Breast Cancer Awareness Month officially takes place in October, but the power of pink is already starting to emerge in the media and online. Sort of like how there's already Halloween candy for sale even though the holiday is almost two months away. So far, I've see some Yoplait lid commercials, a letter to the editor in our local newspaper, and the newest Facebook Breast Cancer Awareness Month meme. This time, instead of being asked to slyly post your bra color or where you like to put your purse (I like it wherever), women are supposed to post about their "fake" pregnancies. The basic gist is that you take the number of the month in which you were born (7 in my case) and match the day of your birth to a list of candies. I haven't seen the list, but whatever candy is given to the number 31 would be mine. So let's just say 31=Valrhona 71% dark chocolate. In my status I would write, "I'm 7 weeks and craving Valrhona 71% dark chocolate." And then your readers are supposed to be all surprised and like " I didn't know you were pregnant!" And then I'd say, "I'm not! It's a joke. LOL."
Um, go Breast Cancer Awareness go? Sigh. I don't know. Maybe I'd find find the game more funny if my first miscarriage didn't take place when I was 7+ weeks pregnant. Or if sugar consumption wasn't linked to breast cancer. Or if October wasn't also Pregnancy Loss and Infertility Awareness Month. Or if many young breast cancer survivors weren't also infertile due to their treatment. Or if the game mentioned its breast cancer awareness purpose in the actual status posts and not just in the emails that friends sent to one another telling them to play the game.
There's been lots of good critiques written about the various FB breast cancer memes.I have nothing to add to them. I will link to some of them as I continue to edit this post.
But I do want to think a bit more about this whole "awareness" concept. What constitutes awareness? What are we supposed to become aware of? Who is supposed to become aware? And is awareness the end-all-be-all? What comes next after we are all aware? More awareness? Or action? So much of the BCAM rhetoric blurs the line between awareness and activism that it's probably hard for many folks to recognize that there is more they can do than collect yogurt lids, wear a pink ribbon, or post their bra color or fake pregnancy status on FB. Awareness is supposed to expand one's field of vision--not shrink it. And maybe BCAM did expand the collective field of vision at one point in time, but almost twenty years later, it's just repeating the same old stuff and not focusing on some of the newer and more radical forms of breast cancer action that seek to prevent breast cancer rather than just detect it, expose the link between environmental toxins and breast cancer, and challenge the industry, corporate, and policy practices that contribute to environmental exposures. How much many messages about prevention, toxins, and corporate accountability do you come across when you turn on your TV or read your magazines and see cause marketing ads asking you to collect Yoplait lids or test drive a BMW? How often does BCAM raise awareness about the fact that many of its corporate partners produce products that may increase the risk of breast cancer or at the very least have a financial stake in the disease's continued existence? Now THAT would be good fodder for a national breast cancer awareness campaign.
And I'm sure you could develop some FB memes based on it, too. Let's see what I can come up with on the top of my head: "Hey there! It's National Breast Cancer Month! Look over this list of household products, foods, and personal care products that include ingredients linked to breast cancer. Then search your house to see if you have any of these products. Post those products in your FB status with the statement "I use X, Y, and Z--all of which I just found out contain chemicals linked to breast cancer. This is an outrage. Breast cancer causing chemicals should not be found in our everyday products. Go to http://breastcancerfund.org to see how you can help to change this. And go to Skindeep.org to find safer alternatives."
See? That was pretty easy. With just a little bit of group brainstorming, I bet that we could come up with some really cool FB games.
