There was widespread discussion about the ''I like..." Facebook craze last month. While I felt that this campaign sexualised breast cancer in a weird kinda way, NZ Girl's latest campaign has left me (nearly) speechless. Viewers are invited to "get your tits out for the girls!... and don't forget to check out the other lovely pairs, beautiful boobs and pretty titties already uploaded."
For every 50 pairs of "titties" uploaded by viewers, NZGirl will donate $1000 to breast cancer awareness. This campaign began yesterday and already there is a gallery of over 49 pairs of breasts to peruse, rank and comment on. Hmm, a gallery of "titties" ranked according to popularity and the ability for me to leave comments about them. How exactly is this different to a crude pornography site? NZGirl is exploiting women and girls in order to drive traffic to their website. It is making light of an horrific disease in order to gain popularity. It is belittling the experience of breast cancer sufferers, many of whom are left scarred or who have had to have their breasts removed. But in marketing terms, this campaign has been a resounding success - over 25,000 people visited the site this morning, crashing it. Boganette has written a great post on why NZGirl's campaign is oh-so-wrong: "Celebrate breasts, of course. But don't do it in the name of breast cancer. Breast cancer isn't about breasts. It's not something you should have a laugh about on Twitter. It's not something you should joke about on Facebook. It shouldn't be a reason for posting photos of your breasts or flashing them or 'getting them out'... Breast cancer is a horrible, miserable, horrifying disease - that's it. It's cancer - it's not motivation for you to be happy with your body." I hate the pretty-fying of breast cancer. The sexy-fying of breast cancer. Breast cancer is not sexy images of pert wee breasts. If you want to see the realities of breast cancer, check out The Scar Project. It's raw and it's real. There is nothing funny about it. According to Stuff: NZgirl editor and general manager Tee Twyford said the campaign wasn't about driving traffic to their site, but about raising awareness. "The reason for it was twofold. There was a desire to have readers feel really good about their breasts and we wanted to align it with a breast cancer cause to get greater awareness and funding," Twyford said. So, according to Tee Twyford, women need to share photos of their breasts with the world in order to feel good about themselves. We all need to seek external validation to make sure that our breasts are up to scratch, that they're OK. Dear Tee, please explain how being in the lower half of the rankings is going to help 50% of those women feel good about their breasts? Because Tee, in a rankings system, there is always a loser. And for the 'winners' in the top half of the rankings, are they supposed to feel great about themselves because a whole bunch of strangers have critiqued their breasts and given them a thumbs-up? Tee Twyford, I am not going to send your website a photo of my breasts. They are beautiful and I love them. But I don't need NZGirl to rank them and I don't need strangers to give me their comments about them. Because those strangers don't know that my breasts and I have been through lots together. Those strangers don't know or care that my breasts fed my baby and that I love them in all their uneven, stretch-marky, increasingly-less-pert glory. Or that it took me quite some time to learn to love them. Disturbingly, but not surprisingly, many of the breast photos that have been uploaded seem to be of teenagers. Through Enlighten Education I work with teen girls throughout New Zealand. I often have tears of sadness when talking with them about the immense pressures they face with regards to their body. New Zealand's rates of eating disorders and depression amongst teenagers are skyrocketing. Just yesterday I spent a morning with 150 gorgeous year 10 girls who all told me that they felt that they were not beautiful enough, not skinny enough and not perfect enough. It is campaigns such this one that add to the overwhelming pressure and sense for girls that they are just not enough. As soon as I have posted this I am going to email Tee Twyford to invite her to sit in on one of these sessions. Perhaps then she would realise the effects that such media campaigns have on our girls. Once photos are uploaded on to the internet, the owners cease to have any control over how they are used. To assume that these photos will not be used for pornographic purposes is naive. We teach girls to never upload compromising photos of themselves - why is a (previously) respected website encouraging them to do exactly this? Women, why are we doing this to each other? Are men rushing to upload photos of their penis to raise money for "cancer awareness"? NZGirl, if your motivation really is to raise money for breast cancer research I can think of a million more positive ways to do this. Even simpler: if you really want to donate to a good cause, just get out your credit card and donate. Simple.
31 Comments
Brilliant post. That really sums up how I feel about the whole issue. Thank-you! The ranking system is particularly shocking to me. With all the PR-spin about loving 'breasts of all shapes and sizes' the top-rated breasts are all very socially acceptable, pert, perfect ones. Funny that!
Reply
Fantastic post, you have nailed what I find distasteful about this "campaign". When I saw the tweets about this yesterday, I honestly thought it was some dogey. smutty group dare or something. yeah that really raised awareness. Not. I also agree, if you want to help, donate, no way I'm silly enough to send in a free porn shot to a website!
Reply
Tanya
1/12/2010 08:09:58 am
Rachel, how do you now that "Disturbingly, but not surprisingly, many of the breast photos that have been uploaded seem to be of teenagers." ? Mine are up there, and I'm 34yrs old. Thank you if you think they look like a teenagers. Love Headless Rack xx
Reply
Sarah
1/12/2010 08:32:43 am
If I'm going to upload a picture of my breasts to the internet for men to masturbate over, someone sure as hell better be paying me.
Reply
1/12/2010 01:44:44 pm
@Genevieve - yes, it seems that these photos have already made their way to a porn site - http://www.xtube.com/set.php?s=syz3c0BYw9N (link courtesy of Boganette)
Reply
There's no way to pretty it up, I have a deformed chest and shit like this is part of the reason it took me a long time to become comfortable with who I am.
Reply
Craig
2/12/2010 03:20:59 am
If sending in pictures of your favorite summer BBQ meal generated money for starving African kids, i would not have a problem. You have to be less emotional and more business like, its impairing your judgement over what really matters here. Guys are going to perv all over the place anyway, if you can tap into that resource and even turn half of it into something useful, why not? I am willing to accept there may be some moral ambiguity here yet you are being arrogant and bone-headed up on your high-horse.
Reply
C
2/12/2010 03:34:54 am
Craig, your sense of logic is astounding. Morals are still important, even in business situations. "Guys are going to perv all over the place anyway, if you can tap into that resource and even turn half of it into something useful, why not?" What, so maybe a group of women should turn to prostitution in order to raise money for breast cancer, because we're taping into a resource right? In every situation, be it business or whatever, there has to be STANDARDS. Exploiting girls to raise money should never be deemed appropriate! Especially when there are a MILLION other ways to raise just as much money for breast cancer without exploitation.
Reply
Craig
2/12/2010 04:03:14 am
Voluntarily uploading a simple face-less picture of your boobies to generate $20 for the breast cancer society is hardly prostitution. Your rebuttal comes across pretty black and white. Sure full body nudes and penetration would be off-limits but there are grey areas. I'm not denying that a simple donation would be much more noble. But if it came to this or nothing, I would choose this.
Reply
Craig
2/12/2010 04:11:35 am
By the way, 'Moral ambiguity' does not imply a disregard for morals, business or otherwise. It simply means its pretty subjective, you deem this hole farce 'bad', i am unattached and really couldn't care less. But the end result is a small monetary gain for the cancer society with a healthy dose of awareness. Are sufferers really going to stay up at night because a few more girls uploaded pictures of themselves to the net?
Reply
Craig
2/12/2010 04:44:16 am
Couldn't care less about the tits being on display. I was not referring to breast cancer there.
Reply
2/12/2010 06:34:33 am
Thanks for all the comments people.
Reply
Margaret
2/12/2010 07:38:45 am
I am so proud of you Rachel speaking out on behalf of so many girls and women who have such difficulty in accepting the natural beauty of their own bodies and their own souls. That NZ Girl needs to stoop to treating our breasts as a commodity in order to promote breast cancer awareness flies in the face of any logic let alone consider the pain and anguish faced daily by so many sufferers of breast cancer.
Reply
Andrew
2/12/2010 02:27:21 pm
Is it not unreasonable to believe that some women may perhaps feel a sense of empowerment, pride or perhaps closure in being able to publish in anonymity a part of their anatomy that they may associate with emotions such as shame, pride or embarrassment. Surely women should have the option and the chance to publish their breasts or not, the point being that there is a choice. I think the key is to protect an individuals autonomy. I do believe that in the case of this webiste the ability to rank and leave comments relating to womens breasts impacts negatively on what may be a particularly rewarding exercise for some women.
Reply
2/12/2010 02:28:44 pm
I just read a beautiful post about this topic - http://30daysofkate.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/my-two-cents/
Reply
Andrew
2/12/2010 02:31:51 pm
FYI - Conceptually this is effective and potentially positive however the execution lacks insight and is flawed.
Reply
2/12/2010 02:46:07 pm
@Andrew - thanks for your thoughts! Yes some women I am sure have found empowerment through uploading images of their breasts, and I would not judge someone on this.
Reply
Naomi
3/12/2010 01:28:35 pm
Rachel, you did fantastic tonight. Completely agree with all your points.
Reply
Really Mad
4/12/2010 12:24:43 am
NZgirl has claimed that they are rotating the “favourites”. However, I have checked the site a number of times in the past 24 hours and the same breasts have been rated number one all day today: a perky youthful pair that are the result of a breast enlargement operation. The age of the person in the photo is indicated by her final comment: “As my Mum put it, ‘they were meant to be yours.’”...... Rachel - those ones are the directors BTW...
Reply
Elizabeth
4/12/2010 12:47:36 am
You did brilliantly in the close-up interview. The opening pre-recorded piece was very biased in favour of NZgirl and those viewers watching without any other knowledge might have initially been convinced that the campaign was okay (the photos they chose were not representative but most on the site couldn't have been shown on TV ....). However, you came in strongly and got across arguments that showed up the campaign and NZgirl for what it is - a blatant exploitive marketing exercise.
Reply
4/12/2010 09:24:40 am
Jenene Freer has just stated that "And just in case anyone wonders, and to clear up the "marketing ploy", I will never enter this into any marketing awards."
Reply
Essentially, many of you are saying breasts should not be seen for any reason. I don't follow your reasoning, because I don't believe you are self-consistent.
Reply
4/12/2010 01:38:44 pm
@Carl, thanks for your reasonable questions. I will do my best to answer them. Any others, do feel free to answer them in your own way!
Reply
I think this is another over reaction to a light hearted good natured fundraiser. Such over reactions often have the effect of publicizing the very thing the complainants don't want in public in the first place and this is exactly what happened and why this campaign is such a successful one for NZ Girl. With many large foreign newspapers websites running this story and the NZ media going ballistic on it NZ Girl can only be said to be have been successful in their marketing and also have raised a large amount of awareness for the cause and not to mention the money they will be donating. This foray will die down but there will be another maybe a person will do something slightly edgy or inappropriate or a company will again leverage off the male or female body for a charity... and yet again there will be another outcry by the same people who go about their days knocking the positive endeavors of others. Maybe there could be a similar one for male testicular cancer? somehow I don't think many people will be rushing to that site.
Reply
Gravey
16/12/2010 03:41:23 pm
Sorry for the really late comment.
Reply
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorRachel is a writer and educator whose fields of interest include sexuality education, gender, feminism and youth development. Archives
November 2014
Categories
All
|