Raising 'awareness' is not enough

Oh look, it's time for another 'let's spread awareness of breast cancer by not saying anything about breast cancer' Facebook meme.

Normally I ignore them but after spending the last year and a bit being hyper-aware of breast cancer and its consequences I've had enough and now I'm striking back...

You see, I woke this morning to find this message waiting for me,

Hi beautiful, so here it is the time of year again when we try to raise awareness of breast cancer through a game. Its very easy and I was hoping you would participate. Last year we had to write the color of our bra's on our status. Men wondered for days what was going on with random colors on status's. This year we make reference to our love life status as a flavor. Do not answer to this message just post corresponding word on your status and send this message privately to all the girls on your friends list. Blueberry is single, pineapple is its complicated, raspberry is I don't want to commit, apple is engaged, cherry is in a relationship, banana is married, avocado is I'm the better half, strawberry is can't find mr right, lemon is I want to be single, and raisin is I want to get married to my partner. Last time the bra game was mentioned on t.v let's see if we can get there with this one. Please resend this to all your girly friends then update your status with your answer ONLY! DONT TELL ANY GUYS!

I hope to see lots of fruit 💝

I shall ignore the abuse of the poor apostrophe (what did it ever do to deserve such misuse?) and the fact that the 'bra colour challenge' took place in 2010 and not "last year", and instead focus on the substance of the message which is 'let's turn cancer into a game'.

Er, no thanks.

I have several problems with these sorts of memes:

How does keeping it secret raise awareness?

Men apparently "wondered for days" about what was going on but did they ever get an answer? Did they become more aware about breast cancer or did they just think 'those weird women with their crazy in-jokes'.

What good is raising awareness is that's all you're doing?

Putting aside the fact I can't think there's many people - certainly not those on Facebook - who are unaware of breast cancer, the aims of this meme seem incredibly unhelpful. Let's assume that you have somehow managed to avoid hearing the words 'breast cancer' and you start seeing your Facebook feed turn into a series of status changes from friends who are now posting fruit as some sort of code - how on earth do you realise this is about breast cancer? Note that nowhere in the meme does it say "and the next day explain this is about raising awareness for breast cancer and link to your local/national breast cancer organisation". It's all a big secret, remember?

Even if somehow you've found out this is to raise awareness of breast cancer and you now know it exists, what next? The meme is completely silent on this. You are now aware that there is this thing called 'breast cancer' and you are able to deduce that it may be a 'cancer' found in the 'breast'. But so what? You don't know if you're at risk, you don't know the symptoms, you don't know how to get tested, you don't know what treatments might be available, you don't know what organisations you might be able to turn to for help. You are literally no better off than you were before except now you know that a thing called 'breast cancer' exists. What good is that?

Why is this not for men?

Men get breast cancer too. It's much rarer than for women and is far less well known, so if any breast cancer is going to need awareness raising it would be male breast cancer yet men are being excluded from this meme. How on earth does that help? 

Why relationship status?

The original meme was based on women writing their bra colour in their Facebook status. At first glance you can understand why this might seem like a good idea - women wear bras, bras hold breasts, breasts get breast cancer, so by talking about bra colour we're incidentally talking about our breasts and there's the awareness. But, as this blogpost from the time forcefully points out, it's incredibly exclusionary towards the very people who've suffered from this disease most of all - those who have to undergo mastectomies.

You can understand why the backlash may have made the creators of this meme rethink and go with something else. But why relationship status? If you want people to be posting pictures of fruit then why not get people to post their favourite fruit? Then again, maybe I'm just missing the point of the need for a 'code' and if that's the case then maybe relationship status is a safe choice - after all, everyone has one, don't they? Well yes, but that doesn't make them neutral. Let's take another look at them:

Blueberry is single
pineapple is its complicated
raspberry is I don't want to commit
apple is engaged
cherry is in a relationship
banana is married
avocado is I'm the better half
strawberry is can't find mr right
lemon is I want to be single
raisin is I want to get married to my partner

Putting aside (I seem to be doing that a lot, don't I?) the fact that not everyone thinks their relationship status should be a matter of public record, or the fact that I can't imagine many women posting lemons as their status (well, that's one way to start a difficult conversation with your partner I guess), or the fact that strawberries are assuming only heterosexual women are playing this game, where's the 'divorced' fruit? Where, more to the point, is the 'widowed' fruit? Or is recognising that cancer can sometimes lead to death too depressing for this meme?

And this brings me to my biggest problem with these memes...

They are fucking insensitive 

I don't normally swear on my blog but I can't find a better way to express my utter contempt for these memes. They pretend to be so cheerful and friendly and 'we're all in this together girls' and yet their trite attempts to guilt people into posting 'in jokes' in some vague attempt to raise an undefined 'awareness' of breast cancer makes me want to scream. 

I am well aware of breast cancer already, thanks. I have friends who have had the disease and recently had a family member go through almost a year of chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy (successfully, thankfully). It was a stressful time for all of us and we're only just starting to get back to normal after it all and waking up to this in my inbox has done absolutely nothing to help that process. The person who sent the meme knows what my family have been through, and is - I'm sure - very well-meaning, and this isn't meant as an insult to them, but given how prevalent breast cancer is and how many lives have been touched by it - either by having the disease personally or through being there for someone else - the idea that we aren't aware enough of breast cancer seems ludicrous.

If we're going to try and raise awareness, rather than focus on one of the most well-known cancers in the world how about focusing on the less well-known ones like, as a completely non-random example, pseudomyxoma peritonei, which my family member suffered with unwittingly for years because none of us had ever heard of it or knew that her symptoms could be anything more than just the gradual decline that comes with getting a bit older.

But more to the point, awareness for the sake of 'awareness' is meaningless.

Awareness has to come with information to be of any use.

What I'd really like is more awareness of the harmfulness of these sorts of memes. Imagine receiving this when you've just been through chemo, or just had a mastectomy, or just lost a loved one to breast cancer? Imagine what it must feel like to see someone say they want to "raise awareness of breast cancer through a game". A game?! Really?! That's what breast cancer is to you? A game? A little bit of fun with your friends? An in-joke which we won't explain to outsiders?

What I'd really like is more empathy and understanding that what may just be another 'share and like' to one person may be really hurtful and upsetting to others. That a lack of participation doesn't equal a lack of concern about an issue and may simply be due to a recognition that there there are far better ways (and few worse) to tackle it than the slackest of slactivism.

And if we can't manage that can we at least have memes which aren't grammatical monstrosities, please?

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So as not to fall into the same trap as the memes I'm criticising, here are some useful links to get a better understanding of breast cancer, its symptoms and treatment. Many of them are charities so if you have any spare cash please consider donating to them.
NHS Choices
Cancer Research UK
Macmillan Cancer Support (not just breast cancer but they provide incredible support to patients and their families)
Breast Cancer Network Australia
Breast Cancer.org (USA)

I also highly recommend Margaret McCartney's The Patient Paradox which is a wonderful dissection of screening services and will help you make a more informed decision on whether or not to get screened for diseases.