“LESS THAN ONE PERCENT OF UK MOTHERS BREASTFEED TO 6 MONTHS.”

Is related to EXCLUSIVE breastfeeding.

Talking about support for breastfeeding is all well and good, but it is at best a plaster over a gaping wound. You need to change intrinsic motivational factors for breastfeeding that change both societal perception of, and ability to work around, breastfeeding in the long term.

Also, taking offence with using shit science to prove a poorly-made point is the biggest waste of anyone’s time, as that is all the rags ever do, which is why the NHS has to waste a LOT of time coming up with a ‘behind the headlines’ site and newsletter each week to basically refute the shite printed in the Mail every week.

While this article is pretty good, I do take a little bit of offence at this statement:

People should breastfeed if they are in the privileged position of being supported and able to do so, if they want to and that’s that.

Breastfeeding is not something that requires privileges. It’s a physiological evolutionary fact, it is what puts us in the zoological class we live in (mammalia). Also, being supported is one thing, and I do agree that we sometimes need help with these things, it is a fact, however, it depends on the cultural and individual needs of the person. You may one day find a woman who needs all the help she can get as she has had no experience of it but has read the books and decided it’s what’s best, and you may also find a woman the next day who is totally isolated from her family and all manner of support who just gets on with it. Never take away the support, but it is NOT the be all and end all and it is certainly not always needed, and sometimes, being left to their own devices (and by that I mean COMPLETELY) is actually the best enabler for a woman. You have to judge it individually.

BUT…it does seem trivial, the whole femininity=pink=breasts=sexy cluster of ideas that these campaigns reinforce is not helpful for any woman and must have a devastating effect on the self-esteem of those who have had a mastectomy and, yeah, the danger is that these games pander to people’s smug self-congratulation and that people will think “I’ve done my bit for Breast Cancer today by thinking about it and clicking a stupid link”, so they may not actually bother to go and do anything constructive for the cause.

Plus, even if these campaigns DO help to raise awareness and funds, what are people who suffer from forms of cancer that aren’t “sexy” supposed to do? The idea that some cancers are attracting more research money and garnering more publicity than others simply because they provide an amusing excuse for people to think about bras is quite vile.

I’m no anthropologist, but I’m great in a pub quiz, and I believe (but I could be wrong) that on a more animalistic level that males of most species tend to be more transient in their attitude to partnership and bonding, whereas females tend towards long-term relationships and bonding, given that they (again, this is a broad statement and not applicable in every species or situation) are designed somewhat to have more lasting relationships as childbearers and family-raisers in species with socialisation!

Ergo, men fancy celebs ‘cos they’re fit, and women want to have their handsome little talent babies

…I think that’s the most broad simplification I’ve ever made. Talk about sweeping simplicity.

My problem is these games don’t raise awareness of breast cancer or raise funds for it’s research. They are just stupid innuendo’s which categorise women’s cancers as another ‘pink’ think. They make cancer out to be a trivial, laughable matter. Raising awareness would be to have a FB status that says “12,00 women and around 100 men a year die from breast cancer. Check your breasts regularly and spread this message on”. That’s awareness raising- a meme which doesn’t even MENTION the words Breast Cancer is just a ridiculous, cryptic game which entirely demeans the point.

I think, however, that it’s not healthy if it gets to the point where I don’t have aspirations of my own or where I’m far less interested in the achievements of equally talented female celebrities, simply because I don’t want to snog them, which I think was the stage I was at when I was a teenager.

It seems to me that heterosexual men can feel sexually about celebrities of the opposite sex, while simultaneously looking up to talented celebrities of their own sex as godlike role models, and that’s kind of the balance I’d like to achieve. Does that make sense?