Sexism: Culture’s Cancer.
Male Cancer Awareness Campaign.
By Sophie Meredith

Breast cancer, the dark, looming, spectre that lurks around the twists and turns of life, waiting to pounce. With cancer affecting one in three, and breast cancer being the most common cancer in women, too many of us have first hand experience of dealing with the disease. Breast cancer is more often that not synonymous with women, it has been assigned a gender; it is clad in pink and ribbons, it’s printed on fitted women’s T shirts in department stores and on cotton tote bags designed by sympathetic fashionistas. It’s sparkly and pretty. The glossy façade of breast cancer’s identity, constructed by charitable organisations to make the horror of the disease easier to digest, has encouraged women to engage with the realities of cancer. The numerous breast cancer campaigns across the globe have been successful in spreading awareness, fostering unity and support, and educating women about the signs and symptoms to watch out for; these campaigns are arguably the most prominent cancer campaigns in our consciousness. Centred on sisterhood, stories of triumph and survival, and a collective anger – ‘Why me? Why us?’ – armies of women work tirelessly to defeat a disease which devastates millions of women across the world every year.

But what about men? They get cancer too. They even get breast cancer. The figures are significantly lower, however, less than 1% of breast carcinomas occur in men. So, perhaps understandably, male breast cancer campaigns have been thin on the ground. Health organisations and cancer charities have worked hard over recent years to raise awareness of more prevalent male cancers such as testicular and prostate. These campaigns also have a distinct gender identity; colour schemes are shades of blue, there are no accessory gimmicks, language is un-emotive and clinical. These are tactics employed in order to break down the masculine barrier that exists between men and health care; illness is weakness. Ribbons, cookies and glittery pins are women’s stuff. Cancer is something grandparents get. Breast cancer is definitely something only women get. It’s not worth worrying about things that probably won’t ever happen. I work out, I eat well, I gave up smoking years ago – I’m healthy. I check my testicles in the shower when I remember. It’s not going to happen to me. The health industry has battled with commonly held attitudes like these for years; with studies showing that men are 30% less likely to visit a doctor if they feel unwell. So, with cancer statistics in both men and women on the rise, eradicating the male bravado that accompanies issues of health and disease has become extremely important, something that the Male Cancer Awareness Campaign is taking very seriously.

“Raising awareness, reducing embarrassment” is their tagline. Bravo! Grabbing men by the balls, so to speak, and forcing them to take their health seriously. Great! But, hang on a minute, what’s this? Topless girls in sporting events, pictures of cringing girls covering their faces whilst men dressed as testicles crowd them? Suddenly, MCAC’s tagline becomes ironic, laughable, in fact, as they curate numerous campaigns which humiliate women with a subtle sexism dressed up as charitable banter. Seemingly, in order to make cancer more palatable for men, MCAC had diverted the focus away from their target audience and made male cancer about women. Topless trampolining girls, affectionately nicknamed ‘The Bouncies’ (imaginative), are their latest promotional ploy to raise awareness about male breast cancer. The print adverts (most recently run in The Times on Sunday this weekend. There is, of course, also a YouTube video.) shows a group of topless girls in hot pants and tube socks, holding their breasts and staring seductively at the camera whilst comedian Chris O’Dowd stands in the centre with a ‘luckiest guy in the world’ smirk on his face. Come on, topless trampolining? The website for the campaign includes a photo section of the girls in the topless trampolining championship; young girls (and they are girls - not women), with their knees bent, t-shirts pulled up around ribs to expose midriffs, with pert bottoms hanging out of barely there shorts: the male breast cancer poster girls. What's so puzzling is that MCAC claim that the campaign is ‘Pure and simple. It carries a clear message: Men get breast cancer too.’ So, to clarify – in case you’re as confused as we were – the topless trampolining campaign is about steering the focus away from women’s breasts and getting more people to think about men’s breasts; sexism is dumb, this campaign is the proof.

MCAC have adopted an ‘Inbetweeners’ approach to combating cancer. There are no ribbons, no cookies, no fun runs; that’s all too soft, too girly – a bit embarrassing actually. Instead, there are bare breasts, hot pants, female humiliation, banter and sexism. The horrifying reality is that this campaign will succeed in fostering a great deal of attention. Not because it’s clever, sharp, or well executed and not because it’s a cause that people are invested in, but because we still occupy a culture in which breasts are viable currency; in the media, in society, in capitalist-consumerism and now in charity. It is deeply unsettling to think that in the meeting at which ideas were thrown around for an attention grabbing campaign that was most likely to engage with men, topless women was, firstly, part of that discussion, and secondly, deemed the best idea. Contemporary society continues to be fed a staple diet of casual misogyny, rotten and unpalatable; the consequences trickle down like ideological diarrhoea, fertilizing the seeds of patriarchy sewn years ago. Why not contact MCAC with some alternative campaign suggestions which do not involve bare breasts, sexism and the humiliation of women? www.malecancer.org.

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