Why not? The short, smart answer is, I don't know which t-shirt to wear. At these events the b.c. survivors usually wear pink t-shirts while everyone else gets to wear white ones. While I don't have any trouble telling people that I have had b.c., I don't want it to be the first thing that people learn about me. It was an important event in my life, but not a defining one. (My vow during treatment was that breast cancer wouldn't make me a better person, and I think I succeeded!) I had it, I have that in common with a lot of women (and men), but its not who I am now. As I said to my therapist, Cancer is like a lemon -- very sour but you can't make a great salsa without it! Not the most important event in my life, but still powerful.
Another reason that I don't support b.c. fundraising is the emphasis of the groups is on "the cure". Why aren't they focused on finding the cause of breast cancer?!? They never talk about prevention -- the closest they will come is "early detection," but still happens after the cancer has been caused. In large part this emphasis on cure rather than prevention is because the corporate funding for these groups comes mainly from the companies that 1) stand to make a lot of money on cancer-treatment drugs and the research is supported by the fund-raising and 2) those same companies are the ones that make pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, etc. that are likely to be at the least big contributors to the development of cancer in the first place.
So those are my reasons for staying away from pink ribbons and walks and pink mixers, hats, purses, etc. that are sold to advance the cause of curing breast cancer. It's a nice way to make lots of money!!
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