Field of Women ?

Romla

With Matt joining today am reminded yet again that breast cancer is not gender exclusive although it does effect women in greater numbers.

Reading the posts welcoming him I went clunk ,omg - the major promotional event for this bloody disease is Field of Women ? The long used advertising brand worldwide is Pink Lady .No wonder blokes may be reluctant/ embarrassed to seek support on the blog let alone participate actively on it.

I realise blokes don’t talk about personal stuff as much as women and that could be another factor.And there may be some uniquely male issues they would prefer to talk to a bloke over.However if the shoe was on the other foot would you have the courage to join a blog/organisation targeting a male dominated cancer that you also had the misfortune to have - I’m not sure I could.

It’s time marketing of this bloody disease was less medically and socially antiquated worldwide.It is a barrier to entry for support that we all so warmly are willing to give.

PS Maybe some of the blokes might step up to create a group specifically for blokes to talk to each other about aspects that effect them specifically or that would create embarrassment on an open forum.

Romla

Just reflect a little about hard it was to start on here yourselves with total strangers as well as being very anxious at your diagnosis . Even though you were warmly greeted it was a very hard first step - how might a bloke feel ?

kmakm

@Romla I'm with you on this one. I understand the arguments for brand recognition and historic goodwill etc but in this day and age, the breast cancer branding in this country is very old fashioned. I don't feel it stands for me and I know my sister felt the same way. I am not comfortable with the pink wash.

Sister

Couldn't agree more, @Romla

Sister

I've copied my post here with a couple of changes from the thread "A little embarrassing" as I think we hijacked @Matt 's very brave introduction post and turned it into a discussion about gender inclusiveness...  

Personally, I have mostly avoided pink all of my life (perhaps started as it being what nice little girls wore) and so, have never identified with it.  I agree with the Love Your Sister statement about the colour - something along the lines of it being soft and this battle against bc is not soft.  And the cardboard cutout to me doesn't just look like a dunny door sign - to me it represents cookie cutter women - keep us in our box - so we'd better be soft and sweet and nice and, well...pink.  It's incredibly dated and will only become more so.  It's rather cringe-worthy, to be honest and patronising and I'm speaking as a woman in her 50s - I can't imagine what a 30 yo would think of it.  There's always a flurry when a well-known brand updates their look, but people get over it and no-one looks back until it's so long ago that it's nostalgia.  I'm so glad that the magazine name was not changed.  Before anyone gets upset with me, that is my feeling about it - I understand that others feel differently.

That's me talking of a branding that is obviously only aimed at representing women (and Love Your Sister will struggle with that, too).  If we are serious about being inclusive, no matter what colour is used, the pink lady silhouette and name should be retired.  Again, just my opinion and I know that others may disagree.

kmakm

Hear hear

traveltext

This is a topic close to my heart. To help you understand why bc men would feel awkward in the field of pink women, I'd say imagine you were a woman in a big blue silhouette of a man! Hard to imagine? I suggest it's a crazy concept to have a genderless disease hijacked by the dominant gender and then not work harder to raise public awareness of the plight of the minority group, therefore condemning them to later diagnosis and poorer prognosis.

I know BCNA has done lots improve its presentation of bc as genderless, including degendering the text of all publications and the website, including two men in the biannual conference, retaining Beacon as the newsletter title rather than changing in to Pink Lady, and nominating a day in October as Male Breast Cancer Day.

But the elephant in the room, and this is the hardest thing to change, is that the whole visual corporate colour scheme, and the retro pink Lady logo remain at the core of all marketing efforts. It appears to me that anything pink that will sell gets added to the list of fundraising products without concern for the quality or usefulness of the product. The worst culpriit is the nearly ended pink bun campaign. Now, I get that this is a big revenue raiser for BCNA (and an even bigger one for Bakers Delight) but the product is totally inappropriate. I mean, using a sugary product such as a as sticky sweet bun sends a poor message to the community that is being educated into healthier food. And cancer feeds off sugar. I've tried to suggest BCNA choose one of BD's very tasty, and more healthy, savoury products as a fundraiser, but to no avail. 

So, I fear men are at the end of their concessions, and I get the feeling we'd better be grateful for what we got. So, here's my final request to BCNA. Use the raising of public awareness of male bc as a key performance indicator for success in your media campaigns. Do in any way that works, do it in any colour that works, but afford us the basic right of equality and of achieving disease awareness parity for men with that of women.

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