Pardon Me While I Rant

Goodlordalmighty. I had no intention of ranting today. I have all kinds of other things to do and things to think about and talk about, and I could be doing those right now.

But no. No: instead, my head is going to explode because it's That Time of Year. I don't know why it starts in September, because unless I missed the memo that changed things, Breast Cancer Awareness Month is October. I know that because it's when I set up the annual mammogram appointment. What I'm thinking is that someone decided we need another month added on to that. Not for raising money, though. Oh, no! Not for anything useful like that! But for figuring out more inane, useless ways to update our Facebook status.

In case you are one of the lucky ones who's remained blissfully unaware of this annual ritual, let me see if I can sum it up without yelling. To "support breast cancer awareness," women on Facebook post status updates to titillate their male friends. That's about the best I can come up with, truly. They send around mass messages (which you know make me want to take out my gun, and which prompted this whole thing--I've received 2 this week) to all their female friends with the instructions, something like: "Post the sentence 'I like it on _________' and then fill in the blank with where you hang your purse when you get home from work." Or, this year, "Post 'I'm (fill in the month of your birthday) weeks and I'm craving (fill in with the food listed below next to the day of your birthday)" so you'd get something like "I'm 8 weeks and I'm craving cabbage!" This is true hilarity for your group of 62-year-old-grandmother friends.

What they neglect to mention is exactly how this raises awareness of breast cancer. Oh, they tell you that one year it "made the national news," like that's something important. So do celebrity weddings, bad YouTube videos, and astronaut diapers, and what has the notoriety done for any of those?

Now, if posting these updates contributed to raising actual money for breast cancer research, that would be another thing entirely. If making people think you liked it on the doorknob would raise $25 for finding a cure? Then it would be worth it, albeit still incredibly idiotic. Although, truthfully, I'd be really, really suspicious of someone who had the money to make that kind of donation but wouldn't do so unless women on Facebook posted suggestive status updates. What would *that* be all about, anyway?

There are so many things that irritate me about this I don't even know what to say. I hate that it's sex-specific, that only women are invited to "play," and that it's only womanish topics that get passed around. Breast cancer is not a woman's disease. It's not even a human disease. Men get it, cats and dogs get it, anything with breast tissue can get it. Breast cancer affects more women than it does men, and it affects post-menopausal women more than it does younger ones. But we have a male friend who had a mastectomy, and I know young women who have had the disease. Even small families like mine have lost someone to it--my father's sister died of breast cancer in her 40s; my cousin's wife was in her 30s.

Just think, though: what if breast cancer were primarily a disease of middle-aged men, right at the peak of their power and earning capacity? Think senators, CEOs, heads of state. What if it were mostly their disease? Or what if it struck young, nubile, perky-breasted 20-something models and 30-something trophy wives? What then? Don't you think there would have already been a cure?

Please.

But because it's a disease that strikes post-menopausal women in disproportionate numbers, it's not a huge priority. We are marginalized in so, so many ways, discounted because we're past our reproductive usefulness and don't really have that peak earning power or political clout (because, unlikes ethnic minorities who long ago learned to work together in support of issues that affect them, women tend instead to go along with their men, often voting in ways that are counterproductive to well-being). Sure, post-menopausal women are much-loved grandmothers, but they tend to kind of fade into the wallpaper. We don't have a lot of power. We don't have much of a voice.

And when we do get a voice? When we have a chance to be heard? "I'm 10 weeks, and I'm craving popsicles!" Oh, yeah: hear us roar.

Last year when I ranted about this, I got a nasty note saying, "Just wait until you get it, sister!" Because if you say, "Hey, this isn't really doing anything to promote awareness of breast cancer and, really, is just making us look sillier and less aware than people already think we are," that means you don't support breast cancer research, and you deserve to get breast cancer.

Oh, yes: we women stick together, don't we?

Last week I got a note from Melanie Testa, who's finishing up treatment for breast cancer. She's doing the Walk for the Cure NYC, and she has a page at the Susan G. Komen site where she was trying to raise $250. Go look at it now. Isn't that fabulous? She has to keep raising the amount because it keeps going over. I donated, and so have a lot of other people who are serious about trying to help find a cure. It may not be funny, and it's not titillating, but it's useful. Sensible. Powerful in ways that we all could be if we'd stop dissipating our energy in foolishness and think of how to make our voices really mean something.

Now, I'm willing to bet I get notes telling me to lighten up, see the larger picture, join in the fun, be a part of the zeitgeist. That not everyone can donate, and doing anything at all is better than doing nothing. I have nothing to say to these people, because if you're giving yourself strokes for being involved when what you're really doing is playing one more nonsensical, time-wasting online game, there's not a lot I can say that will make any difference.

To everyone else, though, to people who want to make a difference, who really want to do something to help out? Go here. Even $10 will help.

XO