We’ve barely moved into October and I am already feeling the urge to puke pink. No, I’m not about to purge Pepto-Bismol. My revulsion is created by something that has become equally as distasteful…Breast Cancer Awareness Month. My beef isn’t with breast cancer. It is a disease that is truly horrendous and needs to be eradicated.
No, my beef is with the omnipresent marketing of the disease.
Thanks to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the color pink is plastered everywhere and on everything. What started with a simple pink ribbon has blossomed into endemic proportions. We now have pink laptops (Sony), pink toasters (Dualit), pink yogurt lids (Yoplait), and pink Visa cards; we have pink sneakers (New Balance), pink water pitchers (Vitapur), pink mixers (Kitchen Aid), and pink garden tools (Apollo). The list of pink products continues on ad nauseum.
The last straw for me came today with NFL players wearing pink gloves and cleats. It just went too far.
Cancer touches everyone at some point in their lives.
Mine has been touched over and over again:
-My father died from Bladder cancer
-My paternal grandfather had prostate cancer
-My mother had melanoma
-My maternal grandmother had lymphoma
-My maternal aunt had bone cancer
-My brother has had both prostate cancer and skin cancer
-My MALE cousin has had breast cancer
With this history, it is only a matter of time before cancer touches me.
What angers me is that this excellent marketing campaign has relegated other cancers to the sidelines. It has marginalized other cancer patients who might be coming in for physical treatment or emotional health and are bombarded with the hardly subliminal message during October at hospitals, doctor’s offices, and social service agencies around the country that breast cancer matters MORE. It has made competition for the remaining dollars (for research, for care) fierce.
No, my beef is with the omnipresent marketing of the disease.
Thanks to the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the color pink is plastered everywhere and on everything. What started with a simple pink ribbon has blossomed into endemic proportions. We now have pink laptops (Sony), pink toasters (Dualit), pink yogurt lids (Yoplait), and pink Visa cards; we have pink sneakers (New Balance), pink water pitchers (Vitapur), pink mixers (Kitchen Aid), and pink garden tools (Apollo). The list of pink products continues on ad nauseum.
The last straw for me came today with NFL players wearing pink gloves and cleats. It just went too far.
Cancer touches everyone at some point in their lives.
Mine has been touched over and over again:
-My father died from Bladder cancer
-My paternal grandfather had prostate cancer
-My mother had melanoma
-My maternal grandmother had lymphoma
-My maternal aunt had bone cancer
-My brother has had both prostate cancer and skin cancer
-My MALE cousin has had breast cancer
With this history, it is only a matter of time before cancer touches me.
What angers me is that this excellent marketing campaign has relegated other cancers to the sidelines. It has marginalized other cancer patients who might be coming in for physical treatment or emotional health and are bombarded with the hardly subliminal message during October at hospitals, doctor’s offices, and social service agencies around the country that breast cancer matters MORE. It has made competition for the remaining dollars (for research, for care) fierce.
ALL cancers are serious conditions, but even they are not the deadliest.
At last tabulation, heart disease remains the largest killer in America (even among women). With that in mind…does anyone know when National Heart Month is in America?
I didn’t think so.
At last tabulation, heart disease remains the largest killer in America (even among women). With that in mind…does anyone know when National Heart Month is in America?
I didn’t think so.
3 comments:
I'll agree with you on this one... Breast cancer is some scary stuff, but enough of the pink already. There are so many other diseases that are just as devastating if not more, but because they don't have the marketing behind them, they don't get the attention. Now, I'm not a hater, but seriously...
Enough of the freakin' pink.
Working for a Cancer support organization, I get to live through the build-up and explosion of pink through the month of October. We have cases of pink hair extensions being distributed to salons (they are trying AGAIN to get me to wear one…uh-huh), selling pink “Save the Ta-Ta’s” t-shirts and shorts at the Hard Rock, getting involved in the Susan G Komen “Race for the cure” (we are spending OUR precious work hours for another organization who is doing quite well without us), etc, etc, etc, pink, pink, pink… We support everyone who has been touched by ANY kind of cancer, but nothing seems to get the attention inflicted by pink month. Adults with lung cancer, children with brain cancer, gay men who are dealing with prostate cancer AND AIDS… any one of their stories would move you to tears. But we, as a nation, choose to traffic pink to the public as if breast cancer were the only cancer (which it is not) or the leading cause of death for women (which it is not). It has gone to the questionable extreme where women who are finding that they are genetically predisposed to breast cancer are having mastectomies “just in case.”
Not that I have an opinion about it, or anything…
Thom beat me to it, but my favorite is the "Save the ta-tas" catchphrase. I'm all for keeping that and then providing otherwise equal amounts of awareness for all forms of cancer.
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