Can't We All Race For The Cure?
Dateline: 09/23/99
A woman's chance
of developing breast cancer in her lifetime is 1 in 8, with 185,000 new diagnoses each
year in the US (1% of these are in men) and over 44,000 deaths each year. It is the
most common cancer in women.
With these statistics, most families are touched by this disease.
If not in your family, you are likely to know a co-worker or friend who is a breast cancer
survivor or who has died of breast cancer. Breast cancer research is a personal
priority for many people, and one of the largest charity run/walk events is the Susan G.
Komen Race For The Cure,
held in 98 cities nationwide on a variety of dates with over 700,000 total participants a
year.
The Race for the Cure is not without controversy. All agree that the cause is good - to increase awareness of beast cancer and raise money for research. But approximately half of the Race For The Cure events exclude men or relegate them to a separate event. One of these is the second-largest Race For The Cure in Portland, Oregon. With 38,000 participants and growing, it raises almost a million dollars for breast cancer research each year. But men are not allowed to walk or run the 5-mile course. They are welcomed to a 1-mile course instead.
Why? The organizers explain that breast cancer is a woman's personal condition and they want to show women supporting women. There seems to be some concern that allowing men would make the race a competition. Male breast cancer survivors have been excluded in the past, although some accommodation has been made in recent years to allow them to participate.
Some female survivors boycott the event. Their husbands, fathers, and sons were their emotional and physical support throughout their illness and they do not wish to walk alone during the event without their loved ones. Not all women have female friends or relatives to walk with them, but do have husbands, fathers, brothers or sons. The separate 1-mile event where men are allowed is not the same as walking with their loved one and showing that breast cancer is a family issue, not just a woman's issue.
For men who have lost their wife, sister, daughter or mother to breast cancer, it is especially painful to be excluded. They sit at the sidelines with nobody to cheer at the finish as they did previous years when she walked alone or with female supporters.
The response from the Portland Race For The Cure as posted on the national website is, "The Komen Foundation allows each Race community to decide the format of their Race. At this point, since Portland is the second largest Race for the Cure in the country, and the largest all-women's 5k in the world, the Race Committee has decided to leave our Race format as is. We did a survey a few years ago, and our participants told us overwhelmingly that they wanted the 5k portion of the Race to remain open to all women (and men who are breast cancer survivors). Our one-mile event is co-ed, and we encourage men to show their support that way, or by being volunteers. There are a number of people who've told us that they participate in this Race because it is a primarily all-women's event. We feel that we have to listen to our participants if we are to continue our great success. However, we do revisit this issue every year, and take into account the feedback we've gotten from the public."
Should the Race For the Cure include both sexes? Post about it on our Walking Forum.
Update 2001: The Portland Race for the Cure has become slightly more inclusive, although they still segregate the participants into a woman's only group and a coed group.
More Info
Race For The Cure
Breast Cancer
Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day Walks
Welcomes both men and women.
