This morning's newspaper was delivered with a local car dealership's big pink advertising sticker, "Driving Breast Cancer Awareness, One Car at a time." Earlier in the week I saw a Save The Tatas bumper sticker and a billboard reminding women to get a mammogram. The slogan was, "Make a Date With the Girls."
You think I am going to rant against cause marketing and the pink machine, don't you? Ha! Tricked you again. While I am troubled by the inconsistent use of capitalization in the car ad, I think it's grand that we can all talk about tatas without blushing. A newspaper can arrive on your doorstep with the word breast slapped on top of it, and no one bats an eye.
There was a time when you couldn't say the word breast in mixed company, so at least we can talk in our outside voices about a terrible disease that kills about 425,000 women around the world every year. Point pink machine. Talking about it lessens the fear and ultimately saves lives. For the less glitzy side of the story, read Ann's blog -- she writes about the disease with raw honest truth and humor, too.
As an ovarian cancer survivor, I am sometimes bothered by the lack of awareness and outright fear of this disease. That fear leads to death. No one cares about lonely little ovaries, no one will be driving cars one ovary at a time or wear ovary apparel for the cure, but breasts are prime real estate. I was lamenting about this to a male co-worker, who said, "We can't see your ovaries."
And we don't have cute names for them, either. Maybe that's the problem! We need to rebrand ovaries. I did a little internet research and found this adorable plush toy plus a few ideas:
- Lady Berries
- Blue Bells
- Toodles
- O's
Interestingly, there are 262 fun and catchy names for breasts, so you can clearly see that Team Ovary needs your support. What should we call these mysterious little sacs of eggy love? What will help us save lives?
