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It is 2 am and I can't sleep, so I'm going to rant instead. It is October you see. The month of pink. If you've been following along here at all in the last two years you it will come as absolutely no shock to you that I fucking hate pink ribbons. And this month of 'awareness' kind of pisses me off a lot. Glossy and slick sales pitches wrapped in pink (how much of your money spent on pink beribboned geegaws goes to actual research? you might want to ask first.) But really I hate it for how much it feeds into the myth of the 'good' breast cancer survivor. Pink and perky and inspirational and gosh darn it cancer just doesn't get her down! Fuck that. Cancer isn't pink or pretty and it kills. What you won't probably hear about much (or at all) this month,
1. Metastatic women. Not the living ones anyway. A few touching memorials and impersonal references to death statistics, but actual women living with metastatic disease? No, see, then we'd have to interrupt the pom pom parade of perky 'survivors' and come face to face with reality. It is weird how we throw these terms around 'survivor' and 'search for the cure' and strip them of all meaning by essentially removing and ignoring from the discourse the very women who are dealing first hand with the consequences of our failure. One day. One day in the entire month for awareness of metastatic issues. One day that I bet you didn't even know existed. Fuck. That. These women are alive and they are here and they have things to say, and we need to hear them. Start listening.
2. Oh hey, speaking of those debbie downer death statistics, wanna know who gets the shortest end of the stick? Poor women, minorities, and younger women...all of whom die at a disproportionately higher rate. Can we talk about that? No? Didn't think so.
3. Triple fucking negative. Somewhat related to point two as this form of breast cancer as it is the one most likely to strike younger women and minorities. And no, I don't expect it to get the same level of attention as it only affects 10 to 15 percent of breast cancer patients but any at ALL would be lovely, thanks. Go on, count on your fingers the number of times you hear any reference to it, or the unique treatment challenges it presents, or about research related to it in this great month of 'awareness'. Did you even reach your middle finger? You know, the one I'm holding up right now.
4. And can we talk about 'survivors' for a minute? And how it is okay to talk about how you 'won' (but not about how tentative that victory is, see point number 1) in appropriately inspirational terms, but god forbid you talk about the fight itself. Scars (whether physical or emotional) are depressing, man. The potentially disabling long term effects of treatment? Pfft. Don't you know 'survivors' are the plucky pictures of health marching happily along, pink ribbon in hand, ready to tell you all about how cancer made them a better person. Yeah, whatever.
And okay, look. I don't want to go back to the days when we only said 'breast cancer' in hushed whispers and didn't fund research and women didn't know about the steps they could take to facilitate early detection. Fuck no. Pink ribbons are better than that any day. But this? Feel good marketing campaigns where almost none of the money actually goes to anything at all? Burying the realities of the disease and the women who have it under a mountain of sparkly girly cancer glitter? Save the boobs, as long as we don't have to give a shit about the women attached to them!! If we're going to be aware, lets be aware. What are we dealing with here. What can we actually do about it. I am not your tears 'n hope tv movie of the week. Can we pretty please just cut the bullshit and get to work?
And thus ends my entire contribution to this month's shenanigans. Hey, at least living in the middle of nowhere and having very little access to television means I can mostly ignore it easier this year? SILVER LININGS!
1. Metastatic women. Not the living ones anyway. A few touching memorials and impersonal references to death statistics, but actual women living with metastatic disease? No, see, then we'd have to interrupt the pom pom parade of perky 'survivors' and come face to face with reality. It is weird how we throw these terms around 'survivor' and 'search for the cure' and strip them of all meaning by essentially removing and ignoring from the discourse the very women who are dealing first hand with the consequences of our failure. One day. One day in the entire month for awareness of metastatic issues. One day that I bet you didn't even know existed. Fuck. That. These women are alive and they are here and they have things to say, and we need to hear them. Start listening.
2. Oh hey, speaking of those debbie downer death statistics, wanna know who gets the shortest end of the stick? Poor women, minorities, and younger women...all of whom die at a disproportionately higher rate. Can we talk about that? No? Didn't think so.
3. Triple fucking negative. Somewhat related to point two as this form of breast cancer as it is the one most likely to strike younger women and minorities. And no, I don't expect it to get the same level of attention as it only affects 10 to 15 percent of breast cancer patients but any at ALL would be lovely, thanks. Go on, count on your fingers the number of times you hear any reference to it, or the unique treatment challenges it presents, or about research related to it in this great month of 'awareness'. Did you even reach your middle finger? You know, the one I'm holding up right now.
4. And can we talk about 'survivors' for a minute? And how it is okay to talk about how you 'won' (but not about how tentative that victory is, see point number 1) in appropriately inspirational terms, but god forbid you talk about the fight itself. Scars (whether physical or emotional) are depressing, man. The potentially disabling long term effects of treatment? Pfft. Don't you know 'survivors' are the plucky pictures of health marching happily along, pink ribbon in hand, ready to tell you all about how cancer made them a better person. Yeah, whatever.
And okay, look. I don't want to go back to the days when we only said 'breast cancer' in hushed whispers and didn't fund research and women didn't know about the steps they could take to facilitate early detection. Fuck no. Pink ribbons are better than that any day. But this? Feel good marketing campaigns where almost none of the money actually goes to anything at all? Burying the realities of the disease and the women who have it under a mountain of sparkly girly cancer glitter? Save the boobs, as long as we don't have to give a shit about the women attached to them!! If we're going to be aware, lets be aware. What are we dealing with here. What can we actually do about it. I am not your tears 'n hope tv movie of the week. Can we pretty please just cut the bullshit and get to work?
And thus ends my entire contribution to this month's shenanigans. Hey, at least living in the middle of nowhere and having very little access to television means I can mostly ignore it easier this year? SILVER LININGS!
From:
no subject
There's a radio station in my neck of the woods that takes this approach without even trying to camouflage it. Their "breast cancer awareness" ads are *infuriating*.
Your contribution to this month's shenanigans is very much appreciated. Rant on. :)
From:
no subject
Indeed! At local festivals, which attract the non-profits and charities, the breast cancer awareness table is always so slick and gives the most freebies (all pink, of course, bleah). Every single time I see the pink, I see waste: that's a lot of money spent on merchandising that could have been spent on actual research.
From:
no subject
FWIW, I've been seeing quite a few things on TV this year about women who died from BC, probably because the focus is on the MEN trying to raise awareness (like what the NFL is doing). But I actually did see a segment that focused on BC in young women with family histories and/or BRCA mutations. And a female MD on the same show talked about how they're starting to tailor treatments to the TYPE of cancer, not just where it occurs, and how radiation and chemo can cause other cancers and health problems. She also came right out and said, "The radiation from mammograms in women under 50 can CAUSE cancer," which I'd never heard until I had my scare, and leaves me feeling very damned if you do, damned if you don't.
From:
no subject
Yah, but...past tense. That's what I mean. There is little to no focus on or hearing from women living with metastatic breast cancer. It's like you get to either be a 'survivor' (presumed to have beaten the cancer) or you get to be a dead symbol. What you don't get are the voices of those women who are still alive but will spend the rest of their lives battling this disease. Which, you'd think that would be kind of important, no?
I'm thrilled the special you watched included some attention on the fact that there are different types of breast cancer and BRCA (the cynical part of me connects that to the commercialization of BRCA testing and the slick commercials, but it is something at least). I gave up after last year watching an hour long news segment that made me want to throw a shoe through my television.
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"I have breast cancer, but not the pink sparkly kind."
Let us not forget all the businesses that turn yogurt cups and bottlecaps and prescription medicine caps (!!!!) pink and then donate .00001 % of the money from buying these things to breast cancer research ... which is deductible on their taxes.
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Yeah fuckers... what she said.
From:
Every Single Word
(I used to point at the the big pink frosted cookies at the checkout line and ask if they shouldn't be free to cancer patients... not that I wanted them anyway.)
Anyway, late to the party, but completely feeling the lovely warmth of your rage, girl.