Don't Tell The Men

It looks like it's that time of year again.

The time of the year when you are all going to see Facebook statuses with random words or phrases that don't make sense, and somehow it relates to breast cancer awareness.

Here is how it happens:

Step One: 

You (the "you" in question must be female) receive a group message from someone that you rarely talk to, if at all, telling you about the game plan.  This usually involves the color of something you are wearing (the well known one that made the news years ago was the bra color) or code words for your relationship status.  This is suppose to raise awareness for breast cancer.  BUT! The kicker is that only the women know.  We aren't suppose to tell any men.  Apparently, and I was unaware of this, this is the best way to raise awareness and gain support [insert sarcastic tone].

Step Two: 

You update your status.  This time around (I know, I know...I'm not suppose to tell - tough shit) you are suppose to put the corresponding fruit to your relationship status.  I'm not going into detail here, because it is literally too ridiculous to repeat.

Step Three:

When someone comments, you forward the message to them - only the women though!  God forbid a man finds out that we are trying to raise awareness and gain support for breast cancer research.  From here, it is an endless cycle of fruit or bra color as Facebook statuses.  

I'm not sure if I am the only one that is wildly irritated by this or not.  I actually have a few questions for those that really believe these Facebook statuses are accomplishing something.  How are we raising awareness if we are not directly saying anything about it?  Are these statuses just widely known to be related to cancer?  Is it our goal to only spread awareness to women and not to men?  Are men excluded from breast cancer awareness and are not allowed to know?  

Feel free to answer these questions if you feel so inclined, but I'm not actually here to ask questions to get answers that I don't care about.  I'm here to ACTUALLY raise some awareness and bring some knowledge about breast cancer to the table.  We all know that breast cancer exists.  We all [should] know that it sucks and it can end the life of a loved one.  We all know about it to some extent, but do we really know about it?  Here are some facts

Fact: Women are diagnosed with breast cancer more than any other cancer.

Fact: It is estimated that 252,710 women in the US will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, and 63,410 will be diagnosed with in situ breast cancer.

Fact: Men are not excluded from breast cancer. Actually, an estimated 2,470 men this year will not be excluded from breast cancer.

Breast cancer is real.  Breast cancer is not meant to be a playful Facebook status.  Breast cancer does not exclude anyone - so why are we excluding people from awareness?