If breast cancer could be cured by shopping, it would be cured by now.

[emsbear]

Why is there pink everything??  Yes breast cancer deserves the attention but there is another cancer that kills as many men as breast cancer kills women....prostate cancer.  Is prostate cancer ignored because it's less "sexy" than breast cancer? There are some fundraising events here and there but lacks the mega-marketing campaign that breast

Comments

[teddyb]

The attention to breast cancer and all the "pink this and pink that" stuff is because breast cancer has become the most successfully marketed disease ever. Ever since the first pink ribbon campaign, shrewd marketers have been falling all over themselves to find ways to tie their companies and products into "pink" campaigns.

Personally, it has begun to annoy the crap out of me. I certainly recognize that breast cancer is a serious health threat and I am glad to see efforts to improve education regarding screening and fundraising for research.

However, as you pointed out, there are other cancers out there, too. And prostate cancer is also a major killer.

As for "buy this pink thing and feel good about saving the ta-tas", I'm definitely over it.

[beartalon]

Bob hits it on the nail with the marketing. It's also true that men don't talk about prostate cancer. It's a loss of virility, and a stigma about not being as much a man as before. It's a throw-over from centuries of the patriarchal society when being virile meant that your name would be carried on and whatever little fiefdom you controlled would stay in the family.

There's not much need for that tradition now, but losing one's ability to "get it up" still gets men down, even if they are too old to do anything with it when it is up.