Girlschat Series 11 || No Bra Day

Hello Queens! ( and guys joining us) 😊

How has been your week so far? Productive I hope. Welcome to another Girlschat Thursday, thank you for sticking around with Danie and I, we love you guys.

As we know, the month of October is the breast cancer awareness month, as a matter of fact, Danie and Oyinlola of Hazyfantasies are collaborating throughout this month to bring us different posts on breast cancer just so that we can be conscious and aware of this deadly disease and stay as far from it as possible. You can check their individual blogs for the posts!)

Okay, so for those of us who didn't Know, apparently today October 13th is the "National No Bra Day" and it has been running since 2011. This is also an initiative of the breast cancer awareness where women are encouraged to free the boobs and also take a picture with the hashtag #nobraday, while also passing the message that breast cancer is deadly and early detection saves lives. (I recently just found out about this🙈)


Now I realized that quite a number of women are not down with this because they feel that "not wearing a bra doesn't actually save lives." I read a tweet from a woman who happens to be a survivor of breast cancer and she said she feels the whole "no bra day" thing is crap because it's not even close to what we should be doing to raise awareness for breast cancer. Now i decided to look at it from her point of view, this is someone who went through it all, someone who has scars to show for it and she still came out victorious. I noticed that some people at some point started sexualizing this thing, some people would take pictures that clearly show no relation to raising any awareness to breast cancer at least. Some people are so lost as regards what the no bra day is really all about and this could be what moved the woman to say that it is crap!

I however remember that when we were in secondary school, our housemistresses gave us serious lectures about how we should remove our bras anytime we were not going out especially when we were about sleeping at night because wearing a bra to sleep increases chances of breast cancer. My point? There's obviously a reason why someone came up with the "no bra day" idea.

This is what I was able to gather regarding bras and breast cancer since I didn't really understand the relationship;

"The idea that bras may cause cancer was fueled by the 1995 book called Dressed to Kill by Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer. It claims that women who wear underwire bras for 12 hours a day have a much higher risk of developing breast cancer than women who do not wear bras.They maintain that bras restrict the lymph system, which results in a build-up of toxins in the breasts. 1 However, according to the American Cancer Society, there is no evidence that compression of the lymph nodes by bras causes breast cancer; in reality, body fluids travel up and into the underarm lymph nodes, not towards the underwire. 2 Similarly, there is no sufficient evidence that any types of bras cause breast cancer.

Personally, I understand where this initiative is coming from, to me i think it's similar to the Ice bucket challenge for ALS but one thing is sure, it's not possible to control how people react the a particular thing no matter how serious it is. People know how to take the seriousness out of anything especially if it's something that ends up on social media.
Regardless of whether we celebrate "no bra day" or not, the ultimate thing to draw from this whole excersise is to create awareness for breast cancer.

I once had a neighbour (of blessed memory) who died of this disease so I know how terrible it can be. She already even did the surgery and they had to remove the affected breast and she was good, she came home and she was very active, we were all happy because she was a very nice woman. One day while she was outside drying clothes with her little son, she slumped and died. Apparently, there was still something wrong.
That might have been negligence but I didn't just share the story just so that we can vent our anger on the Nigerian medical system, but for us to understand the importance of checking and screening our breasts at every given opportunity. Remember carry out self-examinations and early detection can go a long way in helping us avoid this disease.

Did you know that...

Breast cancer is the most common invasive cancer in females worldwide. It accounts for 16% of all female cancers and 22.9% of invasive cancers in women. 18.2% of all cancer deaths worldwide, including both males and females, are from breast cancer.

The first symptoms of breast cancer are usually an area of thickened tissue in the woman's breast, or a lump. The majority of lumps are not cancerous; however it is advisable that women should get them checked by a health care professional.

While I was making findings for this post, I came across an article and there was a suggestion there. It said that instead of the #nobraday , we should make it #scheduleamammogramday so that we can actually raise awareness rather than sexualize the whole thing. A "mammogram" is an X-ray pictures of the breasts (mammaries) used to screen for breast cancer. Now after looking this word up, I had to agree that this was a better but a more expensive suggestion. But again this is just what I think.

Over to You...

Do you buy the whole idea of #nobraday? Or would you rather we create awareness some other way? If yes, what other way would you suggest?

P.S- As you know, this is a collaboration between my friend Danie and I, so please don't forget to check her blog  to see what she has for us today.

P.P.S- Do you know that tomorrow is the "Big Pink"? This is also an activity in line with raising awareness for breast cancer where we wear pink and raise money for the patients who can't afford the treatments. So don't forget to wear your pink outfits and look for where you can donate something no matter how little.

Mide♡