to be highly irritated by this stupid chain mail bollocks about breast cancer?

[ExquisiteCake]

I received this today in my Facebook inbox along with 195 other women.

"Put a heart (♥) on your wall without comment, only a heart. Then send this message to all your friends - only the women. Next, place a heart on the wall of the person who sent this message to you. And if someone asks you why you have so many hearts on your wall, do not reply. This is only for women to remember that this is the week to remember and care about breast cancer. And that we should always think about it. To make a heart, type < with no space and then a 3."

Is it just me, or is this so fucking ridiculous it makes you want to spit? I kindly replied that MEN SUFFER FROM BREAST CANCER TOO and isn't the point of awareness that you actually talk about it and not keep it all quiet....I'm also enraged that the "secret" symbol has to be heart. I think if there were to be a "secret" symbol, which is ludicrous in itself, it should at least be of a breast.

So sick of this girly girly crap of love hearts and pink fluffy feathers. Cancer doesn't come like that and passing this bollocks around doesn't do sod all. Rant over.

I hate these bloody things too. A family member did one of those daft facebook status things recently. No-one had any sodding idea what it was about - it was completely random and obscure and made it sound like they had made a very bizarre and life-changing decision. The whole family was calling each other saying "er, have you seen X's facebook status - they aren't really doing that are they?" since this family member has form for doing impulsive and impractical things.

It was only resolved when I found a message from her that I had overlooked inviting me to do the same thing with my status. The chain message said that it would "confuse the men" and "raise awareness". It was with great difficulty that I refrained from sending a fairly snippy message back pointing out that:
a) it is hardly raising awareness of anything if no-one has a clue what it is about
b) it serves no purpose whatsoever and benefits no-one unless you are the kind of person who likes to think of yourself as terribly active and compassionate by posting chain statuses on a social networking site
c) I think I am pretty damn aware of breast cancer seeing as how I have been minus a mother for the last 24 years courtesy of that particularly fun disease.

If you want to do something then donate or fund-raise or actually do something.

Grr.

The live abroad one - that's the bloody one!

Very interesting points, Sakura. The overmedicalization of women within the medical profession is rarely spoken about, but incredibly important and relevant.

Sakura, is on the money.

The live abroad one had be stumped but I guessed I literally said;

"Either all my friends are fucking off abroad to live, or they are fooling themselves into thinking that their statuses (stati) are raising awareness about cancer. Hands up who's checked their breasts since reading it? Didn't think so."

Breast cancer is the most common form of any cancer in the uk.
44,000 women are diagnosed each year. (300 men)

Lung & bowel cancer are the 2nd and 3rd most common cancers in women.
(about 18,000 diagnoses each year)

2,800 diagnosed each year with cervical cancer.

1 in 5 of ALL cancer deaths is from lung cancer.

Heart disease is actually the biggest killer of both men and women.
It kills more people than any cancer.
But people still smoke, over eat, drink too much and do no exercise.

Yep, they piss me off something rotten. I'm lucky, I found my breast cancer really early, it's not spread and I stand a damn good chance of 'curing' it. No amount of cryptic statuses (statusi? What's the damn plural?) would have helped me discover it.

I actually found it by waving my arm above my head doing silly dancing with DS and while my arm was raised, I had a scratch and found a lump. That's probably 'outed' me now to a few people, if they read Mumsnet...