Seemed like a cute idea. For just four bucks, you can buy a rubber bracelet that proclaims “I Love Boobies” from the Keep A Breast Foundation, a breast cancer awareness organization. The bracelets are meant to be conversation starters. Two middle school girls in Pennsylvania decided to wear the bracelets to school on Breast Cancer Awareness Day back in October. Their school had already banned the jewelry, but the little girls’ parents gave them the okay to wear them and they did. By lunchtime, the girls were suspended for their act of defiance.
Their parents didn’t believe the punishment was warranted, so they contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and now the school has a lawsuit on its hands. The girls were not only suspended from school, but also prohibited from attending the upcoming school dance—pure devastation for a girl that age. The little ladies and their parents are not backing down though and they all vow to keep fighting the school and sticking up for breast cancer awareness.
This case brings up two interesting points of discussion. One, how far should a parent go with encouraging a child’s activism? How does a parent decide which battles are worth it?
Secondly, do bracelets like these trivialize breast cancer? New York Times writer Peggy Orenstein thinks the bracelets are part of the sexualization of breast cancer and she says there’s nothing Hot about the disease.
Would you let your kids go to school with those bracelets, knowing they were banned? Do you think some breast cancer awareness tactics have gone too far?
