I'm whichever fruit means "it's really none of your business, actually". A lime, maybe?

I'm all for raising breast cancer awareness.  But this is driving me insane:

We are playing a game. Someone proposed that we (GIRLS!) do something special  to help with Breast Cancer Awareness. Its easy, and I'd like you to join us to help it spread. Last year it was about writing the color of the bra that you were wearing in your status and it left men wondering for days why the girls had random colors as their status. This year it has to do with your relationship status. You will state where you are, by posting one of the codes below. Remember - don't reply to this message just type your one word response in your status box on your profile. Then cut and paste this whole message into a new message and send it along to your female friends....



Blueberry: Im single
Pineapple its complicated
Raspberry: Im a touch and go woman
Apple: Engaged
Cherry: In a relationship
Banana: Im married
Avocado: Im the "other one"
Strawberry: Cant find the right one
Lemon: Wish i was single
Grape: wants to get married.


The bra game reached TV, lets get this one to do the same, and show everyone how powerful women are.

I was sent the above message via facebook a few days ago.  About a month ago I received almost the exact same message but to do with drinks instead of fruit - beer if you were married, tequilla if single, etc.

The bra-colour game actually happened in October 2009.  October is breast cancer awareness month so the timing made sense.  I've heard recently that the original messages included the suggestion that, since they'd already be in the area, as it were, women might want to do a quick breast self-examination while they were checking to see what colour bra they had on. Hence bra colour specificially, not underwear in general.  This also makes sense.  And as an awareness-raising strategy it worked. The random colours popping up all over facebook certainly got men scratching their heads. In fact for the first week or so, until the email chain had made its way to my circle of friends, it got me scratching my head too.

Which raises the first issue; the whole "let's keep it a big secret from those silly MEN" business.  I just don't get this. Some of my best friends are male.  Come to think of it, most of my best friends are male.  Don't get me wrong, I like my female friends too; I've just never bought into this whole "them vs us" mentality and have never been a fan of 'girls nights out' or 'girly nights in' or girly things in general.  I happily accept that this puts me in a minority; there are plenty of women who worship the sisterhood like some kind of religion, and I can see why the 'no-boys-allowed' element might appeal to those women.  And if appealing to that particular instinct is a way of getting more people on board then fair play, I suppose.

 Last October there was a similar 'game' where women posted comments like "I like it in the hallway" or "I like it wherever there's room" which were meant to sound like places they liked to have sex but were actually where they put their handbag when they got home.  All a bit juvenille, maybe, and not quite as relevant as the bra colour campaign, but with the same whiff of 'let's leave the silly men out'.   Still, it raised a few eyebrows, and got people talking, and at least it happened during Breast Cancer Awareness month.

But..... using a secret code to tell people about your love life? In the middle of January?  And then again, using a slightly different code, a month later?
 
I absolutely think breast cancer awareness is important.  I just don't think this is the best way to draw attention to the issue.  I don't like being defined by my relationship status at the best of times, and deliberately don't include this information in my facebook profile.  It's not really anyone else's business.   If we're going to talk about general demographic information, what's next after relationships -  choose the animal which best describes your current employment status?  Rabbit - unemployed, bear - I'm working illegally, giraffe - I have a job but I really hate my boss?

And how on earth does announcing to the world at large that you are having an affair, or just can't find the right man yet, or are unhappy in your relationship, make you more powerful as a woman, just because you've done it using the secret language of fruit?
I know that breast cancer is an issue which affects many people personally, and a lot of people will have forwarded the fruit / drink messages with the best of intentions.  My worry is that in doing so, all they will succeed in doing is trivialising the cause.  After all, if we start being bombarded with these sorts of emails all year round, pretty soon they'll get irritating. And the bra-color campain will be remembered not as the clever, awareness-raising stunt that it was, but rather as the game which started off the whole annoying business.
 
There are plenty of other ways to raise awareness.  If people want to use social networking as a tool,  Breast Cancer Awareness have a  really informative facebook page .  Why not post a link to that?  Or how about using status updates to share personal experiences with cancer, make us think about the issue and why it's such an important one?