Pinkwashing

Breast cancer is a brutal disease. Sometimes described as the friendly cancer, marketing has done a good job of creating a fun, lighthearted image. Belinda Tran-Lawrence was diagnosed with Her2 positive breast cancer at the end of 2018. After losing both of her breasts, undergoing chemo and Herceptin she is uncomfortable with an image of breast cancer that is in vast contrast to her own experience. The Taranaki local and regular contributor to the C Word shares her thoughts about Pinktober. (Pictured: Belinda & Toffee. Photo by Tran Lawrence).

During a month when we can buy pink lipstick, pink apples, pink chocolate, pink chips, pink salad dressing, a pink mouse for your computer, or even a pink spa pool, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a month for celebrating breast cancer.

I feel a nagging sense of guilt and uneasiness about the whole thing. Many times this month, I have thought about trying to put in words how I am feeling but it’s so hard I keep giving up.

Don’t get me wrong, Pinktober is a good thing. Talking about breast cancer, educating men and women about early signs, encouraging women to get mammograms, self checks, and raising money for more research all of that is good. But the smiley pink, positive vibe? I can do without it.

Breasts are visible, perky fun and sexy. They are great for selling everything from lipstick to spa pools. And we like breasts – right? I mean, what’s not to like? Breasts nurture babies, make a great spot to nestle, fill out your favourite top, can be propped up or flattened down, and can be a huge part of women’s sexuality. Other body parts that get cancer? The prostate? The bowel? They’re not quite so marketable.

When someone learns I had breast cancer they quite often stare at my chest for a time. When you meet someone who has (or has had) prostate cancer do you immediately stare at their prostate? How about the bowel?

But breast cancer is not really about breasts, many of us don’t even have breasts anymore. It’s about sick women (and sometimes men). It is about fear, endless rounds of appointments and treatments, side effects on side effects that will make you feel like you will never be you or recognise yourself again, and an enormous sense of loss. And sometimes it means death. Which is why this whole month makes me feel uneasy – it feels like all the pink covers up and forgets about that. Breast cancer is an illness that changes lives and ends lives.

I have a friend who suddenly this week discovered that she is almost at the end of her breast cancer journey. This smart, loving and amazing woman has been walking this road for a while now. She has taught me so much about how to walk it with dignity and strength. She has experienced the baldness, nausea, fear, expensive unfunded drugs, devastating impact on family, fatigue, loss of body parts, loss of strength, loss of identity. Loss of damn near everything. And soon, loss of life.

None of this has a thing to do with positive vibes, pink merchandise and perky breasts.

To be honest I’ve never been much of a fan of pink. And cancer? That was (and still is, even though I am now hopefully cancer free) really hard. Breast cancer stories are as layered and nuanced as real people are. Because that’s who has cancer – real people. And the real people on this long, lonely pink journey want to be seen as who we are – people doing the best we can with the shitty hand we were played. Sometimes, the best we can is staying in bed and pulling the covers over our heads because we just can’t do it today. Sometimes, it’s putting on a smile, going out into the world and telling everyone we are doing awesome. Both are true. Both are breast cancer.

As this month comes to an end while you are thinking and talking about breast cancer (and donating, please do that too, it helps more than you know) please take a moment to see us. Not our breasts. But us.