The other week we decided to round up all the weird, deflating ways different companies and charities try to draw attention to breast cancer, and checking for lumps. However, it seems we might have spoken too soon about the oiled-up men holding banners saying they’d happily check our boobs for us, or a mousemat with boobs on. Because this Breast Cancer Awareness month has been pretty unrelenting with its weird ways of getting people to donate to a cause, as No Bra Day shows.
No Bra Day was intended to get women to leave their bras at home and donate money to breast cancer charities for the privilege. Women are encouraged to ‘feel more free’ or ‘in a feminist commitment’ when they remove their bras, as if bras are a symbol of oppression and not just a way of stopping our backs from aching or our boobs from bashing together as we walk.
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Though we probably weren’t in our bras for most of No Bra Day – it was a wet Sunday in October, who’d wear a bra for a couch-bound day like that? – and we’re fine with giving money to Breast Cancer Research, we’re not quite up for ever letting No Bra Day ever be a thing. People can wear bras or not wear them, it’s up to them, and no day should tell women what to do with their boobs, apart from checking them for lumps.
The creator of No Bra Day is Boobstagram, a French site with the mission statement that goes along the lines of: ‘Show her boobs on the web is good, show them to your doctor is better’ OK, so that’s what Google translate’s told us, but we figure the people behind Boobstagram think women are really happy to show their boobs via social media, but shy about showing them to doctors. And that’s what’s stopping women from going to the doctors when they feel a lump or a notice a change in their boobs. However, we think the general fear of going to the doctors to show them your boobs is that they might, unfortunately, treat them just like sites like Boobstagram do. See, for all its campaigning, the way this site gets its message across? Using images of women squidging their cleavage together in an Instagram-like infinite scroll, and encouraging others to do the same.
READ MORE: Things You Only Know If Your Mum's Had Breast Cancer
Somehow, considering breast cancer affects way more women than men, appealing to straight guys via its campaigning is hardly a watertight way of securing funds for important research, or getting women to check their own boobs. Hopefully, at the very least, this silly day has drawn attention to the real ways to stop breast cancer – by raising money for scientific research, and encouraging women to check themselves.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.