Breast Cancer Awareness Month (may exclude any actual health advice and all older women)

I haven’t noticed much this year, but as a non women’s magazine reader and a non daytime TV viewer it’s probably out there and I’m not seeing it. I’ve got no reason to look for it as it makes me cross, pedalling sweet, dim and disappointing clichés. It’s a cardboard cut out view of women and their health, which is misleading, excludes older women and is based on a singularly conservative view of women, what counts as sexy – and believes that sexy is what counts.

 

God knows why women buy into this. But they do.

 

I thought vaguely about deconstructing an advert I saw for BCAM products.  They seem to raise awareness of breast cancer by saying they do and being products available in pink. I ran aground on the total absence of any health advice.  Then I was amazed by the (small) donations that would be made for any of a variety of British breast cancer charity as the result of concerted pink consumer action. I did spot some pink le crueset-type cast iron casseroles, with a 10% donation as it happens, raising money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer and available at Sainsbury’s. I ruminated on how long they’d last and whether the ten percent donation was really worth it to the charity. With cast iron proof of breast cancer awareness in your kitchen cupboard you’d not have to bother again in your lifetime and could even will your awareness to your grandkids.  

 

There was one thing I’ve seen that properly annoyed me. 

 

Regrettably, it was from Breast Cancer Care, who usually engage more constructively than other breast cancer charities (e.g. Breakthrough Breast Cancer which I view with considerable suspicion) in breast cancer awareness. They have an interest in older women and secondary cancers – the ones which no longer have access to the ‘I’ve beaten cancer’ story template that many other breast cancer stories do have.

 

The article was in the Daily Mail on 1 October  and featured a Breast Cancer Care fashion event (fashion? O dear….). ‘Real life supermodels’. Keen to eek out any good points I can report it did include two men. Breast cancer is a very rare cancer in men but it does happen, so reality was communicated by involving 2 men as models in the 24 who either had, or have, breast cancer.

 

But the problems now start. I know about the original article because I saw it in my aged Aunt’s DM. She does not have breast cancer, but is at risk as she is older and getting more so, and she is a loyal Daily Mail reader.  But the Daily Mail, alongside much  media are ill at ease with representing, engaging with or even acknowledging older women. So she will get precisely nothing back from the Daily Mail that reflects her experience as an older woman. I think she’s accepted that she doesn’t count, so doesn’t notice. The Daily Mail are keen to deliver huge amounts of criticism to all women, to a) keep their dangerous sexualityunder control or, on the other hand and simultaneously where older women might crop up b) their entire absence of dangerous sexuality under control too. For a 'women's newspaper' they have a freaky view of women....

 

I have no idea why women read it, but they do.

 

And so, on to the mistakes by Breast Cancer Care in achieving this coverage on the first day of BCAM. What did they want to communicate? In what way was awareness raised? I didn’t learn anything about breast cancer from the article though that was probably not the intention. The words ‘breast cancer’ were brought to my attention but that does not count as awareness raising. I also know the words 'Maple Syrup Urine Disease' but what I know about MSUD does not rate as 'being aware'. This piece raised awareness of what a women with breast cancer might look like. Of the 24 models with it, 16 were under 50. Therefore I became ‘aware’ that breast cancer mostly affects women under 50.

 

Except this is not true.

 

Bizarrely, Breast Cancer Care the sponsors of the reported fashion extravaganza was responsible for one of the single most useful strap lines in breast cancer awareness - 80 over 50 -  meaning 80% of diagnoses are made in women (and a few men) over the age of 50.

 

In c.2003 they wrote “Over the last few years Breast Cancer Care has become increasingly concerned about public misconceptions around age related risk of breast cancer. In particular we are worried that many older women (50+ years) are unaware that their risk of breast cancer increases with age.”

 

Why, then, with 80% over 50 in mind, kick BCAM off with an article featuring a measly 33% of people with breast cancer who are over 50 - and they were mostly in their 50s? It’s plainly to do with the fashion aspect. And fashion, as we know, is famously ill at ease with anything that looks older so why on earth pick that context as a decent vehicle for breast cancer awareness? With a huge female readership in the Daily Mail Breast Cacner Care should have been a bit cuter with the awareness messages they wre communicating, intentionally or otherwise.

 

Badly done, Breast Cancer Care.

 

There were only two comments on the online version, when I last checked. One starts ‘this survivors are role model’ [sic] the sentiment, if not the English, quite straightforward.  That’s actually a problem not a strength, which is surely what the writer meant. 80% of women diagnosed are over 50. It seems unaffected women in that age group don't warrant a useful awareness raising role model? Not in the Daily Mail, that’s for sure.

 

Weirdly, a breast cancer charity found it easier to follow a train of thought leading to two men with breast cancer before thinking of older women, failing, yet again, to present a representative picture of the true ‘look’ of breast cancer  - predominantly an age related  risk, increasing disease in older women.

 

Breast cancer is the archetypal women’s cancer. Is the womanhood of women over 50 really so degraded that including men with breast cancer in some valuable media coverage over  older women with breast cancer is the natural order of things?