LETTER: Defending Breast Cancer Awareness Tactics

To the editors:

I’m writing in response to Sandra Y. L. Korn’s Nov. 15 op-ed, “Handbags, Bras, and Breast Cancer.”

First of all, calling breast cancer awareness campaigns “gender-normative” and criticizing the empowerment aspects of these campaigns further marginalizes breast cancer survivors who feel less feminine as a result of cancer treatment, whether from baldness after chemotherapy or the surgical removal of one or both breasts.  I assume that the less than one percent of breast cancer victims who are men do not feel their identity fundamentally threatened in the way a woman who has lived her entire adult life with two breasts does.

My second issue with the article is that it is fundamentally offensive to me as a Harvard woman.  Korn, also a Harvard woman, writes that breast cancer awareness campaigns like “Save Second Base” shirts fail “to support breast cancer victims and instead subtly [hint] at the sexual availability of Harvard’s women.”  Excuse me?  When you read between the lines of a “Save Second Base” shirt, do you see “Save Second Base because I’m a slut and would really appreciate keeping these boobs around for awhile so more guys will have sex with me throughout my life”?  Because when I look at the shirt, I think, “Wow, that’s a really clever way to get young people motivated, involved, and willing to give money to support breast cancer research.”  The pink bras and “Save Second Base” initiatives aren’t about sexualizing breast cancer—they’re about identifying with women of all ages in a way they find light-hearted and funny.

So which university organization is objectifying women as nothing more than sexual objects by publishing such absurdly baseless statements?  And which group is trying to empower women affected by a deadly, potentially humiliating, identity-changing disease and attempting to expand their community of support with good-natured humor?  Every breast cancer survivor that I’ve encountered hails these campaigns as successful strategies for raising money and advocating preventative measures, while also empowering sufferers.

ELIZABETH M. FRYMAN ’12

Cambridge, Mass.

Nov. 15, 2010

Elizabeth M. Fryman ’12 is a history concentrator in Eliot House.