Latest message from the pink corporate machine: Go hairless and wave your breasts for booby cancer!
Booby Wall Canada is a project in which women can upload pictures of their breasts for the cause.
No, I can’t figure out why we’re supposed to do that. There is no notice on the website about donations being made per photograph, about money going to research or treatment. Just an urging to upload your breast photos “as a symbol of your commitment”.
Are you as lost as I am?
The pink packaging, girl power, and breast-self-examination excuse crumbles under the most cursory of examinations. The whole thing is a fapsite for adolescent boys.
The introduction specifically locates it in the realm of soft-porn, with unconvincing antitheses attached to photos of slim, young, white women taking their tops off and dancing, Girls Gone Wild style. While the titles claim “this is not spring break” and “this is not maxim”, the pictures speak a different story. I’ve captured them here for those who prefer not to use Flash:
The intro continues: “this is beautiful”, hammering home the message that breasts are primarily for the public gaze, not for feeding or pleasure:
and “this is something 2 live 4″:
We’re then subjected to the Flash ‘loading’ message, complete with a striptease image, captioned “Unloading”. No, that’s not at alllll porny, is it?
The Wall itself has a variety of breasts, from young and patriarchally-approved to older, wonky, or mastectomised: but the packaging is 100% titillation. And the breast photographs are interspersed with ads for Schick razors.
Yes, the whole website is a giant advertisement for hair removal devices.
Click on the “tlc” button, and you get to a page urging breast self-examination (Touch/Look/Check). The procedure technique includes this little snippet:
“Schick Check: TLC when shaving your underarms. It’s that simple.”
The message? “Adhering to patriarchal beauty standards will save you from cancer!” That’s how they want you: strutting your stuff as free advertising, with naked legs, cunt and pits shaved with their specified gargantuan four-bladed girly-razor, only $9.19 apiece at drugstore.com. Don’t just gets your boobs out for the blokes; get your wallet out too. Cancer detection now comes with ergonomic design and aloe vera conditioning strips.
Here’s a screenshot of the “tlc” page:
The designer setting out the “Women need to show their breasts more TLC” line has made an unorthodox choice in font colours. “TLC” has been set in a different colour – one that differentiates it from the previous text, and makes it blend a little with surrounding text instead. The message is clear: what stands out is
“need to show their breasts more”
That’s what Schick thinks of you, folks.
And if you’re still left with any doubts, check out their homepage “lingo” section:
“Chastity Pelt, noun: What you have on your legs when you intentionally go without shaving before a date as a way of making yourself behave.
Girlilla Warfare, noun: Temporarily suspending shaving as a way of punishing your mate for something. Could backfire if you end up uncovering a newfound fetish.”
Now. Can we expect similar promotions for prostate cancer, testicular cancer, anal cancer and penile cancer? Can we look forward to the blokes being exhorted to upload photos of their undercarriages, to be placed lovingly on a softly-lit wall of genitals for the cause? I have a few title suggestions:
Wall O’ Balls!
Dongers for Doodle Cancer!
Scrotes Oot F’t’ Lads!
Any more submissions?
You made me laugh out loud with this. Walls of balls… :) But now the laughing’s over I’m in despair. I think the colour pink has been ruined for me forever by all the crap breast cancer stuff it has come to represent. And none of any of this will prevent a single women becoming ill or a single death.
M-H’s last blog post..Do you have a sixteen year-old in your home?
Dongers for Doodle Cancer. Tee hee.
It’s easy to feel suspicious of the motivations for the (over)emphasis on breast cancer.
It’s pink (girly and unthreatening), they are boobs (woo hoo) and a woman who manages to get treatment early doesn’t lose her boobs (woo hoo and thank God she doesn’t lose her femininity and all that).
After my mum was diagnosed with stomach cancer late last year (they got it early and she’s fine), I said to her, “where there’s campaign for tummy cancer?”
Of course, imagine the mainstream media showing women’s stomachs. After all, most women have cuddly tums.
There are boobs, that should have said.
I wonder if Bitch magazine is aware of this campaign.
Links I meant to add to the original post:
Twisty’s “I Got Yer Boobython Right Here”
“Ixnay on the Oobsbay Update”
And the entire Crazy Sexy Cancer category, from the start.
Lauredhel’s last blog post..Scrotes Oot F?t? Lads!
I would rather not put a gigantic girly razor with four blades anywhere near my chest, or any other parts of me. Eeek.
annaham’s last blog post..HAY GUYZ, Guess What’s Back en vogue?
Lauredhel you keep uncovering these extraordinarily sexist things and I wonder how we would ever paradoy these times when the reality is just so completely insane. Good post, as always.
blue milk’s last blog post..Co-sleeping, breastfeeding, and losing your mind
Thanks blue. It’s not like you even need to go out looking for these things; we’re soaking in it, it’s just a matter of shaking the scales off the eyes, I think.
Sadly, once shaken off, it can be hard to put them back on.
Lauredhel’s last blog post..?You?re such a buzzkill, snopes.?