Breast Cancer Awareness Month Can Trigger People Impacted By the Disease. These Women Want to Change That (Exclusive)

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which began as a week-long initiative to educate people about routine screening and mammograms, according to the American Cancer Society.

Since then, it has grown into a global, month-long movement to raise awareness of the disease, which affects around 1 in 8 women every year. And in that time, more than half a million lives have been saved, according to ACS. But for many people impacted by breast cancer, the campaign can be triggering. 

Before being diagnosed with breast cancer at 32 years old, I remember participating in Breast Cancer Awareness Month events and buying pink products blindly without any real information about where the proceeds were going. The campaign is effective in raising awareness about early detection and the importance of research, but it feels different now that I’ve been personally impacted by breast cancer. 

And I’m not the only one.

“Five years into my survivorship, for the first time, breast cancer month hit differently,” says Trish Michelle, 36, a nine-year breast cancer survivor and founder of breast cancer advocacy group The Breasties. “I realized, ‘Whoa, this play is about us.’ ” 

That’s why the Breasties launched Reclaim October, an initiative to educate the public about “pinkwashing,” a term those impacted by breast cancer use to describe the practice of companies or corporations using pink ribbons or pink products as a marketing tactic without actually donating to research or organizations, or without being transparent about how much, if any, of the proceeds go to support those directly affected. 

“They are taking a cause that has become so popularized and has affected so many people all around the world,” says Anj Oto, a 36-year-old breast cancer survivor and member of The Breasties. “They’re using that to their advantage so that they can sell more products without actually supporting the people in the breast cancer community who are being affected by it.” 

Conversations around “pinkwashing” aren’t new. Breast Cancer Action launched a campaign called Think Before You Pink in 2002 in response to growing concerns about pink ribbon products on the market. Like Reclaim October, the campaign calls for “transparency and accountability” by companies that take part in fundraising for breast cancer. 

“I think the more that people are doing this, the more that we can hold companies accountable and we are actually seeing companies start to respond,” Oto says.”Some are even changing the amount of proceeds that they’re donating.”  

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Survivors want others to know that it’s not all about pink ribbons, 5K walks, sparkly pink wigs and t-shirts. As someone who found my own lump, younger women like me often feel overlooked since we aren’t at the age to qualify for early screenings like mammograms.

Many large breast cancer awareness campaigns also don’t factor in the need for more funding toward metastatic or stage 4 breast cancer, and they often don’t raise enough awareness about the unique impacts breast cancer has on younger people and people of color, or how it can also affect men in rare cases. 

Michelle, who was diagnosed with breast cancer at 36, said she struggled to find people to relate to at the time. As a Black woman raising young children, she sought out a community of other young women like her, which eventually led to launching The Breasties. 

“I found myself craving community,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Who else looks like me? Who else is swiping and dating and raising young kids while navigating this?’” 

The Breasties brings together people from all over the world impacted by breast and gynecological cancers, whether they are survivors, living with metastatic breast cancer, previvors (people who have increased risk of developing breast or gynecological cancers due to family history or having the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene) or caretakers. 

“There still is no nonprofit that says a previvor and a survivor can be in the same space because they can learn from one another,” Michelle says. “There are too many of us that found our own lumps or whatever the reaction was that started this whole process. And it’s terrible that my breast education started at my breast cancer diagnosis.”

Every year, The Breasties bring together hundreds of people impacted by breast cancer for an event called Camp Breastie, where they can bond and be their authentic selves. The biggest goal? To form a community and ensure that money raised goes directly to people impacted by the disease, especially those with metastatic breast cancer.  All donations raised by The Breasties and Reclaim October go to the Magee-Women’s Research Institute for stage 4 cancer research. 

So how can you show up for breast cancer in a more meaningful way? Michelle encourages people to not just wear the color pink or purchase products at the register, but to ensure the foundations and organizations receiving your money actually use it to support breast cancer research. According to Metavivor, between 2014 and 2020, only 13 percent of breast cancer research dollars were dedicated to metastatic or stage 4 breast cancer, which are incurable.

“We know what breast cancer is. We are very much aware, but what we need is actual support for the patients,” Oto says.