Awareness raising charities have never been more prevalent than they are now – see recent hubbubs over Lady Gaga’s youth empowerment-focused Born This Way Foundation and Jenny McCarthy’s anti-vaccine Generation Rescue and that whole Pink Ribbon for breast cancer campaign started by the Susan G. Komen organization – but until recently it had seemed most campaigns that took to social media for disbursement were mainly spread and supported by women posting make-up-free selfies and supposedly leukemia-focused cleavage parading. The fellas have finally joined in the fun of (reported) fundraising, snapping selfies that, save for a well placed sock, would be utterly, totally naked. And it’s all in the name of raising awareness of testicular cancer… or prostate cancer… whichever one you like, I guess. (As a movement, it does seem a little unfocused.)
Now, far be it from to claim a double standard when there are so many held against women but not us men, but why does it seem perfectly acceptable in the eyes of so many vocal Instagram and Twitter users (and, if you believe they’re legitimate, Buzzfeed commenters) that all men depicted in the celebratory articles are tall, fit, muscular, and, largely, tattooed and sporting some kind of hip hair style, cranial or facial? Isn’t spouting “Hot damn… Um.. please excuse me while I change my panties ;p” in regard to the valiant effort of brave, selfless men exposing their most vulnerable states to an anonymous global audience a little, well, sexist? Wouldn’t the same comment be downvoted to all hell if posted by a man in response to, say, #titsinmitts? Way to treat us like pieces of meat, ladies! And exactly how does Buzzfeed, HuffPo and other news and content aggregators racking up millions of page views (and advertising dollars) on the backs of these boys and their barely-sheathed tackle help fight… whatever cancer is allegedly the focus here?
