Janie BoschmaThere aren’t many things in this world that can get me into a riled up frenzy of anger and frustration. I have opinions on many things, but it takes a lot to get me revved up and passionate about controversial topics. Well, recently, there has been one topic that really gets my goat.
My passion stems mainly because that topic has struck my life in such a personal way on so many levels. Though my anger on the issue has been ongoing, it surfaced again Friday due to the debut of the controversial swimsuit calendar at SheNannigans.
From the get-go, I was not a huge supporter of the calendars. I really became infuriated about the topic when the creators and their supporters started making gratuitous, inaccurate and disrespectful comments regarding their “work.”
In articles in The Spectator in 2005, the year the calendar debuted, the creators were saying this was a great way to help out a good cause and support cancer research. Yes, it probably raised some money. Bake sales on campus raise money. Heck, even bake sales protesting affirmative action have raised money on this campus.
The group could have started rubber athletic bracelets similar to the LiveStrong bracelets, which helped raise millions of dollars for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Now we don’t have a celebrity cancer survivor on this campus who beat the worst prognosis for a cancer patient and then went on to win seven consecutive Tour de France championships to sell the bracelets, but it is an idea that is less humiliating to cancer patients.
Stripping yourself down to the skimpiest swimwear you can find and sexually posing on a jet ski or in the sand next to the Chippewa River is anything but respectful to yourself, to cancer patients, the university and the city it is embedded in.
Colleges Against Cancer has since passed the project along, which is now under control of the Eau Claire Calendar for Cancer.
Comments made by calendar creators at last year’s and this fall’s release have hit me even more personally than the first calendar.
An individual was quoted last semester by The Spectator as saying, “A lot of people look negatively at it, but I think the people who look at it negatively have never had cancer. You hear everyone talk about cancer … it goes in one ear and out the other. I wanted to put a story behind the face.”
When I read this, I did a double take. Really? Huh. Well, I oppose the calendar, and I think it would be safe to say that I had cancer. Seeing as how when I was 3 years old, doctors at the UW-Children’s Hospital in Madison diagnosed me with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, and I suffered for three agonizing years getting pumped full of toxic chemotherapy, which was essentially killing me to the point where the cancer cells would not be able to survive. My mom would wash my hair at night and have it fall out in clumps. Not many 6 year olds can say they had to have sunscreen rubbed on their bald head. I would also completely destroy my room because of the drugs that I needed to take. My parents cried downstairs listening to me. Now there is a story behind a face.
Selling your half-naked body for cancer research isn’t a story; it’s a mirror to character.
I know there have been models in the calendar that have had cancer and their family commends them for their work, but generalizing is a dangerous thing. I find it hard to believe that my girlfriend’s grandmother battling breast cancer would find the calendar appropriate, or the 300 cancer patients and founders of One Step at A Time Camp, a camp for children who have or have had cancer. Did you go over to Sacred Heart or Luther-Middlefort or Mayo’s oncology departments and ask the patients if they would appreciate a calendar of half-naked women being sold for their cause if they thought it represented them?
Organizers of the calendar claim on the calendar’s Web site that creating the calendar is a great way to get “hands on experience that future employers will value.” If one of the models or creators end up working for Sports Illustrated, Maxim or Playboy, sure they might value the “project,” but when one goes to apply at a financial institution or government organization or other company, I don’t think they’ll value your swimsuit calendar project, let alone acknowledge it. If anything, the project could backfire during an interview and the employer will look at the creators, as people who are aiding in objectifying women and might not hire you out of concern for the women that work at the company.
Next year, I encourage the calendar group, if they want to continue in the calendar business, to go down to the local oncology units or take a road-trip to Madison to the new American Family Children’s Hospital and recruit cancer patients to draw pictures for the month. Include their picture next to their drawings. Not only is it more respectful for cancer patients and survivors, it also represents us in a much cleaner and appropriate manner. And if you want to go buy the calendar this week, I encourage you to instead, take your $10 and go down to the ACS office in Altoona and give it to them, or mail it to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital instead.
