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Tomorrow begins Cancer Of The Breast Awareness Month, and that i get one request: This October, don’t forget save second base.
I understand, I understand, you most likely think this month is a great factor. Otherwise its individuals T-shirts demanding every female-bodied person to feel their boobies, or even the bracelets simply proclaiming “I love boobies,” individuals with breasts might forget they have them, or at the minimum might begin to believe that their breasts are their very own business. However the female body appears to become an item of the general public, so we should always be advised that breasts exist just for others’ enjoyment.
And that’s just what a lot of Cancer Of The Breast Awareness Month campaigns espouse: We have to prevent cancer of the breast because a global without breasts could be terrible, unlivable. With regard to everyone’s pleasure, we have to save the ta-tas.
A global without women, though, isn’t this type of terrible thought, and that’s why cardiovascular disease and lung cancer—the two leading killers of ladies within the U . s . States—get so very little attention. So let’s say a lady is 6.5 occasions more prone to die from cardiac arrest than from cancer of the breast? Clearly cancer of the breast may be the greatest threat whether it threatens to produce a realm of breastless women. We have to have physically-appealing women or we can’t have women whatsoever!
I am not stating that cancer of the breast isn’t a significant disease. I’m stating that people coping with cancer of the breast deserve a lot more respect than they’re presently afforded by everyone. With 450,000 deaths and 1.4 million diagnoses each year, breast cancer is serious business. The Susan G. Komen Foundation identifies the greatest risks to get cancer of the breast as “being female and becoming older,” making it believe that diagnosis is really a question of when instead of if.
Attempt to place yourself in the footwear of the cancer of the breast survivor: You’ve gone through chemotherapy, radiation, a dual mastectomy. It has taken several weeks or years interior and exterior hospitals, left too sick and weak out of your treatments to carry on working. However, you persevere. You fight like hell and also you get into remission. You lost your breasts to cancer, however, you survived and you’ve got your existence again. After which October appears, and wherever you go, the thing is pink ribbons and slogans like “Save Second Base,” “I’m a Breast Man,” “Hello Titty,” “Fight for that Boobies,” “Save Motor Boating.”
How can you feel? Do you experience feeling supported, such as these people care about your needs as a person and also the struggle you’ve been through? Or are you finding that society is suggesting that you simply lost an important bit of your humanness whenever you lost your breasts? Do you experience feeling disgusted that does not just one T-shirt states anything about saving an individual existence as opposed to a mere part of the body?
You may think Cancer Of The Breast Awareness month continues to be worthwhile because when you purchase that T-shirt or bracelet (or pen or Swiffer or bucket of KFC or anything) using the pink ribbon onto it, that company donates money to cancer of the breast research. Wrong again. We’ve let corporate America exploit the condition for financial gain along with a positive image. In most cases, the particular donation that the company makes to cancer scientific studies are minor when compared to profit they create. Lots of people, such as the creators of Save Time Before You Pink and the show Pink Ribbons, Corporation. have belittled the abuse of Cancer Of The Breast Awareness efforts with this exact reason, often even selling products created using carcinogens underneath the auspices of funding cancer of the breast research.
It appears in my experience the amalgamation of efforts that constitute Cancer Of The Breast Awareness Month really are a self-perpetuating orgy of misogyny, capitalistic exploitation, and straight-up slacktivism which do nothing more than help remind everybody that it’s indeed Cancer Of The Breast Awareness Month. Possibly we want a Cancer Of The Breast Education Month rather, where we dump the t-shirts, bracelets, slogans, and purchasers pitches in support of solid details about cancer of the breast prevention.
You would like compare unique car features? This October, let’s support people handling a existence-threatening disease without amplifying sexism and materialism. The easiest method to assistance is to donate straight to a company that does cancer research. A $5 donation is considerably more helpful compared to chump change any research foundation would find yourself getting from the T-shirt purchase, anyway.
Chelsea Broe ’14
Editor
Resourse: https://surgegettysburg.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/i-dont-want-to-save-second-base/
