One week ago, President Barack Obama declared November as National Diabetes Month in a presidential proclamation. This is excellent news.
I have a few diabetic friends who often complain about how ignorant people are to the realities of the disease, so it’s about time it gets an awareness month.
However, a victory for diabetes awareness means failure for another campaign.
At a TEDxToronto talk, Movember co-founder Adam Garone explains Movember — otherwise known as No-Shave November — as having started as a dare in a bar, quickly evolving into a campaign for men’s health.
The idea was to grow mustaches and raise money for prostate cancer awareness.
The campaign has raised $147 million since its inception in 2003, so it has been somewhat successful. But how many people participating in No-Shave November actually do so for the sake of men’s health? Very few, it seems.
More than men’s health, we care more about going a month without shaving. We hear no survivor’s stories. We hear of no preventative methods. We hear of no treatment or testing facilities.
But this isn’t the only case of prototypical man fun getting in the way of awareness campaigns. Especially breast cancer awareness.
Before we get to a month of ignoring men’s health issues, we spend 31 days sexualizing women’s health issues.
People spend the month sporting trendy “I Heart Boobies” and “Save the Tatas!” bracelets. To their clothing, they pin pink ribbons produced by the same companies known to use carcinogenic chemicals in many of their other products.
Each year, I hear more stories of shark attack survivors in the span of one week than I have of breast or prostate cancer survivors in my entire life.
As Elizabeth Plank, PolicyMic writer, puts it, “If you’re into pink crap and have a crippling boob-fetish, you’ve hit the jackpot. If you’re a woman who wants information about breast cancer, you’re screwed.”
In her article, “Why Breast Cancer Awareness Month is Actually a Huge Insult to Women,” Plank called out some men from Simple Pickup, who gallivanted around donating $20 for every woman who let them motorboat their breasts. On camera.
Yes, we should absolutely fund research. And yes, we can make fundraising enjoyable. But the guys could have just donated however much they were willing to give without objectifying women supposedly in the name of health.
Over the summer, Angelina Jolie underwent a preventative double mastectomy, effectively lowering her personal risk of breast cancer from 87 percent to a little less than 5 percent.
Some applauded her bravery. Others criticized her for apparently ruining a perfectly great set of breasts. XOJane’s “The 10 Most Misogynistic Reactions to Angelina Jolie’s Double Mastectomy Announcement” is worth a lookover.
The month supposedly dedicated to women’s health looks more like a month dedicated to appreciating our most commonly objectified body part.
How soon until Breast Cancer Awareness Month gets renamed to Breast Appreciation Month?
People need to know that breast cancer isn’t about pink ribbons or trendy bracelets. It’s about the woman whose mammogram leaves her fearing for her life and/or her family. It’s about the Amazonian-brave women who have survived horrific ordeals yet carry on, one breast less.
Let’s not ignore the tremendous disservice in going around all month saying, “We love boobs!” ostensibly in the name of breast cancer awareness. It cannot get more insulting to the women who have, for the sake of survival, lost their breasts than reminding them how much emphasis society places on breasts.
No, I’m not saying awareness is bad or pointless. In fact, awareness is among the most inspiring vessels of change. I’m not saying fundraising is bad. It’s important to fund the research and the treatments toward preventing cancer.
But breast cancer awareness is about women’s health. Prostate cancer awareness is about men’s health. We need to spend less time on frivolous, sometimes harmful nonsense and more time on actual awareness and prevention tactics.
Maybe prostate cancer awareness never really stood a chance. Maybe it did. Although this month is dedicated to diabetes awareness, I expect many of us to go on growing our beards or leg hair, ignorant as to why anyone started such a trend.
So while we go a month without shaving, maybe we can still work in a few facts about prostate cancer in between our surely bountiful dialogues concerning Diabetes.
I’ll start us off.
According to cancer.org, about one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, with one in 36 dying from the disease, making it the second leading cause of men’s death in the United States.
