Today I helped with the
Pink Ribbon street appeal. My mother's best friend died earlier this year after a long struggle with cancer that initially started as breast cancer. One of her daughters organised the central Lower Hutt region this year, so I helped out at Queensgate.
Something that struck me before I had even started my shift was the lack of men willing to buy a pink ribbon or band (the bands are those rubber ones you see everywhere now, like the yellow Lance Armstrong leukemia one). I was waiting at the bus stop at the bottom of Molesworth street for my bus this morning (which was, of course, late), and as I sat there I watched two girls who were collecting at the Railway station Bus Exchange area. At 8.30 in the morning this is quite a busy area and so you would assume their job of collecting wouldn't be too difficult. In the 20 minutes I was there (waiting for my
late bus), many women stopped to buy a ribbon only one man was feeling charitiable.
One! Out of the hundreds of people who went past, just one. I was amazed, but at least it prepared me for my own collection duties, because the Lower Hutt male population were just as bad.
Now obviously I do not think men are less charitable then women generally - don't get me wrong, this is not some feminist attack on the selfishness of man. I
have given some thought to it however, and have come up with two reasons to explain this lack of charity.
1.
PINK. Men do not like pink. Well society tells men not to like pink. So naturally if you ask a man to buy something pink (let alone a ribbon) they are going to feel obliged to decline.2. THE BREAST. Again, it all has to do with society. Although we might not be as prudish as we were, say, fifty years ago, the breast is still a bit of a taboo subject. For most women it is fine, we can discuss them and not feel embarassed, although there still are the few prudes among us. The only way men can discuss them however is through a passing remark such as "Mate, look at the tits on her" or some other piece of intellectual dialogue. To oogle is fine, but as soon as the breast becomes something other then a sexual object the subject is quickly closed. Those who object to breast-feeding in public tend to be men, bizarre as that might sound. Similarily, breast cancer is an uncomfortable subject for men. It may not happen to men, but for every woman who is diagnosed with it, it will effect at least one man in that woman's life. Still, men chose to walk past us today, avoiding eye contact, or if they did donate then they did so very quickly and would not take a ribbon.
Interestingly enough, those males who were the most strongly represented in their charity were boys/young men of about 14 to 20 years old. Maybe there is hope for the future generation still.
