It’s time for Breast Cancer Awareness Month to rebrand

In 1985, the American Cancer Society partnered with a pharmaceutical company to create a breast cancer awareness campaign. The goal of October Breast Cancer Awareness Month has been to inform the public about breast cancer and the importance of mammograms for early detection.

After 39 years, that goal has been achieved. It would be hard to find someone of young adult age and older who is not aware of breast cancer and mammograms.

The public now expects these October events to be fun, and they should be. It encourages a larger attendance and raises more money for local, state and national organizations to do their good work.

But too many of these fundraisers have deteriorated into embarrassing shenanigans with a Halloween party atmosphere, pink feather boas, pink cheerleader pompoms, garish pink wigs and costumes, parades of honking, decorated cars, and glitter everywhere. All this could imply, to the uninformed, that breast cancer is not so bad after all, while the women who are terminally ill from this disease look on.

With clueless good intentions, too many of the October party props objectify and demean women, like “Save the tatas” t-shirts, “We love boobies” bracelets, cookies decorated to look like breasts, a 5K “Rack Run.” Many breast cancer patients and survivors, including myself, cringe at this sexualization of a disease that traumatizes, mutilates and ends lives. I urge the organizers of 2024 Breast Cancer Awareness Month events to broaden education beyond mammograms. PowerPoint presentations, posters and printed handouts would teach people important facts like:

Mammograms do not prevent breast cancer.

Early detection does not guarantee survival. The age of women being diagnosed keeps getting younger.

The cause of breast cancer still is unknown and there is no cure.

Men get breast cancer.

Being overweight can increase your risk of getting breast cancer.

“Metastatic” means the cancer has migrated to other organs like the liver, brain and lungs, and is the leading cause of death.

The excessive pink washing of all things breast cancer will not cure it, only medical research will.

Let’s promote membership in the National Breast Cancer Coalition. NBCC lobbies our representatives in Washington, D.C. to approve more research funding for the new therapies and treatments that have improved outcomes and given hope to women and men facing this dreaded diagnosis. A table could be set up to make it easy for participants to join, with petitions available to sign, and instructions provided on how to do it electronically.

It’s time to acknowledge that we are “aware,” it’s time to rebrand October as the month for more relevant breast cancer education, more political pressure to find a cure, and fewer pink tutus.

Meredith Clark lives in Iowa City.