October. That pink month of football.

 A whole month of men in pink? From football stadium to football stadium? This is what I have to say.
ENOUGH.

We get it. You want us to think you care about women, are socially aware and are behind the movement to find a cure for breast cancer, to provide medical care, and the resources needed, to encourage early diagnosis... blah blah blah.
 According to the article by Amanda Hess that ran in Slate four days ago,

"A Crucial Catch’s annual effort includes stenciling football fields with breast cancer ribbons, recruiting star athletes to don baby pink in commercials supporting the effort, and selling fans on rose-tinted team-branded gear. Some of the proceeds of those sales are donated to the American Cancer Society, but “the league declines to say” the percentage it’s actually forking over—and either way, the apparel conveniently promotes the Giants and the Cowboys (and specifically encourages female investment in those brands) alongside women’s health. One particularly grim stat: Ticketmaster capped its 2012 A Crucial Catch donation at $40,000. That’s just $1 for every woman who died of breast cancer in 2012; one study found that patients with metastatic breast cancer cost the U.S. a combined $12.2 billion annually in direct and indirect costs.

  Read that again, The league decline to say the percentage it's actually forking over.... really??
Truth is- YOU ARE HOGGING THE MONTH, stealing limelight for other charities, lining pockets that, hell, are mink fur and gold lined already.
 And more than that. The pink is annoying, and bothersome. How many plays were missed when we thought that flag was someone's dropped towel?
  My thought is this. Pink does not equal a breast. What about pale hairy men with breast cancer? African American women? Don't make me list all the different kinds, colors, shapes of tits out there. Please, please, email me one if it is hot pink.
 I know, I know. I read all about the ribbon, the color choice, the background ((you can read it here) but what about the other choices how the fashion industry wanted to make a bull's-eye, how someone else suggested the upside down purple ribbon with the tear shape?  You want men to promote and back breast cancer awareness? Maybe we need to have a beautiful healthy breast be the symbol. Hats shaped like boobs. Make your own shirt. Wear your bra on the outside of your blouse. Have men see what a mammogram looks like, how it feels. Send around self- check cards, posters, post the HOW TO in a humorous way. These shirts are better than the ribbons.

 Come on. 

 More than early diagnosis, is the need to educate women on prevention. Healthy eating, exercise and maintaining a low BMI, plus reducing the daily intake of alcohol all play a part in reducing the risk of breast cancer. Europeans have been promoting this type of frontal attack on the disease for years. ( They have a single day of BREAST AWARENESS.)

 I learned more about breast cancer prevention and statistics in a European 3 minute video than I gathered from 16 convoluted pages of American medical literature, where blame was placed on genetics, cigarettes, hormone therapy, radiation in the work place, birth control pills, oh yeah, and some non-conclusive dietary and physical activity habits.

 Give back the pink. 1980 is calling.

 Step up to reality. We want to be taught, not accessorized. 

I'd listen more if one football player told one story each Sunday about his experience with breast cancer.

Especially if he was wearing these.