I squinted at them a little and said, "Hey Bill."
"What."
"What do you see if you. . . you know. . ."
"Oh, yeah. I see."
I did manipulate the second one just a little, but it surprised me how easy it was to go from one word. . . to the other.
Showing posts with label breast cancer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breast cancer. Show all posts
Sunday, October 23, 2011
My gift of. . . ?
On our way out of the supermarket today, we saw a solid wall of pink pledges: forms proclaiming the inevitable breast cancer donations wangled by hook, crook or guilt from shoppers already spending far too much for their groceries.
I squinted at them a little and said, "Hey Bill."
"What."
"What do you see if you. . . you know. . ."
"Oh, yeah. I see."
I did manipulate the second one just a little, but it surprised me how easy it was to go from one word. . . to the other.
I squinted at them a little and said, "Hey Bill."
"What."
"What do you see if you. . . you know. . ."
"Oh, yeah. I see."
I did manipulate the second one just a little, but it surprised me how easy it was to go from one word. . . to the other.
Friday, October 21, 2011
"And your little dog, too": Teal Strikes Back!
The Wicked Witch of the West: In Teal!
On doing a little digging, I discovered that I am far from the only one who has become sick and tired of the pink juggernaut that passes for "breast cancer awareness". I've included a link to an article by Gayle Sulik (which has links to other excellent commentaries) that explores, in incredible depth, the deeper financial issues of this modern-day marketing phenomenon. All this has led me to wonder what percentage of our donations actually end up funding breast cancer research.
The pink crusade has become wildly popular, saucy and "sexy" (not to mention headspinningly ubiquitous). In the name of being provocative, the movement is starting to use terms like "boobs" to show how unstuffy they are, how cool, and how they champion banishing the stigma around the disease.
(Ovaries in teal!)
The assumption is that everyone is OK with this. But wait just a second. Does anyone think older women, grandmothers maybe, or even great-grandmothers (as I some day hope to be) would like their breasts referred to as "boobies"? What about going in for your mammogram and having the technician say to you, "OK, just put your booby in here"? It's ludicrous, and unfunny, and downright disrespectful. But if we dare to say anything about it, we violate the Pink Ribbon Code: we're just no fun! Don't we believe in the Cause?I am beginning to read stories about women having surgery for ovarian cancer who discover that none of the hospital staff knows anything about the anti-ovarian-cancer crusade. They have no idea what the teal toenails are all about, or that the campaign even has a colour, let alone what that colour is. If someone sees a ribbon in teal, they assume it's a breast cancer ribbon that somehow came out in "the wrong colour".
Cross-section of ovarian thingammy in teal!
At this point I am beginnning to wonder if I should dress up as a giant ovary for Halloween and scare the living shit out of everyone. Take that, you pinko capitalist hypocrites! Get your big ol' pink boobies out of my face!
No, seriously. I'm going as a witch this year (typecasting, obviously) and have been looking for makeup. Maybe I can mix blue and green together. Somebody has got to DO something so that this less-sexy but deadlier woman's cancer can get the attention and the funds that it deserves.
Flip-flop feet. . . IN TEAL!
http://gaylesulik.com/2011/09/the-teal-before-the-pink-ovarian-cancer-awareness-month/(Post-post script. I just thought of this. Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, whose rather sappy book Women who Run with the Wolves was on bestseller lists for about four years, came up with a fantastic female equivalent for the male term machismo: ovarios.
I wonder why it never caught on.)
When your toenails match your flip-flops
It's not every day that a woman's toenails match her flip-flops.
Yesterday I wrote about a bizarre dream I had about ovarian cancer. Though doctors kept insisting I had it, no one seemed to be interested in treating it. They implied that I was being a hypochondriac for worrying about it and should wait until the pain became "unbearable" to begin treatment.
Was there more to this dream than I thought?
I've also written, at length (and how!) about the "pink" crusade against breast cancer (I almost said "for" breast cancer) and about how it has mowed down all other disease-related campaigns. I'm afraid it has, folks, with an oversaturation that is beginning to make me frankly sick.
Yes, we need awareness of the various types of cancer that women (and men, and children) suffer and die from. We need to campaign, but this aggressively? The breast cancer juggernaut has grown so formidable now that they can and do use the word "boobies" in their merchandise without any sense that it is insulting to women.
There is no comparable term for an ovary, yet when it becomes diseased, the outcome can be fatal. In many cases there are few, or even no symptoms. No x-ray, no blood test, not even a palpation to determine if you have it or not.
In my dream, the doctors sort of guessed at the diagnosis, then left me pretty much alone with it except for a useless, generic "support group". It was a nightmare, of course. Now that I've had some time to mull it over, I think I can see why the "ovarian movement" has chosen such a strange emblem.
At first glance, it's odd. You're supposed to paint your toenails teal. I guess I'm an old stick-in-the-mud (and my toes are ugly enough to frighten small children), but I can't bring myself to do it. And I just don't see that many teal toenails around.
For one thing, they'd only be visible during flip-flop weather. That limits their visibility considerably. Older women might be a little reluctant. Though the campaign insists the teal polish is widely available, I wonder if that's true.
The truth is, this rather strange campaign is an attempt to survive the pink tsunami that has pretty much drowned other diseases. I also suspect all the other colours had already been taken. A lot of men probably don't know what the word teal means, and to me it's a sort of military color. It also has so many shades that it's hard to fix on it exactly (whereas, for some reason or other, pink is pink: a colour both innocuous, as in baby girls, and fluffily sexy, as in Playboy bunnies).
But you have to give them credit for trying something original. I'm afraid we've come to the point of Not-Another-Charity Syndrome, and (as I wrote yesterday) ovaries just aren't as cute, fun, perky and sexy as (slim, attractive young women's) breasts. They scare us. They pump out hormones, spew out eggs. And they're even more dangerous when they STOP spewing out eggs.
And even if they are the source of life itself, which they are, there's an odd sort of stigma attached to them. They're reproductive organs, not bouncy fun sexual attractants hiked up into enticing cleavage by lacy bras. Ovaries aren't sexy. Think about it. See any irony here?
But boobs (sorry, breasts) mean. . . what? A sexual turn-on for men. (Come on, admit it.) A badge of youth, at least the perky high ones. Part of a womanly shape: i.e., at puberty these things just pop out, like it or not, and you have them for the rest of your life. They also mean, and many people think of this with disgust, the ability to literally feed and nurture a baby, to keep it alive with your own body. Do it, yes, but do it alone, in a dark public washroom or, better yet, at home.
So for some, the purpose for which breasts are designed is somehow disgusting. So the campaign must have decided to focus on the "fun" aspects of breasts, the cheerleaders with bouncy little tits, the tight pink tshirts with "provocative" slogans on them. The boobies.
Leaving the ovarian camp scrambling for something that hasn't already been taken.
I can't tell at this stage of my life if I'm going to get ovarian cancer or not. At this point it's a dread-word, sort of like "pancreatic": many people see it as a death sentence.
Meantime, on the pink front, the news is better. Early detection means you just might be able to keep those perky little organs and survive.
I wish the teal-toe brigade well, but there's something kind of strange about it, a contradiction: proclaim it, but at the same time keep it hidden. The thing is, people are NOT going to ask you about your pedicure if you wear normal shoes, which most people in Canada do for 10 months of the year (and, around these parts, 11 or 12 months). And the color (darkish blue-green) is, for most people, a little too goth to be flattering. Those who don't ask about it might wonder why you chose such an oddball shade.
I can hear the ovarian camp asking me: well, do you have a better idea? I'd include some sort of egg imagery, but people might find that just as disgusting as breast- feeding. Eggs? What does that have to do with ovarian cancer?
The body is the arena for cancer, and it can strike like a cobra and do its deadly business anywhere. North Americans have so much shame and disgust about the body that they must cloak diseases like cancer in terms that are, sometimes, downright cute. Makes it more palatable, somehow.
I'd like to see stats on how much these two causes bring in annually. It would probably cause ME disgust, but for reasons of my own.
http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm
(The following is from the tealtoes.org web site.)
Raising Ovarian Cancer Awareness
The Story of Teal Toes
Scene: School bus stop, the week after Labor Day.
(Usual hellos, how's the school year going etc.)
This "conversation" was compiled from the various conversations I had at the bus stop, gym, yoga class, a bridal shower and various other places this past September after painting my toes teal. There were many other teal toes by the end of the month.
Ovarian cancer is called the silent killer, it whispers. We have all been bombarded with information about breast cancer, it's time to extend this awareness to its "cousin", ovarian cancer (the "breast cancer gene" can also trigger ovarian cancer).
Ideas for a "Teal Toes" campaign:
(Usual hellos, how's the school year going etc.)
| Tori: | Wow! New pedicure? |
| Carey: | Yeah! |
| Susan: | What color is that? Blue? |
| Carey: | No, it's teal. September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month and teal is the awareness color. |
| Judy: | Gorgeous. Ovarian cancer? Isn't that what that new vaccine is for? |
| Carey: | No, there is nothing like that for OC. In fact, it is often not diagnosed until the disease has progressed. |
| Tori: | But I thought that is what we get a pap smear for! |
| Carey: | Nope, there is no test for OC. The symptoms are often hard to see. They are:
|
| Judy: | I think a friend of mine's mother had that. She just thought it was a tummy thing until it was too late. Why haven't we heard more about this? |
| Carey: | That's why I painted my toes! So people would ask! |
| Susan: | Who did them? |
| Carey: | That new nail place over by the theater. They carry all the OPI colors, including this special teal. |
| Tori: | Hey, let's go tomorrow! Meet me there! |
Ovarian cancer is called the silent killer, it whispers. We have all been bombarded with information about breast cancer, it's time to extend this awareness to its "cousin", ovarian cancer (the "breast cancer gene" can also trigger ovarian cancer).
Ideas for a "Teal Toes" campaign:
- September, Ovarian Cancer awareness month, is the perfect time for one last pedicure for a cure, and trying an "untraditional" color.
- For most women, teal is an "untraditional" enough color that it does spark conversations, leading to further awareness.
- While "untraditional", teal is nevertheless pretty!
This information is from the Ovarian Cancer National Alliance.
http://www.tealtoes.org/
Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
Thistledown Press
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look
Order The Glass Character from:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
Barnes & Noble
Thistledown Press
Thursday, October 20, 2011
I dreamed I had ovarian cancer
I had a strange dream last night and am trying to piece it together before it recedes back into the vapour of subconscious oblivion.
I was in some sort of medical clinic which looked like a walk-in place
with several doctors (all women, for some reason), and when I was just about to
leave and standing on the other side of the reception counter, a doctor (standing quite far away) said to me as a kind of afterthought, "Oh,
by the way, you have ovarian cancer". I nearly jumped a foot and said, "Isn't
that serious?" (or maybe I just thought it). She said, "Oh no, you'll just have a little jab
of pain in your side once in a while, nothing to worry about." She demonstrated by poking herself in the lower abdomen.
I was protesting "but, but. . . ", mostly in my mind. Then she either told me, or I decided on my own, to see my own doctor, and she said the same sort of thing, that ovarian cancer was nothing serious, and to wait, but I kept insisting it could be deadly and all those magazine articles said to get it treated immediately. She seemed very casual about it, actually dismissive, and said something like, "Just wait until the pain gets really unbearable, and then we can treat it." I felt completely helpless and unmoored.
But it got worse. I began to realize that there had been no diagnostic tests done at all to determine this, almost like it was a guess. Didn't I need an MR or whatever it's called, or at least a pelvic exam? I also knew it was on the left side, though I had no symptoms. I remember thinking I just had to find someone who would take this seriously before it got so advanced as to be untreatable.
I just remembered this part now: since I had made such a fuss about thinking this was serious, they allowed me to take part in some sort of support group. I had the feeling it was a way to get me to face the fact that I wasn't really sick, and also to indulge me and throw me a bone so I'd be quiet. All the women had a different health issue, though some of them seemed to be there just for the social outlet and to get out of the house. Many of them were young mothers with small children climbing all over them and strollers parked.
We sat in a circle as if we were in a 12-step meeting. The sense was that each person would get to "share" about what their diagnosis was, but I had the strong feeling I was here because they believed I was a crackpot who somehow thought she had something seriously wrong with her. The sharing never really started, as the dream trailed off then. I woke up with a sick feeling and dread that maybe it was a premonition.
But the sense of not being listened to is something most women have experienced, especially if the issue is reproductive. (Men's concerns about their plumbing are treated with grave seriousness as the doctor carefully examines the family jewels.) The sense is that you're embarrassing them, a weird twist, or at very least wasting their time, and that you definitely shouldn't be talking about this or even really thinking about it.
Meantime, the media tell you to rush to your doctor at the first twinge, laying out the dire consequences if YOU are negligent (never your doctor) about your health. And we won't even get into the unresolved-emotional-issues crap that just compounds our pain. There is no such thing as the complete resolution of emotional issues. You just give it your best shot. It's really about as controllable as genetics, which may turn out to be the final arbiter of health or illness, or even how long you live.
So. . . if I want to get all symbolic here, what does the dream mean? All the doctors in this scenario were middle-aged women, and my feeling was, if THEY don't understand this or listen to me, who will? I was on the other side of the counter, almost stranded on an island. No one had done any tests; it was a kind of guess that nevertheless determined my life or death. It was almost yelled at me across the room, like, "Don't forget to apply the ointment three times a day" or something, or maybe "you left your earrings on the table".
Ovaries. Well, OK, in my case they've closed up shop, and a good thing too, because for some strange reason I never really enjoyed the menstrual cycle and its relentless 35-year reign. More than they want to admit, women's lives revolve around it. Certainly if you want a child and can't have one, it becomes paramount.
And oh, the often-agonizing slowdown as nature applies the brakes to reproduction, not all at once of course, but in fits and starts. Just when you think it's all settled, it's as if someone leaves the hand brake on your car and simultaneously stomps on the gas. Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech!
Why it's set up this way is anyone's guess. It's as if we are biologically programmed to have 19 babies or something, like those women on reality shows. There are billions and billions of people straining Earth's resources, with billions more to come, and it all seems to come down to ovaries, to fertility, that plucky little egg machine that doesn't give up its job without a protracted (say, ten-year) fight.
Then there's the "oh, it must be menopause" thing, explaining everything from mood swings to murder. The ancient fear-based belief that women become dessicated crones and go completely out of their minds at 50 still persists, in spite of all the "wisdom of menopause" propaganda espoused by feminist doctors who want to sell a lot of books to women desperate for a bit of good news.
I don't feel like a crone, and I hate the word. It's about as attractive as battleaxe or hag. IActually, it surprises me how little I've changed. There's a sense of relief, of course. No more mini-, maxi-, light/medium/superabsorbent anything, no more running through fields in slow motion with a gauzy dress on. No more "accidents". I have a tendency to tire sooner, but I can live with that. I was afraid of becoming all hairy: instead, almost all my leg hair fell out and I don't have to shave any more. I can still have an orgasm, and how (and I was absolutely certain that it would fade away to nothing: nobody told me otherwise, so I just assumed it would be all over). My body sure hasn't forgotten that one, though it amazes me, with these supposedly dessicated, peach-pit ovaries (not to mention all the social pressure to be sexless) that I can feel anything sexual at all.
Still. Ovarian cancer. Something in my psyche rumbles seismically over this possibility. I pray the dream isn't a premonition, or, as they say, precognitive. Even worse would be the "oh well, let's just blow her off" attitude of these wise-crone-figure doctors (or are they mothers? Jesus.) The sense that she's a little whacky, but can be bought off and kept quiet by being included in a group of lonely hypochondriacs.
It's funny that our society has recently wholeheartedly embraced breast cancer (which is, let's face it, much more sexy than all the others since it involves "boobies"), but hasn't got around to ovarian cancer, though it is infinitely more deadly. There's an attempt, I know, but their color, instead of a jolly, healthy pink, is teal.
I wonder who thought that one up: "hey, I know! Let's pick the most ambiguous and obscure color there is: both green and blue, but somehow neither; a colour some people don't even know the name of, so no one will think to buy our pencils and tshirts and coffee mugs in a million years."
But there's more going on than a "teal campaign". The aversion pertains to society's deep dread and even loathing of the female reproductive cycle. It's much harder to paint a happy face on an ovary, or to have a run for an egg factory, particularly one that's run out of eggs.
Sorry, we're fresh out today. But still walking on eggshells of uncertainty.
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book
It took me years to write, will you take a look
Order The Glass Character from:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA
Barnes & Noble
Thistledown Press
Friday, October 14, 2011
I DON'T love boobies: or, why I refuse to buy pink TicTacs
Oct 14, 2011 – 9:21 AM ET | Last Updated: Oct 14, 2011 10:55 AM ET
By John Colebourn
KELOWNA, B.C. — Students at a Kelowna middle school have been told to leave some “edgy” breast-cancer bracelets at home.
Springvalley Middle School has banned students from wearing the breast cancer awareness wristbands because they say the bracelets are offensive.
The bracelets, which have the slogan ‘I [love] boobies!’ printed on them, are part of a youth-oriented breast cancer awareness campaign by Keep A Breast Canada.
The wristbands were banned last month, when it was determined the language is not suitable for teenagers, said School District 23 superintendent Hugh Gloster.
Gloster said they were first made aware of the controversy by a number of parents who complained. From there they felt the bracelets violate the school’s code of conduct.
“Our code of conduct says if you are wearing something offensive to people then you’ll have to cover it up or remove it,” said Gloster.
Gloster said the Keep A Breast campaign is very different from other cancer drives.
“There’s an edgy nature to the marketing,” he said. “In some cases it has caused distraction and some people feel it is offensive.”
Keep A Breast executive director Michelle Murray has said the bracelets are for a younger demographic to heighten awareness about breast cancer.
Gloster said the school will still be active in other health-related campaigns.
“We certainly recognize the need for awareness for breast cancer,” he said.
Vancouver Province
(And I quote.)
This little story, which I first heard on the evening news (and, incredibly, the news anchor did not say what the slogan was!) sums up much of what I've been feeling in the past few years about a certain cancer awareness campaign.
It's enough already. It's enough with the tits up, or tits down, or tits hanging out. Enough boobs, boobies, tee-hee-hee, aren't we daring, aren't we modern! And most especially, it's enough with the flood of marketing, the tasteless line of every kind of goods imaginable from sweaters to mugs to pens to notebooks to knitting wool (it's all PINK, folks - why on earth would you want to knit in any other colour?). Edible goods have been creeping in, too, but I was especially offended when I went to buy some shampoo at the drug store and the clerk aggressively pitched a prominent display of grapefruit-flavoured pink TicTacs.
Why am I offended? Because if you really buy what this campaign is pitching, you will sooner or later come to believe certain things:
(a) Breast cancer is the #l killer of women in North America (if not the world).
(b) Selling lots and lots of pink things will cure it.
(c) The money from these pink things all goes to breast cancer research.
(d) Other forms of female cancer just aren't as important. So we don't need a campaign for them. They'll sort of take care of themselves.
All these assumptions are completely false, but why would we know that? Steadily bombarded by the pink machine, we are slowly and unwittingly becoming mesmerized into believing what they are telling us. Or what they want us to believe.
I don't know how this pink avalanche got started, but it has reached the point of nausea for me. School children wearing "I love boobies" bracelets? Just the fact that women's breasts are now glibly being called boobies makes me shake my head.
I have breasts. They have been useful to me: in fact, I used them for the function for which they were designed, and it was a wonderful experience. Now they're more of a hindrance, harder to fit with a bra, in need of mammograms and intense poking and feeling by doctors. But they're there.
I don't think I'm a stick-in-the-mud, but I don't want anyone, not even my life partner, calling them "boobies" because it is a juvenile, vulgar term that only takes away from the dignity of the cause: or does it? Everything these people do, no matter how tasteless, is eagerly swept up and embraced by beaming women running around in pink track suits.
It's a known fact that testicular cancer is one of the leading causes of death in men over a certain age. So why is there no "I love balls" campaign, with pictures of. . . oh never mind. Rectal cancer? It might be misconstrued if we claimed to "love" assholes (for surely that term is no more vulgar than "boobies"). And how can you love ovaries? I love what they DO, mind you - they're miraculous little organs. But a cancerous ovary is a ticking time bomb, not a bouncy little thing you put on a bracelet.
But unfortunately, pink is not the only colour. This morning when I took my coffee into the living room, I noticed a 3" stack of greeting cards on the coffee table.
I asked my husband, "Where the hell did these come from?"
"Oh. Charities."
"Which ones?"
"I don't know, I get them all confused now."
The "stuff", the junk they force on us (tacky "holiday" cards with teddy bears on them, pens we really don't need, and - most recently - one of those environmental tote bags, an awful one made out of thin paper), is meant to strong-arm us into donating to the disease or cause of the week.
Through guilt. No other reason. We don't ask for this stuff, we don't want it. But it's impossible to get rid of it, to get ourselves off the mailing list. So it just keeps coming, and it's hard to throw it away. It stares back at us, accusing. What sort of skinflint won't give to a charity that is sweet and caring enough to send you a gift?
Maybe they think this works, and maybe it does. As with the pink juggernaut, these charities must hire some pretty obnoxious ad-men (and women) to design aggressive campaigns to make everyone feel lousy about themselves if they don't do what they tell us we "should". In my case, it makes me so angry I won't even consider donating to their lousy cause (and statistically, only a fraction of our hard-earned dollars ever makes it to the research foundations or pink bra-makers or whatever-it-is we think we're supporting through our financial contributions).
There's something even worse, and that's what is happening at checkout counters in stores everywhere: "Would you like to donate $2 to the Send a Quadriplegic Little Girl with Terminal Cancer to the Circus Foundation?" Things like that. There are so many of them now that they all sort of blur together. Who knows how many of them are bogus. Some people give to all of them, all the time, because they just feel so bad if they don't.
By the way, it used to be ONE dollar. Somewhere along the line there was a 100% increase, and not only did nobody say anything, everybody just ponied up.
This kind of adds up. If you went on a shopping trip and went to five stores, well, I don't have to do the math, do I? If you went shopping one day a week for a year, it adds up to. . . but we don't add it up, that's the problem. That's how they get us. Nobody will mind tacking on a couple of bucks to save a sick pony or whatever it is.
One more thing. These bona fide charities are the thin edge of the wedge, allowing scammers to move in like an infection and penetrate the crack in our hearts. The other day when I was walking down Granville Street in Vancouver, I saw a scruffy-looking young couple with hand-made signs around their necks that said, "Save the Children". They were good talkers, and there were lots of takers (or should I say givers). But then, they had already been softened up. As P. T. Barnum put it, there's one born every minute.
I realize charities are up against it, but so are we. There has to be a better way than squeezing us like this. The breast cancer campaign is an example of some very highly-paid PR person creating a monster with grasping tentacles reaching everywhere. It has completely mowed down public awareness of other forms of cancer that are infinitely more deadly. A big bucket of pink paint has been splashed on everything, and nobody says anything because it's like stomping on a bunch of baby chicks. You simply can't.
I'll make a deal with these people. The day they launch their new "I Love Colons" campaign (with everything in brown, of course), I'll wear their wretched booby bracelet with a wink and a smile.
(Post-script. I know someone will accuse me of being a skinflint who doesn't care. I'm not saying "don't give", just "be selective", not to mention careful. I'm not against breast cancer research, but those people will NEVER get a donation from me because I find them so offensive in their tactics. Over several decades I have donated regularly to UNICEF, particularly during natural disasters. They focus on the plight of children worldwide, have done it for a very long time, and I have never heard about a scandal connected with them. More recently, I give to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation: my little granddaughter Lauren has Type 1, so I often donate in lieu of a gift at Christmas and birthdays. I know my husband gives to a couple more, his own personal choices: kidney and a women's shelter, Covenant House, I think. That's quite a lot of giving. But NO PINK, please.)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1896300693/qid%3D1064537730/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr_11_1/103-6792065-9634225
http://www.amazon.com/Mallory-Margaret-Gunning/dp/0888013116/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319992815&sr=1-1
KELOWNA, B.C. — Students at a Kelowna middle school have been told to leave some “edgy” breast-cancer bracelets at home.
Springvalley Middle School has banned students from wearing the breast cancer awareness wristbands because they say the bracelets are offensive.
The bracelets, which have the slogan ‘I [love] boobies!’ printed on them, are part of a youth-oriented breast cancer awareness campaign by Keep A Breast Canada.
The wristbands were banned last month, when it was determined the language is not suitable for teenagers, said School District 23 superintendent Hugh Gloster.
Gloster said they were first made aware of the controversy by a number of parents who complained. From there they felt the bracelets violate the school’s code of conduct.
“Our code of conduct says if you are wearing something offensive to people then you’ll have to cover it up or remove it,” said Gloster.
Gloster said the Keep A Breast campaign is very different from other cancer drives.
“There’s an edgy nature to the marketing,” he said. “In some cases it has caused distraction and some people feel it is offensive.”
Keep A Breast executive director Michelle Murray has said the bracelets are for a younger demographic to heighten awareness about breast cancer.
Gloster said the school will still be active in other health-related campaigns.
“We certainly recognize the need for awareness for breast cancer,” he said.
Vancouver Province
(And I quote.)
This little story, which I first heard on the evening news (and, incredibly, the news anchor did not say what the slogan was!) sums up much of what I've been feeling in the past few years about a certain cancer awareness campaign.
It's enough already. It's enough with the tits up, or tits down, or tits hanging out. Enough boobs, boobies, tee-hee-hee, aren't we daring, aren't we modern! And most especially, it's enough with the flood of marketing, the tasteless line of every kind of goods imaginable from sweaters to mugs to pens to notebooks to knitting wool (it's all PINK, folks - why on earth would you want to knit in any other colour?). Edible goods have been creeping in, too, but I was especially offended when I went to buy some shampoo at the drug store and the clerk aggressively pitched a prominent display of grapefruit-flavoured pink TicTacs.
Why am I offended? Because if you really buy what this campaign is pitching, you will sooner or later come to believe certain things:
(a) Breast cancer is the #l killer of women in North America (if not the world).
(b) Selling lots and lots of pink things will cure it.
(c) The money from these pink things all goes to breast cancer research.
(d) Other forms of female cancer just aren't as important. So we don't need a campaign for them. They'll sort of take care of themselves.
All these assumptions are completely false, but why would we know that? Steadily bombarded by the pink machine, we are slowly and unwittingly becoming mesmerized into believing what they are telling us. Or what they want us to believe.
I don't know how this pink avalanche got started, but it has reached the point of nausea for me. School children wearing "I love boobies" bracelets? Just the fact that women's breasts are now glibly being called boobies makes me shake my head.
I have breasts. They have been useful to me: in fact, I used them for the function for which they were designed, and it was a wonderful experience. Now they're more of a hindrance, harder to fit with a bra, in need of mammograms and intense poking and feeling by doctors. But they're there.
I don't think I'm a stick-in-the-mud, but I don't want anyone, not even my life partner, calling them "boobies" because it is a juvenile, vulgar term that only takes away from the dignity of the cause: or does it? Everything these people do, no matter how tasteless, is eagerly swept up and embraced by beaming women running around in pink track suits.
It's a known fact that testicular cancer is one of the leading causes of death in men over a certain age. So why is there no "I love balls" campaign, with pictures of. . . oh never mind. Rectal cancer? It might be misconstrued if we claimed to "love" assholes (for surely that term is no more vulgar than "boobies"). And how can you love ovaries? I love what they DO, mind you - they're miraculous little organs. But a cancerous ovary is a ticking time bomb, not a bouncy little thing you put on a bracelet.
But unfortunately, pink is not the only colour. This morning when I took my coffee into the living room, I noticed a 3" stack of greeting cards on the coffee table.
I asked my husband, "Where the hell did these come from?"
"Oh. Charities."
"Which ones?"
"I don't know, I get them all confused now."
The "stuff", the junk they force on us (tacky "holiday" cards with teddy bears on them, pens we really don't need, and - most recently - one of those environmental tote bags, an awful one made out of thin paper), is meant to strong-arm us into donating to the disease or cause of the week.
Through guilt. No other reason. We don't ask for this stuff, we don't want it. But it's impossible to get rid of it, to get ourselves off the mailing list. So it just keeps coming, and it's hard to throw it away. It stares back at us, accusing. What sort of skinflint won't give to a charity that is sweet and caring enough to send you a gift?
Maybe they think this works, and maybe it does. As with the pink juggernaut, these charities must hire some pretty obnoxious ad-men (and women) to design aggressive campaigns to make everyone feel lousy about themselves if they don't do what they tell us we "should". In my case, it makes me so angry I won't even consider donating to their lousy cause (and statistically, only a fraction of our hard-earned dollars ever makes it to the research foundations or pink bra-makers or whatever-it-is we think we're supporting through our financial contributions).
There's something even worse, and that's what is happening at checkout counters in stores everywhere: "Would you like to donate $2 to the Send a Quadriplegic Little Girl with Terminal Cancer to the Circus Foundation?" Things like that. There are so many of them now that they all sort of blur together. Who knows how many of them are bogus. Some people give to all of them, all the time, because they just feel so bad if they don't.
By the way, it used to be ONE dollar. Somewhere along the line there was a 100% increase, and not only did nobody say anything, everybody just ponied up.
This kind of adds up. If you went on a shopping trip and went to five stores, well, I don't have to do the math, do I? If you went shopping one day a week for a year, it adds up to. . . but we don't add it up, that's the problem. That's how they get us. Nobody will mind tacking on a couple of bucks to save a sick pony or whatever it is.
One more thing. These bona fide charities are the thin edge of the wedge, allowing scammers to move in like an infection and penetrate the crack in our hearts. The other day when I was walking down Granville Street in Vancouver, I saw a scruffy-looking young couple with hand-made signs around their necks that said, "Save the Children". They were good talkers, and there were lots of takers (or should I say givers). But then, they had already been softened up. As P. T. Barnum put it, there's one born every minute.
I'll make a deal with these people. The day they launch their new "I Love Colons" campaign (with everything in brown, of course), I'll wear their wretched booby bracelet with a wink and a smile.
(Post-script. I know someone will accuse me of being a skinflint who doesn't care. I'm not saying "don't give", just "be selective", not to mention careful. I'm not against breast cancer research, but those people will NEVER get a donation from me because I find them so offensive in their tactics. Over several decades I have donated regularly to UNICEF, particularly during natural disasters. They focus on the plight of children worldwide, have done it for a very long time, and I have never heard about a scandal connected with them. More recently, I give to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation: my little granddaughter Lauren has Type 1, so I often donate in lieu of a gift at Christmas and birthdays. I know my husband gives to a couple more, his own personal choices: kidney and a women's shelter, Covenant House, I think. That's quite a lot of giving. But NO PINK, please.)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1896300693/qid%3D1064537730/sr%3D11-1/ref%3Dsr_11_1/103-6792065-9634225
http://www.amazon.com/Mallory-Margaret-Gunning/dp/0888013116/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319992815&sr=1-1
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