?Gendered fundraising? |

By Emily

?Gendered fundraising? is everywhere. I define it as promoting a cause to donors of a specific gender with marketing that relies on gendered reference points. Although ad campaigns that use ?male? or ?female? symbols are a fixture in the mass media, gendered marketing seems to stand apart in that it references gendered body parts or symbols as the means in which to promote a charitable message.

Take Movember, for instance, which seeks to promote awareness and raise funds for prostate cancer and mental illness in men. Don?t get me wrong, I believe in public health awareness, especially for conditions that have a level of stigma. Empowering men to promote these issues is important. The Movember campaign has been hugely successful. Indeed, in November (and beyond), I am surrounded by moustaches.

A feminized example is example is Boobyball, which seek to empower breast cancer survivors. It?s part of Rethink Breast Cancer, which aims to ?foster a new generation of young and influential breast cancer supporters; infuse sass and style into the cause; and, most importantly, respond to the unique needs of young (or youngish) women going through it?. Another example is Julyna, which aims to promote cervical cancer awareness through encouraging women to ?bedazzle their vajayjay?.

Again, awareness and fundraising, especially with a younger demographic for conditions where early detection can save lives, is very important. The means of promotion, however, is fascinating to analyse. Movember?s symbol is a moustache. As a feminist, I first thought this was a hypermasculine symbol and a response to health conditions like cancer that are arguably often feminized in the media. I then asked some male friends and they conceived it entirely differently. They labelled it as ?retro?, ?a joke?, and not stereotypically hypermasculine at all. They felt the moustache symbol has queer connotations.

Whatever its symbolic meaning, it is also interesting to think about addressing health issues through grooming. At the same time, I acknowledge that it promotes improving one?s health through means such as sleep, diet and managing stress. The moustache becomes a symbol of an overall commitment to men?s health.

The Movember campaign also posits that women?s health issues are more prominent in the media than men?s. A potential reason may be that women?s bodies are featured more prominently in the media in general. Women have a lot more pressure than men to look a certain way, and this pressure often masquerades as ?health advice?, such as in women?s fitness magazines.

But men?s health issues are generally well-documented in scientific research. Women?s health issues are portrayed as ?less understood? because our bodies are traditionally ?othered?. Male bodies are the ?norm? and a male standard of health often shapes health information in general. For example, women?s typical heart attack symptoms are highly different but men?s symptoms shape how heart attacks are typically detected. This aspect of male-gendered health campaigns such as Movember, although well intentioned, may skew views. It fails to get to the heart of social determinants and our gendered social context that shapes health.

In comparison, feminized campaigns that focus on issues such as breast and cervical cancer often seem to rely on actual body parts as their a gendered symbols. Again, this is not new. We see women?s body parts consistently in advertising, and feminist thinkers like Jean Kilbourne have noted that women are often objectified in media when their bodies are transformed into disjointed parts. In this way, awareness campaigns aimed at women might be doing the same thing ? those aimed at men do not seem to objectify in the same way. Movember relies on a moustache, not the image of a prostate gland.

At the least, gendered campaigns, whether relying on a moustache or reproductive organs, reinforce a notion of gender as binary and biologically determined. In their desire to be empowering, gendered campaigns can end up exclude trans people who may not connect to these gendered body parts or symbols. But it?s also important to remember that objectification of bodies in any form can be violent and marginalizing. Gendered fundraising campaigns may gloss over or even potentially contribute to violence as an overlooked contributor to poor health.

Violence impacts health on the individual, community and societal levels and everyone, men include, is impacted by it. What would it look like if we viewed violence as connected to health? What symbol could we use to address gendered violence that transcends gender stereotypes?

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Source: http://metrac.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/gendered-fundraising/

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