Recently, on a Community Board I read, someone posted a link to a site that displayed photographs of women in various stages of breast cancer. This site was showing the photographs submitted for a photography contest to draw attention to the fact that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month (personally I am aware of it every month!)! Now don't get me wrong the photographs are very tastefully done, artistic, beautiful and thought provoking. I just don't get it?
Since I was diagnosed with this disease, yes I said it, breast cancer is a disease, I have done nothing but mentally and physically tried to kill it and the more successful I am at that the happier I am. It seems to me that Breast Cancer is glorified in ways. I can't tell you how many magazines, calendars and other publicly displayed photographs I have seen of scars on a womans chests where her breasts used to be, a woman posing with a bald head, even reconstructed breasts get their fair share of the attention. You know what none of that is attractive! You can't say a person looks at one of those pictures and says "Wow she's beautiful, I wish I was her"! If you are going to go this way with breast cancer, why not with others diseases/maladies? What month is National Amputee Month, honestly, would you buy a calendar with 12 months of photos of people with missing appendages? I doubt it. Exactly when is Colon Cancer going to get it's dues? Photos of people showing their abdominal scar, holding a length of diseased bowel that was resected from their gut and to top it off their new colostomy stoma! Not nearly as glamorous???
Yes, make people, especially those with breasts aware of the great importance of self examination, mamograms and regular doctor visits. Those things are the only way to prevent breast cancer, which is what every woman wants to do! Don't make the disease out to be some fantastical journey that makes a woman stronger and more powerful. I can list a million things I would have had happen to me to make me stronger, trust me breast cancer didn't even make the list! People think a woman can pose for a photo like that because she is so strong from her journey, the fact of the matter is the only reason she can pose like that is because she is used to seeing herself that way and once you get used to it you adjust, as you would if you lost an arm or a leg. I feel many of these companies Este Lauder, Proctor and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson to name a few, glorify this disease to ultimately turn a profit. I know, I know my cynicism is showing but I can't help it. Yes, stress the importance of prevention, even more so donate money to help develop a cure for the damn disease but please don't make it out to be some kind of gift that a woman gets that magically seems to make her strong and powerful because nothing could be further from the truth. The first thing every woman diagnosed with breast cancer becomes is scared and just because she gets used to all the things that happen to her in the process that fact never goes away.
Here is a link to the site that set this rant in motion. In no way do I slight any of the artists or models involved, they do what they do to ultimately draw attention to the disease to educate people, again I just don't get the glorification surrounding it!
http://www.pinkribbonaward.nl/2006/?page_id=139
Stand back and watch me shine!
