notice: the post below is a bit of a rant, and contains some not-so-polite language. Others with similar opinions have written on this topic before, so I’m not trying to break any ground, but I feel strongly that this conversation is not one we’re having enough, and I want to do what I can to change that. Come back next week for more weddings & prettiness.
As, well, everyone in mainstream society knows, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Stores are already full of pink versions of normal products, people are donning pink ribbons, and every random person you know from high school is posting a cryptic-but-vaguely-sexual status on their facebook pages. I’m here to ask everyone to please stop. Stop with the pink, stop with the fetishization, stop with the consumerism.
I, like many, many, many, people, have been touched extremely closely by breast cancer. My mother was diagnosed when I was a teenager (she went through treatment successfully and is doing great 12 years later, thanks.) I’m not sure I can even count the number of women I know who’ve been diagnosed with this terrible disease at some point (the Bay Area is considered a hot spot,) and I personally have had two amazing women in my life, both incredibly close family friends, been killed by this motherfucker of a disease.
But you will not find me wearing pink this month, and you will not find me buying anything with a pink ribbon emblazoned on it’s packaging. The truth is that pink ribbons, appliances, packaging, and bracelets offend me at this point. And they should offend all of us. I mean, why pink? Pink is way too happy of a color for this disease. You want to recognize breast cancer? Wear black, the color that thousands of people are putting on every single day as they attend the funerals of women who have left behind their families and friends after treatment has failed. When I see a pink rubber bracelet I want to scream. A fatal disease should not be a fashion statement. Read More »
L to R: Breck, $420; Marilyn, $480; Maeve, $375
