How "Breast Cancer Awareness" Campaigns Hurt

P R Watch ^ | 10/11/2010 | Anne Landman

[Responsibility2nd]

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month. Pink ribbons abound at department stores, grocery stores, gas stations, shopping malls and many other places. But the big "awareness" push may be misplaced. After all, lung cancer kills twice as many women each year as breast cancer -- more women every year in the U.S. die from lung cancer than from breast, uterine, and ovarian cancers combined. In 2009 alone, 31,000 more women died of lung cancer than breast cancer. But there aren't any ribbons, theme-colored products, corporate promotions, colored car magnets, festivals or fundraisers to make people aware of lung cancer's devastating toll, or to support lung cancer victims or raise money for a cure.

Why not?

Sex Sells

Because female breasts are sexy, and sex sells. Lungs and other organs -- and their cancers -- just don't have the same zing. Lung cancer may be the country's number one cancer killer, but people are unlikely to flock to buy weird and inappropriate "lung cancer awareness" products like a colored "lung cancer awareness" hand gun, a "colon-cancer awareness" floating beer pong table or a bile-colored "pancreatic awareness" toaster. Lungs, pancreases, colons, prostates and other hard-working internal organs are just plain unattractive marketing tools -- they don't sell stuff. They are asexual, and hidden, and we like them that way. Not so with breasts. Female breasts conjure up buying power like few other organs, and the "breast cancer awareness" theme gives corporate America a legitimate "in" to link female breasts to sales of just about anything -- a winning combination for marketing purposes.

People also tend to blame lung cancer victims for their own disease, since smoking causes lung cancer. Never mind that cigarette companies engaged in 50 years of fraud and deception in advertising their products, or that they magnify the addictiveness of cigarettes by free-basing nicotine and performing other hidden chemical hanky-panky with tobacco. It's all the smoker's fault for getting cancer.

And What About Men?

Virtually all breast cancer awareness campaigns are silent about the fact that breast cancer also affects men. Men are at a diagnostic disadvantage for the disease because they are not urged to conduct self-exams or get screening mammograms the way women are. Ignorance about male breast cancer leads to long delays in diagnosis, reducing men's survival rate. Since the public is repeatedly told that breast cancer is a woman's disease, men have difficulty accepting the diagnosis when they are affected, even to the point of keeping their diagnoses secret. Male breast cancer victims also face a terrible stigma from society. One public health clinic refused to give a man a mammogram because he was a man. A neighbor of mine whose whose husband died of breast cancer (and who enlightened me about the toll the disease takes in men) told me that after his diagnosis, her husband's own friends jokingly derided him for having a "woman's disease."

When it comes to men, "breast cancer awareness" promotions as they are currently conducted, with their over-the-top emphasis on women's breasts, do more harm than good.

So It's All About Women's You-Know-Whats (Snicker!)

These days, many breast cancer promotions have cringeworthy, degrading overtones that convey all the respect of drunken sailors at a strip club. A southern California company called "Save the Ta Tas" (phone 1-877-MY-TATAS), sells T-shirts with embarrassing slogans like "Caught you lookin' at my Ta Tas" and "I love my big Ta Tas." The company donates a small portion of sales from these items for research. A television commercial shows a woman wearing a skimpy bikini walking next to a swimming pool. Men gawk at her chest. The camera zooms in to focus on her jiggling breasts and a message fills the screen, "You know you like them. Now it's time to save the boobs." The ad invites viewers to attend an event called "The Boobyball Party." Hard Rock Hotels are advertising "Get into Bed for a Cure." There's even a horrifyingly-named "Beat the Hell Out of Breast Cancer" festival in Bryan, Texas, which offers promotional bracelets that say, "I Love Boobies." Flanigan's Boathouse in Malvern, Pennsylvania offers a happy hour called "Tips for Tits."

Ugh.

Alcohol Un-Awareness

Alcohol manufacturers have started offending breast cancer survivors by using female breast cancer to sell liquor. California's Marin Brewing Company sponsors "BreastFest." The Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, California has "All Hopped Up for the Cure," and Sweetwater Brewery in Atlanta minces no words with its ""Beer for Boobs" festival, promoted with the snickering tag line, "It's all about the boobs!" Delta Airlines' October in-flight magazine asks airline customers to "join Delta in the fight against breast cancer" by purchasing a pink martini made with Skyy Vodka and Minute Maid Pink Lemonade for $7. The Chambord liquor company urges people to "pink your drink", saying that "by adding a splash of Chambord to any cocktail, you're supporting breast cancer awareness year-round."

Liquor companies persist in linking their products to breast cancer awareness even though the National Cancer Institute warns that "even moderate drinking has been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer," and the American Cancer Society says "The use of alcohol is clearly linked to an increased risk of developing breast cancer."

Barbara Brenner, Executive Director of Breast Cancer Action, sums it up by saying, "Anybody trying to sell alcohol to promote breast cancer awareness should be ashamed of themselves."

Time for Self-Examination

Come October we are inundated with often mindless, embarrassing, even harmful and degrading pink cause marketing promotions. October, then, is a good time to urge consumers to look critically at marketing campaigns that persuade us to buy products by leveraging the emotions generated by a deadly disease, or employing sexual overtones to sell products. At the very first sign of pink, consumers need to start asking critical questions like "Is the product being sold actually good for us?" "Is the promotion appropriate?," "How would a breast cancer victim -- male or female feel toward this promotion? Would they consider it offensive?" and "Could I do more good if I donated money directly to a reputable disease research organization instead of spending it on this product?"

Chances are the answers to those questions will help consumers see that they've been taken for a ride on an often inappropriate and sometimes offensive rising tide of corporate pink.

[TigersEye]

God it must be hell living in such a binary world.

Nah, he has no clue. It's the living definition of "ignorance is bliss."

[Freddd]

The think that irks me, most of the time...they inform people to check for lumps...but they rarely, rarely ever mention the most aggressive form of all and it simply looks like a RASH on the breast!

And it’s the most aggressive form...it’s not just lumps, bumps, etc, RASHES can be Inflammatory Breast Cancer, is mostly misdiagnosed, and precious time lost, because it can move quickly. One day a rash, and within a few days or a week a major problem...it goes through the lymph system!

Look for rashes and don’t just dismiss them...

[Larry Lucido]

Here is my question for the author, R2. Is the author saying that the campaign hurts the cause of breast cancer, or that it hurts other equally legitimate causes by, I don’t know, displacing them?

If the goal is to raise money for research, and money is raised, then the campaign would appear to be a success. (That is, assuming that money for research leads to progress in early detection and cures, which is questionable in and of itself).

Hell, if there was a way to sex up fund-raising for, say, gun rights, that actually raised more money without otherwise undermining the cause, you would hear no objection from me.

[Responsibility2nd]

 

Larry.

 

Larry, Larry, Larry.

[Larry Lucido]

LOL!

[dmz]

OK, I can be reasonable as well as the next guy.

Perhaps it was this comment: “I don’t want to say these pink ribbon activists are whores, but.....”

The pink ribbon activists are often breast cancer survivors, right? At least in good measure? So it was not a big leap to replace “pink ribbon activist” with “breast cancer survivor” in your quote above. The “but ....” at the end of the quote above means (at least to me) that you DO want to call them whores.

It wasn’t much of a stretch at all, really. Twas you that was drawing a link between whores and the breast cancer industry. Perhaps your attempt to make the point was just a tad clumsy?

And yes, bringing my mother’s situation into this discussion was really dumb on my part. Had nothing to do with anything - other than to drive home my complete contempt for what I (mis?) read.

So, in the spirit of reasonableness that we are now displaying ... what exactly were you driving at with the whore comment?

[Texas resident]

Pinked up NFL is just flat wrong.

What’s curious is the timing of this massively ramped up campaign. Why now? Why so over the top? It’s everywhere.

[manic4organic]

I read that Susan G. Komen gives money to Planned Parenthood.

[Responsibility2nd]

Activists. The key word was activists.

As in Susan G. Komen Foundation for example. And the many other examples found in the article itself.

Activists. Who hijack breast cancer awareness for yet another feminst cause.

You did see (upthread) where the White House is going pink for Breast Cancer Awareness month? That’s what I’m talking about when I say “pink ribbon activists are whores, but.....”

I’m sorry. I take the blame for when others can’t read my mind.

I really mean no disrespect to cancer victims.

[Responsibility2nd]

Yes they do.

Follow the links.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=susan+komen+abortion+planned+parenthood&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

[swarthyguy]

Drat.

At least it’s not being done in January.

[swarthyguy]

I finally diagnosed my sense of vague irritation as those offputting pink gloves, sneakers, wristbands, headbands.....

Well, boycotting watching football won’t hurt much during the midseason.

[cajungirl]

Most women can attend to more than one thing at a time so not to worry.

[cajungirl]

Anytime you call any woman a whore who is not a card carrying whore who sells her body for money, you are disrespecting women. Didn’t your momma teach you that?

[GladesGuru]

Perhaps some lurking Libroid can tell us which “Disease Awareness” campaign resulted in a cure for said disease?

Please be specific.

[Truthsearcher]

Seriously, what is there to be aware of? Who isn’t aware of breast cancer at this point?

What people need to be aware of is what causes breast cancer, namely birth control pills and abortion, but they’ll never touch that, until they are willing to talk about that, the whole things is a huge sham.

[Texas resident]

That is a great way of putting it. It is off putting. It is just wrong. NFL fans tune in to watch a football game, not be campaigned to give money to a cause. It is a major distraction and I would bet that the players and coaches are none too happy about being forced to participate. If anyone in the administration of the NFL is paying notice, there are a bunch of us that are NOT watching because of this. I listen to the NFL games on the radio but I do watch college ball because there isn’t any of this guilt tripping garbage thrown at the viewer.

[RitaOK]

Yes, Komen supports PP, therefore plenty of her “marketing for cash” kills, as in bloody death to innocent pre-borns, pro life sources have claimed for years. Never heard a denial from Komen Foundation. When I see marketing PINK, I see the serpent of abortion, colorfully disguised in goodness.

[codder too]

Had routine mammogram done today. They ask 5 questions that are supposed to give you an idea of what your chances are of developing breast cancer. They "do not" ask about hormone replacement use or history of abortion.

I suppose they consider that too personal. So much for an enlightened medical community.

[RitaOK]

You can google Susan G. Komen and PP, which brings the link to lifenews.com. Very exacting info.