New York fashion photographer David Jay is seeking to update the face of breast cancer awareness from frothy pink to strikingly honest pictures of the women scarred by mastectomy surgery. His message: “Breast cancer is not a pink ribbon.”
I want to throw in that I have a lot of issues with Pink Ribbon International and feel that much of the messaging they have popularized both is sexist/objectifying and perpetuates myth about who is affected. (While women are far more likely to get breast cancer, men generally have poorer outcomes because they get diagnosed so much later. Many men still have no idea that breast cancer can happen to men.) It bothers me the degree to which they also use thin, young, conventionally attractive white women in their messaging, because, you know, who wants to save the tatas when they’re attached to a woman who is not thin, young and conventionally attractive?
I appreciate the work they do to raise money and awareness. I just find the way they go about it to be extremely problematic.