October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. April was Bowel Cancer Awareness Month, but I missed it while panicking about having bowel cancer. During October in Ireland, you can buy pink packs of Barry's Tea (10 cent of their €2 price is donated) and Ballyfree eggs will donate 5 cent from their pink packs.
I salute any individual, business or organisation raising funds for cancer awareness, research and treatment. How could you not? But why, then, do some elements of breast cancer awareness (not the examples above) feel, to use the word of the decade, “problematic”?
Breast cancer awareness has become so successful that others sometimes take it upon themselves to interpret it in a way that can be “off-brand” to the point of ludicrousness. Raising awareness for the sake of it is not a panacea, and it should also not go unchecked when its execution is dodgy.
This month, police in Greenfield, Massachusetts have "gone pink" in order to raise awareness of breast cancer. "Some of our officers have even replaced their on-duty silver handcuffs with pink ones and will be using them during the course of their work day," the police force said in a statement. "Help us arrest breast cancer by spreading the word and by making your own early detection plan."
The idea of using pink handcuffs as an awareness-raising tool for cancer is, at the least, misguided. But the pink-washing of breast cancer awareness has been occasionally “problematic” for a while.
Charitable profit
One measure of how popular a particular stream of awareness becomes is its highjacking for PR or commercial profit, even when that comes with a fundraising element. This month, for example, Marks & Spencer launched #ShowYourStrap, a social media campaign that encourages women to take a selfie with their bra strap showing and posting it online.
The sexualisation of breast cancer awareness has been almost inevitable. It is a cancer that effects a hyper-sexualised part of a woman’s body in a world that sexualises women full stop. I don’t have breast cancer, but if I did I’m not sure how great I’d feel about pouting selfies with bra straps on show.
Charities compete for space in ways we’ve never seen before. Chuggers on the street are probably the worst manifestation of contemporary fundraising, and ultimately a consequence of charity as an industry rather than a problem-solver. A movement such as Movember has changed the landscape of funding for prostate cancer and other areas of men’s health. Ice bucket challenges and no-makeup selfies raise valuable funds, no matter how annoying they are.
Raising awareness and money for health charities is obviously good. Still, one wonders if the end justifies the means. If someone hosts an offensive event with the money going to charity, does the virtue of fundraising for a good cause neutralise the offensive mechanism? The answer, gingerly given, is no. If someone opened a completely unethical business, could the lack of ethics be excused because the end result created jobs? You’d hope not.
The triumph of the pink brand for breast cancer has raised awareness, increased funding, and enabled research. The end result is saving lives. That cannot be denied. It is a triumph. It’s also impossible for awareness campaigns so huge and so multifaceted to avoid criticism about the means – though the positive aspects of the end result are never in doubt.
We live in a world where the marketable is successful, where the best brand wins. According to the World Health Organisation, women are 11 times more likely to die from heart disease or stroke, yet the awareness of those things in comparison to breast cancer is much lower and far less marketable.
There is evidence to suggest that breast cancer is disproportionately funded due to a high level of awareness. Is that cash that would never have made it into any other cancer research? Or does it have unintended consequences for a shortfall in funding and awareness elsewhere?
Rock star of cancers
The disproportionate funding of breast cancer due to the success of its awareness also poses more abstract difficulties. If I had breast cancer, I’d probably be very happy with its place as the rock star of cancers. But it’s hard not to feel selfishly resentful when fandom eludes other cancers. There is no pink ribbon for bowel cancer, which I was diagnosed with. And I doubt my proposed slogan for it (“Cancer Is S***”) would ever take off.
When it comes to the number of health charities battling for funding simultaneously, they simply can’t all rise to the top in the profile stakes. What we should hope for is a factual, science-based approach to awareness and funding for all cancers.
Crucially, the help already on offer needs to be appreciated by the public. Just 44 per cent of women and 36 per cent of men avail of Ireland’s BowelScreen screening for 60- to 69-year-olds, while BreastCheck and CervicalCheck screenings have a 70 per cent take-up.
If funding and awareness and research have already resulted in something like a free screening, whatever the month or the colour of the ribbon, take it.