India, don’t think you’re a cynical misery guts at all.
I have to say though, that I don’t agree that the pink campaign presents a fetishised view of women, I just don’t think that dressing up in silly pink costumes has that type of connotation anymore. An example of this is when my 27 year old daughter and her chums go out on a Saturday night. To my old fashioned eye, they look like a caricature of femininity, with sparkly false eyelashes, nails, mini-skirts and high heels, but in actual fact, they are all liberated university educated young women with successful careers - just out to have fun. Neither do I think that the girly stuff, portrays women with BC as hapless victims, in fact it portrays women in a ’ sister’s are doing it for themselves’ kind of way.
What I do think though, is that if charities tried to raise funds by presenting “the real issues”, that would definitely portray women with BC as objects of pity , and victims of fate.
The other point is that corporate sponsorship is essential, even if businesses are getting a hefty rake-off. I mean Asda have donated £25 million to cancer charities since 1996 (including BCC). That sort of money is hard to come by, and while the ends don’t always justify the means, there has to be realism.
Peeps may object to the pink campaign, but they have yet to say what the alternative would be. What I’m pretty sure of, is that telling it like it is, and rejecting corporate sponsorship would get us nowhere.
Bump
Hello everyone, fascinating debate which I’m going to rudely butt in on and say what I think - feel free to disagree! I can see both sides of this argument, but I’m afraid I disagree that our contemporary fluffy pink glittery female stereotype is harmless and representative of some kind of liberated femininity.
My problem is that while I believe that feminism shouldn’t be a political monolith and that we’re all individuals with different views, I find this cartoon porn style of womanhood shocking and derogatory to all women. Where has it come from? Breast implants, pole dancing at clubs and as exercise, clothes that you used to find in a blue movie but not on the street, dress it up in pastel pink glitter and it becomes cute and fluffy and child like. What does this say about women? The fact that educated women participate in this ubiquitous cultural trend makes it all the more frightening. I used to work for a kids charity and watched 8 year old girls lined up dancing to ‘Sex on the Beach’ like mini lap-dancers, wearing revealing clothes that I wouldn’t dream of wearing. Sexed-up children with no idea of the meaning of the body language they are using other than it gives them some kind of dubious ‘power’. Their parents were probably demonstrating against paedophiles at the same time.
Our capitalist system means that every little trend is appropriated, marketed and reproduced on a grand scale - just buy it, buy the lifestyle, wear that cute little playboy bunny, get your little girl a t-shirt with it on!
The pink campaign is a part of this whole. It does a lot of good, there’s no argument about that. I personally dislike the big business era of charity fund-raising - many fund-raisers are on astronomical salaries paid for by donations. The effectiveness of fund-raising doesn’t justify the means in an uncomplicated way.
It seems to me that the pink campaign does reflect and help to perpetrate a marketing-led enforced stereotype of femininity which implicitly justifies the ‘pink tart’ culture. I don’t mean my criticisms to be personal to any women, it’s so consuming that girls are moulded from birth to conform to it, and are trained to see their value in terms of how they look and how ‘hot’ they are. How does this make women who’ve had breast surgery feel (or indeed any women who find it difficult to conform)? What about older women? (The cosmetic surgery trend is also a part of this).
I should also mention those men who have bc, my great uncle died from it. I agree that the pink campaign also excludes them by aligning bc unequivocally with ‘girls’ and ‘femininity’.
I’d like to see the campaign being more representative of a range of types of femininity, and include men.
Best wishes, Lynne
Just an additional thought that struck me after re-reading JaneRA’s article and the comments about Jordan:
I’m wondering about our cultural hyper-sexualisation of women’s breasts. Does the pink fluffy thing attempt to defuse the meaning of breasts as signs of sexual availability (or ‘hotness’)? Is it an attempt to reconcile the fault lines between our contemporary view of breasts and the horrible notion that they can kill you? I need to think about this one…
By the way, a recommended book is ‘A History of the Breast’ by Marilyn Yalom - a fascinating read which includes chapters on ‘The Political Breast’ ‘The Commercialised Breast’ ‘The Medical Breast’ and ‘The Sacred Breast’…x
I respect your view, but don’t agree that the pink stereotype is harmful, and perpetuates inequality. I think we all conform to various stereotypes, be they cultural, class, gender or race related, but I very much doubt that inequality arises from these stereotype. I think the reasons for inequality are far more complex than that.
I do find the caricatured version of femininity that you refer to, quite disappointing, because I feel so many women these days simply copy the Jordan/celebrity/footballers wife trend - which just seems so shallow and mindless. But in some ways it has a kind of up yours quality to it, in that it say’s, we can dress/behave this way because we regard ourselves as liberated, and can wear whatever we like.
Lemongrove, I agree that it’s all a bit more complex than just the pink thing. Broadening things out a little, I also feel uncomfortable with the cosmetics industry, which in my opinion contributes greatly to the “image is everything” kind of culture that seems to be so prevalent around women nowadays. Or is that just me? I really don’t like that my young teenage daughters feel it absolutely essential (not just nice) to wear a full coat of slap in order to go to school! They both have beautiful skin as you’d imagine on a 12- and 14-yr-old, but still they both insist on foundation and powder, and I hate it! If I just forbid them from wearing it, I know they just go straight into the loo at school and put it on anyhow, and use other people’s make-up if I don’t let them have their own. Even at the LGFB session, which I freely admit was good fun, I did feel as if I was being expected to slot neatly into the mould of the full-make-up-and-nail-varnish brigade, which just isn’t me (though I do occasionally use a little bit of eye make-up and perhaps a bit of lipstick).
Choccie I so agree - hate fake tans, fake nails, hair extensions, heavy make-up - but sadly I think we are a minority and the battle is lost.
I feel i’ve been asleep and stuff has happened quietly - i thought the equating of female with very narrow stereotypes of body types, make up and pink had been overturned many years ago. If women truly had a free choice in how to dress and behave I can’t see that there would be such a focus on pink and other stereotypes.
I know it’s incredibly complex, but I do think there’s a decreasing range of acceptable versions of femininity now. CM your daughters are the norm, that’s what’s so worrying about it. I know teenagers who spend 2 hours straightening their hair and putting their faces on before school!
BT, yes, it’s the fact that they ARE the norm that gives me most concern.
Sky2sea, I find the emphasis on image and conforming with these narrow stereotypes is seen all over the place and that’s what’s worrying about the pink stuff. Our girls are subjected to lots of pressures from all sorts of directions in their formative years, persuading them that it is normal to be very sexualised even as pre-pubescent children, and that wearing make-up is to be admired, worse still NOT wearing make-up is to be ridiculed, from as young as Year 7 at school. My girls certainly didn’t get it from me as I very rarely can be a**ed to put on the slap.
I applaud any woman or girl who feels confident enough to be herself and buck the trends, but the peer pressure is so very intense on today’s young women it’s very difficult not to conform. Society seems to be much LESS tolerant of difference than it used to be, or have I missed something?
A very interesting thread, thanks to all who have contributed. It’s certainly not straightforward.
I admit I am a girly girl I love make up, colouring and having good hair cuts ( when I had hair that is) and having nails painted etc, but I don’t like the Jordan look, or young girls covered in slap, with foundation applied with a palate knife. I so wish schools would ban it and also skirt lengths would be longer, I know it’s the norm but like CM I wish it wasn’t. I was watching CSI the other night love it but I tried to find a woman on there that was above a size 10 no one appeared and if your smart and intelligent you have to walk in high heals and be a size 8. That’s so much pressure on young girls these days. I heard one of my neighbours kids say about a new diet craze of eating chicken that had gone off cos you can lose lbs in one go, I know I’ve digressed going on to sizism, but I have a weird train of thought at moment.
The school HAS banned makeup, and HAS a rule that skirts should be knee-length. When I buy school uniforms I insist, much to their disgust, that I buy skirts that adhere to the school’s rules. But they just roll them up… at least I won’t get snotty letters from the school but when there are 2000 pupils in the school it’s an impossible task for the staff to insist that they all do up their ties and roll their skirts down and wash their faces (only to find them loosening their ties, rolling the skirts back up and painting their faces within two minutes of leaving the teacher’s sight)…
Sorry for taking the thread for a wander, but it is linked in a way, as the pink and fluffy thing is very closely related to the broader question of personal image for women and girls that has coloured a lot of the responses on this thread.
Didn’t realise secondary schools have banned make up. You are on a hiding to nothing then cos you can’t ban it as you need to monitor it and like you said they will only do it as soon as they get to school. I work with infant don’t have the same problem, though we did have a 5 yr old in one day with high heels on, not the dressing up ones but real shoes with a 2 -3 inch heel. Made her wear her PE shoes all day.
I don’t have an answer but interesting thread reading everyones thoughts.
I LOVE being a woman and all womanly things. I wear make-up, nail varnish, heels, hair, the lot. Yet i’m still intelligent and responsible for both myself and my kids and i have been known to be forthright in my opinions. It’s a personal choice and i think that is what ‘Women’s Lib’ is all about: being the woman you want to be and to be taken seriously.
However, in recent years i have been wondering what has happened to ‘Womens’ Lib’. Take a recent competition run by a ‘lads mag’. Girls at a nightclub ‘performed’ on a double bed in order to win the prize for being the most desirable woman (or something like that). Now as it was on a bed i’m sure you realise that they weren’t being asked to show their adept at working out some accounts, writing a story, baking a cake, etc; no, in front of a crowd of drunk, leering men these ‘ordinary’ girls cavorted around, playing with themselves sexually with very little on. You could argue, as some do, that this is true femenism, where a woman can be in control of herself and do what the hell she likes, but i don’t see it that way. I see a poor, young, average looking girl who only feels self-worth when making out to men that she’s good in the sack. She may have a masters degree in bio-chemistry but at that particular moment is she been taken seriously?
You may say “Aah, see - she has a degree, therefore this is her RIGHT to act like this. She IS intelligent but as you say SCACO - you have the right to be the woman you want to be!” But the point is why does she feel the need to do this? Look good - yes. Wear ‘sexy’ clothes if you like. Enjoy sex - be promiscuous if you like, perform for your partner of you like it - it’s fun! But why the need to perform to a gang of drunk, braying men? because it gives a feeling of self-worth. how sad.
I’m a primary school teacher (Y6) and sometimes feel really sad at the way some (not all) of the girls feel the need to copy the latest raunchy dance moves and wear the latest provocative clothing. These girls aren’t doing it out of ‘choice’, these girls aren’t doing it in irony, they are too young to know themselves, let alone play such a sophisticated game. No, they are being doctrinated into this way of behaving before they’ve had time to decide or find out what’who they are.
And so, to return to the theme of this thread: there is a lot wrong (in my humble opinion) with pink and fluffy. It is the tip of the enormous sexual ice-berg. Why is it ok to sexualise a cancer for goodness sake?? It’s CANCER. And it is sexualised, albeit in a ‘fun’ way. If I’m honest, I didn’t really take much notice of the campaign before - when i did it was usually because a bunch of drunk, mini-skirted, pink-boaed girls were thrusting a donation bucket under my nose at the local, or when Jordan happily gor hers out for the campaign - and so when i did it was pretty much in disdain. But obviously now it’s different and i’m on the receiving end, now i’ve thought a lot about it and actually i don’t like it.
I am not stupid and recognise that the pink thing raises money that would otherwise be lacking. I also understand that charity is big business and that people, generally, don’t do something for nothing. There is too much to lose to change it now but wish that Society wasn’t constantly having to be fed the sexual thing by the powers that be and that women could actually just get on with their cancer treatment without being represented by inane girliness.
I have cancer, i’m having chemo not brain removal.
Very well put SCACO! X
Beautifully put SCACO, well done. Interesting, isn’t it, that feminism in fashion first enabled women to wear trousers whilst cycling, and dress in a more masculine way to enable them to carry out day to day activites… yet now this same woman empowerment lets us all dress like hookers, should we wish to do so… and we call this progress???
xx
CM, BD and Sky2Sea I absolutely think this is all linked - as LG said it’s complex. The size issue (with Jordan tits of course) is intrinsic to the body fascism that we have (and it’s increasingly applying to men too). Germaine Greer says that young girls are trained to be consumers of beauty products from a very young age through magazines which make them feel insecure about themselves in ways that can be ‘fixed’ by buying the right makeup and clothes. I used to do a lecture on ‘tweeny’ culture, and remember using a makeover of an 8 year old from ‘Twinkle’ magazine where the girl was made up to look like Faye Steps, including ‘tinted moisturiser’ to ‘cover the blotchy bits’. The time this stuff takes means that poor girls/women have limited time to do anything more worthwhile. The mass marketing machine works by creating these insecurities and creating markets where none previously existed - another lecture I used to do was about advertising and gender, and included the market in ‘feminine hygiene products’ - which basically say you’re a woman and you stink, this will help! The biggest laugh used to come from the ad for black G-String panty liners…
StayCalm you’ve hit the nail on the head there - there’s nothing wrong with being a girly girl but we are limiting our options and those of little girls through not challenging what’s going on. It’s not liberated to perform sex acts for men in public, no matter how educated (or otherwise) you are. I’m a paramedic now, and we often pick up semi- or unconscious girls in the back streets of the local city around the club district on friday and saturday nights. They have barely any clothes on, are usually wearing a thong that’s vanished, and have no idea what’s happened to them. Sometimes they try to come on to male ambulance staff. Usually they’re covered in vomit and are underage. How do they feel about themselves really? They certainly don’t get respect from men/boys. We also see a lot of horribly posessive, abusive relationships which I feel are a product of this culture of putting everything on show and acting trashy. Question is, what can we do about it?
Good points SCACO and bubbletrouble, it’s so complex. A friend and I were only talking about the binge drink fashion of today, she said we all drank to much when we were young, to which I agreed but we didn’t drink to the limit they do now, and never did I behave like they do on the street. We might of sang down the road or donesomething funny/ silly, but not lying in gutters or having sex in front of the camera, ( Ibiza series ), I find it very sad.
At the same time I like being a girl with my makeup and nails, I love it when my nearly 4 yr old granddaughter comes round and we paint our nails, plait her hair, she puts scruchies in my wig, and she loves putting on my jewelry and having a squirt of purfume, am I having double standards, don’t know. It’s complicated.
Hello Stay Calm
As a much older women (can’t believe it -70 next year) I have been following this thread with much interest and have found the differing view points stimulating.
I was really in sympathy with all that YOU wrote -and feel it is sobering that more choice/equality for women has had so many disappointing spin-offs. It is not surprising I guess, to hear that my own feelings at the early sexualisation of many small girls - for all the reasons that we know it happens- is not just something that I see and deplore - but obviously is also viewed in the same light by many younger women. It seems to confirm all one’s worst prejudices and stereotypes about the kind of parenting that some children are having - as well as reflecting a view of our ‘advanced’ Western culture that I find rather depressing
Yes - girl power means the right of women to choose to be just what they want to be- but why are some girls’ choices seemingly so limited? As it was when my own 40-year olds were young, it is still so much to do with how parents teach their children to value themselves and to encourage expectations that are not simply gender- related. I see it just as it always was, among the little friends of my grand-daughters.
As for the pink and fluffy’- I hate it!
I have been involved in many campaigning and fund-raising activities for a number of charities over many years (none of them health-related) …and have occasionally dressed up! I also have friends and family who have taken part in ‘pink events’ …but I’m afraid it’s not for me. Pink and fluffy -BC ain’t!
Everyone to their own I guess - look how differently we all react to the conduct of funerals, grave decorations etc etc - I think it’s just a personal taste issue.
I have lost at least a dozen 12 friends and family to various malignant diseases over the years but I don’t fundraise myself for cancer charities - I think there’s probably enough folk doing it already. One of my daughters and I both have BC but I think there are so many other equally deserving causes that get very little publicity, pink or otherwise…
Bubbletrouble: In terms of what we can do about it - maybe we have to recognise that feminism is about real choice and that we have to speak up. As I mentioned earlier, I thought these arguments had been won once (in the 70s/80s) and stopped being active and vigilant.