I Love Boobies Bracelets Causing a Ruckus
Lately we’ve been getting lot’s of letters. Mainly from proud parents, supporting their rad kids, who are standing up for what they believe in, or from teenagers who are pissed at their administration for telling them they can’t support something they believe in, and even letters from angry principals and parents calling us perverted.
The entire idea of the campaign is to take this serious horrible subject, break the ice, and make it easy to talk about. We tell all the principals that this is actually their OPPORTUNITY, to talk to their students about an issue that effects them and is important to them, take this opportunity to educate your students on how they can prevent breast cancer.
THANK YOU to all of you, who are standing up, and telling your schools, you have freedom of speech, and freedom to support causes that are important to you.
You can now buy the I love Boobies bracelets in BULK here!
Click to read our official statement on the I LOVE BOOBIES! Campaign
The Keep A Breast Foundation’s (KAB) Mission is to help eradicate breast cancer by exposing young people to methods of prevention, early detection and support. Through art events, educational programs and fundraising efforts, we seek to increase breast cancer awareness among young people so they are better equipped to make choices and develop habits that will benefit their long-term health and well-being.
Keep A Breast’s “I Love Boobies” Campaign is a unique national campaign that develops a new approach and positive style of communication about breast cancer. The campaign is meant to encourage young people to target their breast health. The T-shirts and bracelets act as an awareness-raising tool, allowing young people to engage and start talking about a subject that is scary and taboo and making it positive and upbeat.
KAB acknowledges and enables the fact that young people do want to be activists, to play a part of a bigger and better good. It takes a uniquely strong and well-informed person to participate in the “I Love Boobies” Campaign, someone eager and able to engage in conversation. The campaign allows young people impacted by breast cancer get a chance to express their inner feelings, make connections with others and learn coping strategies helpful to them and their loved ones.
Although the incidence of breast cancer in young women is much lower than that of older women, young women’s breast cancers are generally more aggressive, are diagnosed at a later stage, and result in lower survival rates. In fact, breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in young women under the age of 40. Despite these facts, many young women mistakenly believe that breast cancer is only a problem for women over 40 years old. As a result, diagnoses are delayed and young women’s lives are cut short. Keep A Breast educates young women and better enable health care professionals to identify the specific threats and warning signs of breast cancer, which will lead to early diagnoses and saved lives.
By wearing a “I Love Boobies!” bracelet or shirt you are proclaiming, “I love my boobies, and I choose to take care of them!” It is a message about how important it is to appreciate, respect and love your breasts and yourself. Many women develop a negative attitude towards their breasts and put so much energy into criticizing them or wishing they were different somehow. Keep A Breast wants to break down the shame that is so deeply rooted in body image and realize you’re your breasts are an amazingly important and beautiful part of you, and the vital role in our body. Knowledge is power, by knowing you body and knowing your
breasts you are taking the first step to prevention. Prevention is the Cure.
Keep A Breast and their “I Love Boobies” Campaign is the proud winner of the following honor and awards:
- Yoplait Champion Award to Shaney jo Darden, Executive Director
- Alternative Press, 25 most influential people in the music industry, Award to Shaney jo Darden, Executive Director
- Glue Network Beneficiary
- The SIMA Humanitarian Fund Award Recipient
- Emergen-C “pink lemonade” Beneficiary
- The Quiksilver Foundation, International Breast Cancer Initiative
- The “My Space Impact Award” for Health and Safety
Tags: breast cancer, breast cancer awareness, Breast cancer prevention, i love, I love boobies, i love boobies bracelet, KAB, keep a breast, keep-a-breast.org
February 4th, 2010 at 8:35 am
Hello,
I support your ideas, but I hate your bracelet as a public school teacher with a conservative school board. As a feminist, I find it horrible that we continue to teach our kids that it’s okay to use language that sexually objectifies our bodies.
I think as artists you can find more creative, more aware ways to reach and teach our young men and women to take care of their bodies with respect, not a derogatory juvenile term. As a classroom teacher, I do take the time to use your bracelet as a “teachable moment”, but I really don’t have the time in my curriculum as I prepare students for their Exit graduation requirements. Most of the boys who wear your bracelet just know they are “supporting breast cancer” and it’s a great reason to proclaim what we all know about boys, they like boobies. (They’ve all watched Ron White)
And I have learned that most girls find them offensive. These are the shy girls that don’t say much.
Mostly, I am busy and I am tired of the distraction that in order to keep my supervisors happy means I keep collecting your bracelets.
Thank you for listening, please don’t put down schools, principals, and teachers. We are working will all your kids; we don’t get paid much.
Angela
Small Texas School District
February 5th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
I just got my bracelet today, and I wore it at school.
My P.E. teacher and science teacher both got mad at me for wearing your bracelets.
I wore it anyway
That’s what I call standing up for what I believe in!
Anyway, I just want to tell you what a good job of spreading the word and how awesome your bracelets and shirts are!
February 7th, 2010 at 1:39 am
Your so effing dumb! its not talking sexual its supporting what we believe in! go away
February 11th, 2010 at 12:54 pm
you should make them in more colors cuz i have one but i would really like it if they had a purple one
February 12th, 2010 at 9:38 am
As a Principal in a Jr. High School, I am offended that your group needs to go to this extreme to support breast cancer. My students are not interested in your movement, they simply want to wear a bracelet with “I love Boobies” written on it. They continue to buy them, and I am not sold on the fact that your organization is forthright in all your efforts. I would like to see how your members would run a school with these types of distractions. I don’t believe you have to resort to this campaign to get the breast cancer message across. The kids get one message. “I am cool because I am 12 and wear a “Boobies” bracelet. I encourage you to find another way. What happened to the pink ribbons? Our students will receive these for each bracelet collected. Why don’t you think they are wearing these all around school? If they really want to support breast cancer awareness, the ribbon as a symbol would be much more appropriate. Finally, what about the lack of sensitivity to the breast cancer survivors who do not have breasts anymore?
February 14th, 2010 at 8:57 am
Did any of you ever ask a woman who has lost one or both breasts to breast cancer how she feels about the wording you are using? Did you ever consider if she might find it hurtful or offensive?
February 15th, 2010 at 10:29 am
We work with many breast cancer survivors who love our messaging, as well as having young survivors on staff and on our board of directors. Feel free to email us at info@keep-a-breast.org for more information.
I would also like to share one of the things Keep A Breast is known for outside of the bracelets, which is our breast cast exhibitions. These casts are part of KAB’s unique campaigns to use art and artistic expression to inform young people about methods of prevention, early detection, coping and support.
This awareness campaign is like no other, harnessing the power of art to communicate complex feelings and thoughts about health, the female form and ultimately about breast cancer. We bring these casts with us at all our traveling education booths and outreach that we do. It is absolutely incredible to be witness to casting a woman that is newly diagnosed and that has faced a dramatic change to their form via the loss of a breast or partial removal of a breast or shrinkage of a breast caused by radiation. Many of them are shy and ashamed of their body, and then we send these casts to an artist and it becomes a beautiful piece of art. Going from being scared to show their body to so proud and finding it beautiful gives us the absolute and overwhelming feeling that the work Keep A Breast is doing is important.
February 15th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
I wear a pink i <3 boobies bracelet, because my wife once had a breast cancer scare. And my family history is plagued with breast cancer. I worked for General Dynamics as a gunsmith. I did not take the bracelet off while supporting military(I was a gunsmith, we did inspections). So on my final mission, I was approached by a woman on one of our teams. She proceeded to rip into me, because she felt a bracelet that said "i love boobies" was unprofessional, and not a good public image for the company. I let her do her whole thing, and when she was finished. I told her it was for a non profit org. doing breast cancer awareness. She stumbled around her words, and tried to say it was unprofessional still, she shut up when I said as a woman you should support any sort of awareness of breast cancer, are you a fan of cancer on facebook? She gave me a glaring look, and walked away. TAKE THAT CANCER FAN!
February 24th, 2010 at 5:33 pm
I’m a teacher… and a friend of many women who have survived breast cancer. If I thought my students were genuinely wearing the bracelet to support the cause of breast cancer, I would leave them alone. I take the bracelets and am amassing a huge collection. If a student is wearing one, I ask them what else they have done to support the cause. If they can’t answer, I take it. We are actually having a contest to see which teacher can confiscate the most of them. Coincidentally, these are kids that have clocked ZERO hours of community service. If they are so appropriate, make some that say “I love colons” or perhaps “I love prostates” or even “I love testicles”… all other cancers that are rampant. If you made just a plain pink bracelet, without the word boobies on it, they wouldn’t wear it… so are they really in support of your cause or just taking advantage of the opportunity to use your cause to be inappropriate?
February 25th, 2010 at 12:13 am
my girlfriend of three years bought me this bracelet and im proud to wear it, my grandma has had breast cancer three times. teachers at my school take them on a regular basis, i refuse to take mine off and im proud to be able to support this awareness. any teacher that gets offended by the word boobies needs two big wake up calls (no pun intended) one. that we are in a new generation and older methods of awareness are not going to work, if your aware you can be prepared and posibly save lives. two. if you cant handle “boobies” than dont teach health, sex ed, or show that “miracle of life” video. get over and educate todays youth
February 26th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
The point of these bracelets is to raise awarness. And it’s a good thing that these bracelets are controversial, because it is raising awarness. And yes, kids might just be wearing them because they say boobies, but doesn’t that still get the message out? And I do understand why middle schools ban them, but high schools shouldn’t because, although rare, breast cancer can effect teenagers. My friend was diagnosed when she was 20, but by then, it was too late. We need to get the message out that breast cancer can effect anyone, even men. And I have not met one girl that found my bracelets offensive. They might have at first, but I explain it’s a non profit breast cancer awarness organization. Adults find this offensive because this campaign isn’t aimed at them, but it’s aimed at teenagers. Like it or not, we are growing up in a different generation.
I’ve finished over 50 hours of community service dealing with cancer and I have 5 bracelets. I don’t have these bracelets because it says boobies on it. I have it because I want a cure for cancer found before my mom goes through what my grand mother went through. So I never have to lose a friend to cancer, or watch my sister suffer. That’s why I wear my bracelets.
March 4th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I bought my daughter one of these bracelets yesterday. I really hope her teachers do not take it away from her. If they try she will tell them it’s freedom of expression, first amendment. She should be able to support whatever causes she believes in. She’ll also tell them to feel free to call her Mom
PS the teacher who commented about having a contest to see who can confiscate the most bracelets is a very sad individual. It’s the teacher’s that do that that encourage the kids to wear them to get attention. If conservative people would stop making such a big deal out of it, it wouldn’t be an issue. It’s cool that kids want to support breast cancer awareness and research.