It’s no secret that October is breast cancer awareness month. I’m sure you’ve already seen the “Save the Ta-Tas” bracelets and Facebook cover photos with catchy sayings like “I love my boobs” or “Big or small, let’s save them all,” – and sure, they may seem a little funny at first, but have you ever questioned why these catch phrases and slogans for breast cancer focus only on the breasts, but not on the men and women affected by it? If you compare breast cancer to lung cancer or any other type of cancer campaigns, they don’t come up with catchy slogans focusing on the body part that is affected. – instead it’s treated seriously, because cancer is serious. So, why is breast cancer different?
Breast cancer is so sexualized in media that it’s turned into a joke. Companies are creating catchy and offensive phrases to raise money for cancer research, which is great, but at the same time they are sexualizing the disease to make it funny so more people are interested in donating. Sex sells, but sexualizing a disease does more harm for the cause than it does good – because of the sexualizing slogans, society is taking breast cancer less seriously than other cancers.
As someone who lost my mom to breast cancer, I can assure you that “Save the Ta-Tas” or any other slogan like that does not represent what breast cancer really is. I watched her lose all of her hair and become so weak she would fall down trying to walk down a hill. Some days she struggled to get out of bed. Breast cancer is doctor’s appointments and chemotherapy, and for some, breast cancer is having to get a double-mastectomy in order to save their lives. While society is parading around slogans about breasts, some breast cancer patients don’t have “Ta-Tas” to save, just themselves. Instead of focusing on “Saving the Ta-Tas,” we should be focusing on saving the women.