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?
Showing posts with label soapboxing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soapboxing. Show all posts
Wednesday, 2 March 2011
Saturday, 5 February 2011
Bit Cross
Yesterday in tweets:
@73caroline: DLR delayed. Jubilee line closed. Blackwall tunnel stationary and full of police. #willIevergettowork?
As a lot of Londoners will know by now, there was carnage on the Jubilee line yesterday morning. Now peak hour tube travel is never pretty - crowded trains, minor delays and someone else snatching the last copy of the Metro are all quite the norm for most London commuters – but this was bad even by those standards. For about two hours, from 7.30am until half past nine, there were no trains running in either direction between London Bridge and Stratford. None at all.
By the time I tweeted the above, I had been trying to get to work for about an hour and a quarter. Normally I catch a bus from my house to the DLR station at Woolwich. The same bus goes on to North Greenwich tube station, but I’ve worked out it’s slightly quicker to get off at Woolwich, catch the DLR to Canning Town and pick up the Jubilee line there. More changes, but it shaves about ten minutes off the journey and, as an added bonus, there’s a bus from Canning Town station to my office. As any Jubilee line user will tell you; it’s always good to have a backup plan.
Just before I left home I caught a news bulletin on the radio which said there were minor delays on the DLR. No problem, I thought. I’ll just stay on the bus all the way to North Greenwich. A change is as good as an arm which is fore-warned, and all that. (I may be mixing my metaphors slightly.) The news about the Jubilee line came to us, via the bus driver, just long enough after we’d passed the DLR station to make it not worth going back. But that was fine. As a seasoned Jubilee line user, I had a Plan C up my sleeve. Plan C involved getting on another bus at North Greenwich which would take me, via the Blackwall Tunnel, to Bromley by Bow. Which it did ,eventually, but not before it spent several life-times sitting in the Blackwall tunnel.
I did get to work finally; about two hours after I first left home, and half an hour late. I wasn’t the only one.
@LDN: TfL to refund passengers affected by Canary Wharf disruption this morning http://LDN.in/i9C2NW (via @anniemole)
I was mildly irritated by this headline; the ‘disruption’ I experienced this morning wasn’t anything to do with Canary Wharf. Stupid lazy journalism (I thought). I clicked the link which took me to a news story on the Transport for London website, and then my blood began to boil.
@73caroline: FUMING about this: http://LDN.in/i9C2NW Jubilee line runs through the most deprived areas of London. Why only Canary Wharf users refunded?
Turns out it wasn’t lazy journalism. Turns out that TfL are going to refund tube users who suffered yesterday morning, and give them a free trip home. But only if they get on or off at Canary Wharf or its neighbouring DLR stations.
Within minutes, I had a reply:
@Cbp76: @73caroline dont think u read that properly mate, try again
I don’t know @Cbp76 at all, so the ‘mate’ rankled me slightly, while the ‘try again’ tacked on the end seemed needlessly patronising. Still, I re-read the article carefully.
It said exactly what I thought it said.
@73caroline: @Cbp76 Er, think I did, actually! Canning Town passengers, say, would be refunded if they were fined for incomplete journey ->
@73caroline: @Cbp76 <-- but someone who commutes from/to Canary wharf would have had their fare waived completely. Doesn't seem fair....
I still think I'm right about this. Here, word for word, is the information as it appears on the TfL website:
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Transport for London are offering passengers some kind of compensation, even if they’re only doing it because Boris Johnson shouted at them for making him look like a bit of an idiot.
What I’m not happy about is the inequity. Especially since as a whole, the people getting on or off the tube at Canning Town or Stratford are going to be a)less financially solvent and b)less able to navigate their way through the complicated process of applying for a refund than the ones using the stations at and around Canary Wharf. Who, let's face it, will mostly be bankers.
Now I know that I'm generalising slightly. And yes, I know that bankers are easy targets. But why give the automatic refund and a free journey home to them, but not to the other commuters who were affected? The ones to whom the extra money might make a real difference? It seems fundamentally unfair to me.
@73caroline: DLR delayed. Jubilee line closed. Blackwall tunnel stationary and full of police. #willIevergettowork?
As a lot of Londoners will know by now, there was carnage on the Jubilee line yesterday morning. Now peak hour tube travel is never pretty - crowded trains, minor delays and someone else snatching the last copy of the Metro are all quite the norm for most London commuters – but this was bad even by those standards. For about two hours, from 7.30am until half past nine, there were no trains running in either direction between London Bridge and Stratford. None at all.
By the time I tweeted the above, I had been trying to get to work for about an hour and a quarter. Normally I catch a bus from my house to the DLR station at Woolwich. The same bus goes on to North Greenwich tube station, but I’ve worked out it’s slightly quicker to get off at Woolwich, catch the DLR to Canning Town and pick up the Jubilee line there. More changes, but it shaves about ten minutes off the journey and, as an added bonus, there’s a bus from Canning Town station to my office. As any Jubilee line user will tell you; it’s always good to have a backup plan.
Just before I left home I caught a news bulletin on the radio which said there were minor delays on the DLR. No problem, I thought. I’ll just stay on the bus all the way to North Greenwich. A change is as good as an arm which is fore-warned, and all that. (I may be mixing my metaphors slightly.) The news about the Jubilee line came to us, via the bus driver, just long enough after we’d passed the DLR station to make it not worth going back. But that was fine. As a seasoned Jubilee line user, I had a Plan C up my sleeve. Plan C involved getting on another bus at North Greenwich which would take me, via the Blackwall Tunnel, to Bromley by Bow. Which it did ,eventually, but not before it spent several life-times sitting in the Blackwall tunnel.
I did get to work finally; about two hours after I first left home, and half an hour late. I wasn’t the only one.
@LDN: TfL to refund passengers affected by Canary Wharf disruption this morning http://LDN.in/i9C2NW (via @anniemole)
I was mildly irritated by this headline; the ‘disruption’ I experienced this morning wasn’t anything to do with Canary Wharf. Stupid lazy journalism (I thought). I clicked the link which took me to a news story on the Transport for London website, and then my blood began to boil.
@73caroline: FUMING about this: http://LDN.in/i9C2NW Jubilee line runs through the most deprived areas of London. Why only Canary Wharf users refunded?
Turns out it wasn’t lazy journalism. Turns out that TfL are going to refund tube users who suffered yesterday morning, and give them a free trip home. But only if they get on or off at Canary Wharf or its neighbouring DLR stations.
This seems fundamentally unfair to me. Particularly since, as noted in my tweet, the very eastern end of the Jubilee line runs through the borough of Newham, which regularly pops up on ‘most-deprived-areas-of-the-country’ lists.
Within minutes, I had a reply:
@Cbp76: @73caroline dont think u read that properly mate, try again
I don’t know @Cbp76 at all, so the ‘mate’ rankled me slightly, while the ‘try again’ tacked on the end seemed needlessly patronising. Still, I re-read the article carefully.
It said exactly what I thought it said.
@73caroline: @Cbp76 Er, think I did, actually! Canning Town passengers, say, would be refunded if they were fined for incomplete journey ->
@73caroline: @Cbp76 <-- but someone who commutes from/to Canary wharf would have had their fare waived completely. Doesn't seem fair....
I still think I'm right about this. Here, word for word, is the information as it appears on the TfL website:
Customers who exited Canary Wharf Tube, or Heron Quays, West India Quay or Canary Wharf DLR between 07:15 and 10:30 this morning will have their journey fare refunded.
Any passenger who incurred incomplete journey charges during this period at these stations, or while travelling through any station on the Jubilee line between London Bridge and Stratford, will have these automatically waived.
In addition, anyone travelling from Canary Wharf (Jubilee line or DLR), Heron Quays or West India Quay between 16:00 and 20:00 this evening will have their journey fare automatically refunded.
The refunds, which apply to Oyster pay as you go users, will be applied automatically when passengers travel through the gate line as usual at their regular station.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Transport for London are offering passengers some kind of compensation, even if they’re only doing it because Boris Johnson shouted at them for making him look like a bit of an idiot.
What I’m not happy about is the inequity. Especially since as a whole, the people getting on or off the tube at Canning Town or Stratford are going to be a)less financially solvent and b)less able to navigate their way through the complicated process of applying for a refund than the ones using the stations at and around Canary Wharf. Who, let's face it, will mostly be bankers.
Now I know that I'm generalising slightly. And yes, I know that bankers are easy targets. But why give the automatic refund and a free journey home to them, but not to the other commuters who were affected? The ones to whom the extra money might make a real difference? It seems fundamentally unfair to me.
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