Give Me Your Bra
The 70 Mile Chain of Bras
By Daniel Muniz

In a novel effort to help promote the global awareness of breast cancer, organizers from the Mediterranean island of Cyprus constructed a lengthy 70 mile chain of almost 115,000 bras. This event decisively shattered the previously held record of a line consisting of 79,000 bras in Singapore. A logistics company certified the final count of 114,782 bras and that number will be entered into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Numerous volunteers and even British soldiers stationed in Cyprus assisted in hooking the miles of individual bras together.

The two organizers for this awareness project spent an entire year meticulously planning and coordinating this event. And they also managed the logistics of acquiring a massive number of donated bras from all over the world. Naturally, a hefty portion of the women’s undergarments would have to come from abroad because the island of Cyprus only has a population of 780,000 residents.

After breaking the world record, the organizers are now coordinating with the Red Cross to find new homes across the world for the bras.

Now I in no way want to trivialize the scourge of breast cancer. It is indeed a terrible disease and it annually kills about 400,000 women worldwide.

And early detection is absolutely crucial in order to save lives, especially for women over 50 years old. It is vitally important for women to be cognizant of this disease and its devastating impact so that they can be encouraged to participate in frequent screenings. And when such a discovery is made, immediately life-saving medical treatment can tremendously reduce the annual number of fatalities.

As a result, I do not want to take away from the validity of anyone’s effort for a good cause, especially if it is a component to help reduce deaths.

However, I am curious about the “means” to this end.

Every few years there is always some sort of gimmick like this for different causes and crusades. Again, I don’t want to marginalize a worthy cause although I do question whether or not such a publicity stunt as a line of 115,000 bras actually helps or hurts the cause it is supposed to support.

For instance, were people truly inspired and touched when they learned about the accomplishment of a 70 mile chain of bras? Did it actually raise awareness or did it raise chuckles?

And if it did raise awareness, did it match or surpass the donations, volunteer time, and effort involved?

Afterwards, are women truly compelled to get screened for this disease? Are men now motivated to encourage their girlfriends or wives to go to their doctors? Or at least tell their mothers or relatives to get checked?

As for generating news coverage, I didn’t see this event mentioned in the headlines or even discussed by the major media personalities. The press loves stories with good twists to them but they didn’t seem to pick up this accomplishment. Even the Reuters news wire where I saw this story gave it scant attention.

In fact, in nearly all of the major media sources that I enjoy perusing through, I saw this article in the Odd News or Peculiar Postings section.

I mentioned this story to a few of my colleagues and I all got was chuckles and smirks. One acquaintance of mine described what she imagined as the thought process of the organizers for this event:

Other acquaintances wanted to know how they managed to solicit so many bras and what their technique was. It is one thing to ask strangers for money for a good cause but it is totally different to ask women to give you their bras (or at least to ask them while you are sober).

I am sure that there are plenty of women who wouldn’t mind handing over their bra to charity, except for the one that they are wearing right at that moment.

And I suppose that if it did encourage a few women to get screened, then perhaps it was worth it. Or at the very least, there are plenty of used bras that will be put to good use to women who need them.

Meanwhile, there are other women who probably see this event as tacky and unbecoming of a worthy charity.

And as for the chuckles and smirks, I have the impression that perhaps some people would think that a 70 mile chain of bras was organized by the group of crackpots instead of by determined individuals who wanted to make a difference in the world. Maybe I am totally wrong.

Let me know what you think and if you were inspired by a line of 115,000 bras.

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