If you have a family member with many women, then chances are you know someone affected by breast cancer. With the month of October comes the breast cancer awareness campaign; but along with the campaign comes controversy. Has breast cancer become too sexualized?

One of the statements that go along with breast cancer awareness is “Save the Tatas.” To some, this is a statement of strength and unity to end breast cancer. To others, this is a derogatory statement sexualizing a serious topic and not focusing on saving the women. Do the people who don the “Save the Tatas” apparel really know the true meaning behind the campaign, or are they just trying to fit in and conform to the sexuality of our generation?

The opposition to the “Save the Tatas” campaign has many reasons for why they think the campaign is wrong. One of their strongest arguments is how sexual we’ve become when looking at the topic. We focus more on the statement and look at this cancer as one part of a woman’s body instead of saving the whole woman. The ladies who have endured this cancer live with the scars and memories that haunt them everyday. They live with the constant battle of prevention and fighting, while the rest of society obscures the reality of what is really going on. As an offshoot of this campaign, there is another named “Set the Tatas Free” where women go without bras for one designated day in order to “raise awareness” about the disease. This also heated up the controversy, as there are other ways to raise awareness besides degrading and sexualizing women.

So what are the different opinions of this controversy? As a young adult who doesn’t have breast cancer, but know people who have survived and passed away from it, I do not believe that it was intended to be a sexual phrase or campaign, yet people have taken it to be more than it is. I also believe that the reason it seems sexual is because some people don’t know how to appropriately handle a campaign like this and try to blow a problem that isn’t a problem out of proportion.

When talking with a breast cancer survivor who recently celebrated her eleventh anniversary of beating cancer, she had a different take than me. She believes that the “Save the Tatas” campaign is not sexual at all. She brings up the point that breast cancer is not age or gender specific. Anyone can get it. Also, there are several other campaigns that refer to even more sexualized names than this campaign does. She believes that this campaign is very important to bring awareness to breast cancer.

With campaigns like this that are so controversial, comes knowledge. People are taking part in this debate that would otherwise not give a second thought to breast cancer, self-evaluation, etc. Maybe this campaign is only helping, not hurting. What is your take on the issue?