Say ta-ta to ‘Save the Ta-tas’

I’ve seen my fair share of irritating bumper stickers while cruising around Bloomington. “F@$& Toyota — I buy American” warrants an eye roll. But urging others to “Save the Ta-tas” is when a bumper sticker crosses from dim-witted vehicular ornamentation to thinly veiled ignorance.

This isn’t an isolated incident, either. A few months ago, I logged on to Facebook only to see that some of my friends were attending a “boob cookie decorating” event.

As a woman and a person with a relative battling breast cancer, I find it offensive that breast cancer organizations promote this politically incorrect terminology in what seems like a backward attempt to raise breast cancer awareness. 

During the past several months, the practice of substituting the words “ta-ta” for “breast” in terms of breast cancer has become increasingly popular. Inspirational slogans have gone from the National Breast Cancer Foundation’s “Help for Today...Hope for Tomorrow” to a 2009 public service announcement urging others to “save the boobs.”

The PSA, performed by Canadian MTV host Aliya Jasmine Sovani, defended its message by claiming the video encourages young adults to become aware instead of “picking up pamphlets with a 65-year-old woman on the cover and probably tossing them out.”

Although 5 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer are under the age of 40, aging is the leading factor linked to breast cancer.

Emphasizing the less frequently afflicted demographics gives individuals a skewed perspective of breast cancer and evinces a lack of sympathy for older women because their sagging breasts are apparently of no importance to sexually charged males.

These campaigns only promote the average male’s self-fulfilling prophecy that he will be a morally bankrupt being who is not expected to care about any female affliction unless it’s packaged in wrapping paper decorated with breasts, butts or vaginas. Julia Fikse’s “Save the Ta-tas” foundation relies on that exact mindset as it capitalizes on the idea that “men have an ability to take it into a sexual place very fast.”

And the strategy to gain the support of males who wouldn’t give a second thought to breast cancer unless it affected their sex lives shouldn’t be “Hey, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

Advocating the use of indecent terminology to discuss one of the leading forms of cancer in females is demoralizing for those afflicted and degrading for the entire female race.

It instills a chauvinistic attitude that demonstrates disregard for this disease. If breast cancer activists are actually determined to spread the word about this illness, they must change the words they use to do so.


E-mail: pkansal@indiana.edu