Breast Cancer

Dr. Judith Rosenbaum, Director of Public History at the Jewish Women's Archive and lead developer of Living the Legacy educational materials, first wrote this piece for Role/Reboot. There you can read the piece in its entirety.

Here We Go Again. Add Mourdock to the Akin mixology, shake, and serve on the rocks.

It is with a heavy heart and an angry mind, that I have raised and donated my last dollar for Komen.

Today we learned that Susan G.

• Transgender rabbi is celebrated as the the new assistant rabbi and music director at Berkeley’s Congregation Beth El. This story is also an example of the right way to report on a story about a trans individual (using correct pronouns, respectful language, etc), which is unfortunately still a rarity in the media these days. [JWeekly]

• Another example of why celebrating boobs in the name of breast cancer fundraising is problematic at best, distasteful in general. [Jezebel]

• Sarah Lefton, creator of G-dCast, on her experience at the White House reception for Jewish American Heritage Month. About meeting Justice Ginsburg, Lefton said: "Of all the people there, the high school debate nerd in me was extremely awestruck by her." [JWeekly] Also from the White House, author Judy Blume tweets about meeting Regina Spektor. [Jezebel]

Today I got a curious message titled "Breast Cancer Awareness" in my inbox on Facebook.  It instructed me to update my status to say the color of my bra, and asked me to spread the word to my lady friends only. It struck me as an odd way to show support for breast cancer awareness, but I decided to play along. 

Throughout the day, I saw the number of status updates reading simply "black" or "hot pink" increase throughout the day, accompanied by comments by confused and frustrated male friends asking, "What does it mean???"  I was pretty surprised to see how quickly the message spread throughout the Facebook universe.  (Behold the power of social media!)

And as this was happening, and will continue to happen, I couldn't help but wonder what Ida Cohen Rosenthal -- co-founder of Maidenform -- would think of the fact that the bra is quickly becoming a symbol of breast cancer awareness.

These last several weeks, I (like other JWA bloggers) have walked around in a haze of frustration, rage, and despair over politicians' apparent blindness to the centrality of women's health to national health. As a historian, I can attest that as goes women's health, so goes the health of the nation.

T-shirt available from CafePress.com.

"Boobs, boobies, titties, and ta-tas."  These are not the words of a giggling 6 year-old, but the words of the nationwide Breast Cancer awareness campaign.  They are illustrated by the t-shirt to the right, and a variety of other oh-so-tasteful designs. October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and this year, campaigns have ditched the emotional appeals to save the lives of the women in your life in favor of misogynistic slogans like, "Save the titties!" and "Save Second Base!"

Jews are generally not a quiet people -- at least not in America in this day and age. We like to speak up, to speak out, to express our opinionated selves fairly loudly. So when the White House announced this year's recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, it's not surprising that there was a vocal "Jewish response."