Subordinated happiness(es).

Foucault talks about subordinated knowledges in one of his lectures in the late 1970s. As knowledge is always linked to power, no knowledge is produced without interests.

Let's take an article from ChannelNewsAsia.com as an example. Here, the Singapore National Development Minister (actually, I never knew we had such a ministry -- goes to show how much I love my country!) Khaw Boon Wan talks about how Bhutan has been romanticised to be a 'Shangri-La on earth'.

Photo by Peter Menzel
From the book "Hungry Planet: What the World Eats"

In 2006, Business Week rated Bhutan as the eighth-happiest country in the world, which was supposedly a surprise because the top 7 were all from Northern Europe. Forget for a minute the silly positivist obsession of trying to measure the immeasurable, and think about their capitalist and developmentalist assumptions about what you need to be happy: money and its consequent effects on levels of health, education, employment, etc.

So here we have a Minister of National Development who of course, has a developmentalist worldview, which was what produced Singapore! Clear the kampongs, clear the forests, fill the swamps, destroy colonial buildings, tramways (seriously, how many Singaporeans know we used to have a tram network?) build concrete high-rise apartments, schools, hospitals, urbanise, urbanise, urbanise. People, stop speaking Chinese dialects, nevermind that the language of the land is Malay, speak Mandarin and English and modernise, modernise, modernise. (The only issue left untouched is religion -- why?)

Khaw went to Bhutan and saw 'unhappy people, toiling in the field', who actually want Bhutan to be like Singapore. This is what happens when people with power speak for those below them in power. Clearly in Asia Singapore is held as a development model, taking urbanisation, anomie and relentless capitalist economic growth as the only way to health, happiness and prosperity.

Then we should ask those who are subordinated in this power relation of (regional) class, how do they see themselves? Perhaps there are other ways to be happy. Indeed, Passu, an "ordinary Bhutanese" says in his blog, Bhutanese are happy for their strong family ties, simple and nourishing food, and subsistence agriculture. Happiness is not measured by economic growth. (Although that's what politicians have been trying to force down our throats.)

The hegemonic knowledge about how to be happy in this world is to be developed, rich and urban. Other ways of being happy -- like what the Bhutanese have -- are subordinated, and we don't hear much about them nor pay serious attention to it. Most of all, no one aspires to it. Who aspires to be poor and happy in Singapore?

If we also look at the news sources we can see how easy it is to only hear about news from sources with power and money, like a major news channel. Passu writes in a blog, easily lost in cyberspace. However, with the Internet knowledges become less subordinated, if you only know where to look...

Our arrogance is often misplaced. Why do we think everyone else wants to be like Singapore? Like one of the commenters on Passu's blog said,

"Bhutan can be Singapore, but Singapore can never be Bhutan!"

Save breasts, rescue lives, and preserve the male gaze.

I know, I know, I said I would write my thesis but this campaign is too incredible to not share with you all! I present to you the Rethink Breast Cancer movement.

From what I can gather from their website, they cater to a younger (or youngish) audience, because breast cancer affects younger women differently, according to their research board of doctors and oncologists. As a primarily health, but also women's movement, they also want to differentiate themselves from the 'older' movements, which involved pink ribbons, bureaucratic charity structures, and fear-mongering.

Young people like cute drawings.

The differentiation they want to make is also seen in how they clearly distinguish themselves from these older, boring, breast-cancer movements. They use a handwritten, cursive (alive!) font, complete with little doodles of 'fun' cartoons like hearts and stars. I don't understand the resentment against pink ribbons though -- their entire website is still pink?! The colour pink has become associated with breast cancer and this can be a problem.

It's great that they try to include men (there's one working on the team) both in their work and in their target audience, because that has also been a problem of previous marketing. And so they created an iPhone App called Your Man Reminder, so a series of strong, muscular, heterosexual guys can remind you to give some TLC to your breasts. In the video a man checks his own 'breasts' (pecs? man boobs?) to demonstrate how a woman should do it to her own.

Wow. At first I thought this video was a parody -- it's such a caricature (like those Old Spice commercials!) of the male gaze and the quintessential hot guy that it's difficult to find the message (check your breasts regularly) and to take it seriously. Even with a disease that affects only women, they still manage to make men the focus of it. And let's not even get started on the fact that these guys are virtually caricatures of heterosexual masculinity, with women tripping all over themselves when they walk by.

To me, this video is implicitly saying:

1. Hot guys love your boobs.
2. Check your breasts so you can save them.
3. Hot guys can continue to enjoy your boobs. 

Even the catchphrase of breast cancer campaigns is 'Save Breasts, Save Lives'. Um, breast cancer is cancer -- it can kill. I've always thought it was weird that saving breasts was mentioned first. There should be breast cancer campaigns that normalise women who had to undergo mastectomies and now have one breast, or none at all. It should not be a big deal to lose what we think constitutes femininity, if you survive cancer and stay alive. (On a side note, here's a website that has non-sexualised pictures of normal breasts, and more analysis on it.)

It's also strange that a man's body with his non-existent breasts can be displayed. A man has no breast tissue and he will never get breast cancer -- why is he demonstrating Touch, Look and Check? It's ironic that female cleavage is for public consumption everywhere we look, but we can't use it in a non-sexual way, in a fun campaign to promote self-checks for lumps. Women's bodies on the other hand, are only shown in breast cancer campaigns in Singapore when it's for the purpose of ridiculing women and their frivolity.

I love the fact that this campaign tries to be different with a fresh, new approach to marketing and fundraising. But so many elements remain the same: heteronormativity, rugged masculinity, and the eternal male gaze. With videos like these, men are still constructed to be the focus of women's lives and women still continue to feel that they have to save their breasts in order to remain attractive.

Why do YOU check for breast cancer? How can you help the women in your life prevent and/or survive breast cancer?