Nude beige, on the stairs

[cleolinda]

Internets, I am pissed off.

Remember the game last year about what color bra you were wearing at the moment? The purpose was to increase awareness of October Breast Cancer Awareness month. It was a tremendous success and we had men wondering for days what was with the... colors and it made it to the news. This year's game has to do with your handbag/purse, where we put our handbag the moment we get home for example "I like it on the couch", "I like it on the kitchen counter", "I like it on the dresser" well you get the idea. Just put your answer as your status with nothing more than that and cut n paste this message and forward to all your FB female friends to their inbox. The bra game made it to the news. Let's see how powerful we women really are!!! REMEMBER - DO NOT PUT YOUR ANSWER AS A REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE- PUT IT IN YOUR STATUS!!! PASS THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW


@cleolinda: If you want to raise breast cancer awareness, coy references on Facebook to your bra color or purse aren't going to do shit.

@cleolinda: You know what might? Using your status update to list the people you've lost to breast cancer, or the dates you lost them.

@cleolinda: Not this coy "Let's get the boys to wonder what we're talking about" bullshit, which is THE OPPOSITE OF AWARENESS.

@emandink: @cleolinda Is *that* what the "I like mine _____" thing is about? Oy.

@cleolinda: YES. IT DOES NOT EVEN MAKE SENSE. I don't "like it on the stairs," I set my purse down on the stairs, and PURSES AREN'T EVEN THE RIGHT END.

@tokaikko: @cleolinda Wait really? When I got a message trying to get me to do one of them, it didn't mention breast cancer anywhere.

@cleolinda: @tokaikko Yeah, that's what happened last year. That's HOW LITTLE IT HAS TO DO WITH ANYTHING.

@chekur: But cleo! How else will we gain awareness for a serious cause if we don't horribly confuse people?

@morganwolf: I like it... crammed full of receipts and thrown in a corner? Somehow I feel like that isn't helping anyone's cause.


YEAH, I SPOILED YOUR GAME, AND I'LL DO IT AGAIN.

1) YOU CAN'T RAISE AWARENESS OF SOMETHING IF NO ONE KNOWS WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.

2) As mentioned, both this year and last year, there was a memetic drift where people stopped even connecting it to breast cancer...

3) ...which gives a good suggestion of what this is really about, which is: baiting guys with innuendo for attention. Tee hee!

4) I'm pretty sure we're all aware of breast cancer; this needs to be about something more useful, like reminding people of the prevalence of it (which would be the point of, say, listing people you care about who have had it) and thus the need for regular exams and early detection. "Hurr hurr, she likes it on the counter" DOES NOT ACCOMPLISH THAT.

5) Cervical cancer wants its metaphor back.


You know what? Put all the innuendo in your status update that you want. But don't act like it made any kind of difference. You might actually have to talk about cancer to do that.

Comments

[greyduck]

There just aren't letters W, T and F big enough to convey the required levels of WTF involved, here.

Well said. *vigorous nodding in agreement*

[beachlass]

I love you.

[outlineofash]

Oh god, I despise "tee-hee" memes like this, especially when they act like they're actually promoting something serious and worthwhile. Thank you for putting this into perspective so eloquently.

[emandink]

It shall come as no surprise that I *heart* this massively.

[dantesspirit]

Bravo! Go you!

I don't even carry a damn dress, why would I want to make an obscure refernce to something I don't have?!?

I'd rather post links to say, BC awareness walks and fundraisers instead.

[dantesspirit]

PURSE, not dress, not idea where that came from.

[brigid]

I don't carry one either.

God gave me pockets for a reason! (which, yes, means all slacks that are sans pockets are anathema and heresy.)

[thedivinegoat]

When the meme came around last time, I posted a link to a blog by a breast cancer survivor pointing out that the meme actually excluded her as she no longer wore a bra.

This faux-subversive tee-hee make people-think-you're-having-sex-in-the-places-where-you-leave-your-handbag does nothing for the cause of breast cancer except reinforcing the idea that cancer can never be talked about, just talked around.

[opusculus]

Wow, they actually managed to make a meme with all of the obnoxious qualities of the bra meme that makes even less sense. Now that's an accomplishment. Not the type of accomplishment they wanted, presumably, but an accomplishment nevertheless.

[jackandahat]

So basically they think women are too stupid to actually put forward a case for supporting breast cancer charities, and need to rely on "sex sells" and "let's make the boys look", and men are too stupid to notice anything that doesn't have boobs/sex in it.

When I see someone posting about her bra, I assume she's either just been shopping, is trying to match up an outfit, or is attention-seeking. Two of those I don't care about, one is negative, and none of the above are related to cancer.

(One of the only awareness memes I liked was one going round ages back where people (all people, not just women) wrote "I'm doing it for my mother/sister/cousin/friend/teacher" when looking for sponsorship for the Race For Life. I thought that was a good way of driving home that it can affect anyone, at any point in life - and people tend to give more money if they think it affects them.)

[cupcake_goth]

Thank you. THANK YOU. I am going to link to this, because you said exactly what I was thinking, but with less incoherent sputtering and hand waving.

[harpers_child]

i'd like to copy-paste your numbered list to my facebook where hopefully it'll spread to my sisters and their friends (truefax teenage girls). let me know if that's not cool.

[cleolinda]

Yeah, that's fine. I'm Cleolinda Jones on there.

[harpers_child]

my facebook pseudonym is Eira Babbage.

[mercredigirl]

What the fuckity fuck.

My family has a clinical history of breast cancer. I don't think my grandmother would have been very amused with this sort of thing (I can almost imagine her climbing out of the columbarium with her service revolver in hand -- she was a very pragmatic lady). I'm not amused, either.

It's not subversive or progressive or what-the-fuck-ever. It's built on a base of patriarchy: cancer can't be talked about, breast cancer can't be talked about, advertisement is predicated on the assumption of an available female body.

GAH.

Thanks for this post, Cleolinda.

[lauredhel]

Gack, I'm getting this from all over also. Thankyou.

"I like it... crammed full of receipts and thrown in a corner?"

My first thought the first time I received this meme was "I like it emptied out and hanging on a hook", which, erm, yeah.