.
September Lain, a 23-year-old FSU student who has lost a number of friends and family members to breast cancer and is herself at high risk, believes that “sexualizing breasts detracts from the fact that there’s a person behind them.” Focusing awareness on breasts is dehumanizing and, according to Jessica S. Holmes of huffingtonpost.com, “reduces a woman’s value to her body parts.” Holmes also writes that “cancerous breasts threaten idealized femininity and the eroticization of the female body, and these ‘awareness’ campaigns are no different from the over-sexualized and fetishized imagery in mainstream culture.”
Saving a woman’s life is infinitely more important than saving her breasts. Unfortunately, in our society, sex sells, so it’s no surprise that some of the most successful and prevalent breast cancer campaigns rely on sex for marketing. But these awareness campaigns aren’t sending the right message.
“There is nothing sexy about breast cancer,” said Jamie Stec, a 36-year-old from Michigan currently battling breast cancer. “There is nothing sexy about being bald, being without nipples, having burns covering your body from radiation, having sores on your face and mouth from chemo.” The problem is society doesn’t want to see that side of breast cancer.
A few years ago, The Breast Cancer Fund attempted to break this sexualization by proposing an advertisement portraying a woman pulling down her bra to reveal a mastectomy scar, according to huffingtonpost.com, with a tagline that read, “It’s no secret. Society is obsessed with breasts. But what are we doing about breast cancer?” Unfortunately, the ad that was supposed to be put up in San Francisco bus shelters was deemed too disturbing to be shown in public. But cancer is disturbing, and only showing women with perfect breasts isn’t going to spread the right kind of awareness.
Some may argue that all press is good press. Lain is “glad that there’s a large movement to address such a widespread, serious issue.” But these advertisements are only perpetuating the eroticism of a serious disease. Even if these campaigns bring in more donations with sexualized merchandise, it’s harmful to society as a whole.
In any case, this extreme awareness is not where we should be putting our money and resources. According to Stec, our society is already aware enough. “Aren’t we all aware at this point? This entire pinkwashing phenomena is a waste…the money rarely goes where it should.” Instead of spending so much money on the highly commercialized “pink campaign,” we should put more money into research. There are organizations that use donations and sales profits to donate to research, but overall, the commercialized, sexualized disease doesn’t have enough campaigns using their money wisely. Recently, the NFL has been under scrutiny after it became public that only eight percent of NFL pink merchandise sales actually go to breast cancer research, according to The Washington Times. We need to cut the bullshit campaigns, advertise a reasonable amount with accurate representations of breast cancer, and put more money towards research.
More attention needs to be paid to cancer victims than to breasts. Who cares if a woman still has her breasts if she survived cancer? Sexualized campaigns are harmful, especially to victims. “All of us are fed up,” said survivor Lani Horn to USA Today. “There’s a cruelty to [making breast cancer sexy], when you’re in danger of losing the very sexuality that they’re selling.”
We need a wake up call. Both the eroticized awareness campaigns and their patrons need to stop trying to make a horrible, life-threatening disease seem sexy. Save the testicles? We don’t say that about testicular cancer. So why do we need to save the breasts?
Annabella Palopoli can be reached at annabella.palopoli@theminaretonline.com