I’m a journalism student, currently writing an article on these campaigns and really interested in hearing more of your opinion. I’ve dropped you an email. Please do take a look and let me know if I could talk to you.

Thank you!

Martha rocks! ;)

Andrew

Of course there are people who can overcome their adversity and look at the lighter side of things. Good for them. However, this should not be a requirement forced on victims! Yee Hung should go to Haiti and tell the people, hey, why don’t you just lighten up when others can?

Yee Hung’s second post just confirms how prone he is to crooked logic. Just because the campaign was started by women does not mean it cannot be sexist. Women can be unfair to women and be guilty of sexism, as much as blacks (or any other race) can be prejudicial against their own kind and be guilty of racism.

As for Facebook, just take a look at typical activities and you have to agree that most of it is frivolous. Now, I’m not a technophobe; in fact, I’m a techie and I use Facebook a bit. I don’t know if it is inherent in the design or just somehow developed as part of its culture, but Facebook to me is unbalanced. People just want to do inane things that pass for fun, like sending each other virtual pets or posting the colour of their underwear. Nobody wants to hear of any seriousness or real sorrow. If this is human networking, it is a very shallow representation of what we are.

Finally, the fact that a lot of women are posting about their bra colour does not mean this is a successful campaign to spread breast cancer awareness; it just means it is a successful campaign to get women to post about their bra colour. It trivializes the entire issue. If it results in negative publicity (*breast* cancer! snicker, nudge, nudge, wink, wink), how does it help? How would a breast cancer victim, a masectomy patient, feel when reading such posts or when invited to participate? What proportion of actual breast cancer victims would support such a campaign?

1. I honestly do not understand why sexist issues are involved in this debate at all. The campaign was started by women and only taken part in by women. So why bash men by saying they’ll all get hard-ons, should have a corresponding underwear campaign, and don’t get it when they try to provide a counterpoint?

2. Ironically, I am offended by the assumption that I am offended by people simply because they have opposing opinions to me. On the contrary, I enjoy their company because there is so much to learn from other perspectives. However, I don’t enjoy discussions where objectivity is thrown out the window and arguments are based on assumptions, subjective substantiations, and ad hominem attacks on other people, all three of which you have employed.

3. Just a point of information: Facebook is used by many of the world’s leaders in a variety of fields: politicians, celebrities, sports stars, and so on. It speaks volumes that you dismiss it as childish and a waste of time, without acknowledging the vast potential for social networking, communication, and information dissemination that Facebook enables. There is also the fun element as well, though that may be the childish waste of time that you are talking about.

4. I agree that there are other ways to raise funds or awareness for breast cancer. But that doesn’t mean I have to tell the organisers that their way is wrong and other ways are better. For one, I think their creativity has allowed their campaign to achieve an awareness unmatched by other campaigns (these people are from the USA!) Secondly, the recommendations made so far are, in my opinion, even less effective because they ignore every single thing in the marketing book. Simply putting a link and asking people to click on it is not much of a campaign in my opinion. Remember, it is only thanks to the hype generated by the much-maligned bra colour campaign that Dr Lee is getting any attention.

to bah,
Point taken. However, it is a matter of how you take it: as a breast cancer sufferer, will you see everything remotely related to breasts as being offensive, simply because they remind you of your loss? Secondly, remember that the campaign is not just addressing sufferers, but to non-sufferers as well, to raise awareness of the condition and encourage regular check-ups.

Actually let me correct that, I *didn’t* hear about the campaign, all I knew was that for some odd reason my former colleague was posting her bra colour to everyone she had listed on Facebook – including ex-bosses, acquaintances, etc.. do we really want to know?

I agree with you that the campaign, however well-meaning it is, misses the point. It’s so easy in this superficial, wanna-be-celebrity times to post the colour of your bra or undewear. How does that translate into wanting to talk about sex or other touchy subjects to your friends, daughters, etc.? It doesn’t.

I think that you’ve done is admirable even though people like Yee Hung are offended that you have an opposing opinion on the matter. After all you have made a point to direct people to where they can make a meaningful impact to support the breast cancer foundation.

To me, that’s more important than knowing what is the colour of your bra.

**Moderating Editor: Dr Martha Lee is NOT the one who chose the photo. Our writers are generally not responsible for the final layout of the articles as they appear on TOC and the editors remain solely accountable for this aspect. On behalf of the editors, I would like to apologise for our tactlessness – we simply used the original photo of the facebook group in question.**

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=192875462852&ref=search&sid=716353024.1379502704..1#/group.php?v=wall&gid=192875462852