Making a Difference?

Last week many women posted on their Facebook status message just a color. This was a response to an e-mail that was sent to only women. Many godly women posted their colors, while others chose not to. The color to be posted was the color bra you were wearing at the time. The intention was to raise awareness of breast cancer.

Did it do its job and what were the differing feelings of the women on Facebook?

As to the thoughts of the women on Facebook—it was very interesting. I had many friends who posted their colors, as I did mine. But I did receive two status updates from friends who did not feel this was appropriate. One status read “How does posting your bra color support breast cancer awareness?? Sounds like it’s supporting breast awareness, rather! Let’s think about this ladies—probably something that some man came up with. (And yes, I had to be *that* one that has to say something.)”

It was very interesting to see that at least one male commented under that status message: “thank you for posting this.... i had no idea why my facebook was full of colors. lol” Now, because of her status message update, this young man knows what the status messages were about—so she is the one who made him think of breasts (if, in fact, that is what this exercise caused). If she didn’t feel it appropriate she didn’t need to post her color.

Yes, it did do its job as this report on ABC news will show. For example, during the 24-hour period of these status messages the Susan G. Kolmen breast cancer awareness Facebook page received an almost 2,000-percent increase in internet traffic.

This exercise also was a reminder to me that it has been almost a year since my very first mammogram and I will now need to find a good doctor in our new community to schedule this with. I am very fortunate that neither side of my family has had breast cancer, but that still doesn’t mean it can’t happen to me.