I meant to post about this earlier this week but didn’t get time, what with one very late night this week leaving me on the back foot and a lot of work on as well.
But there was a story in the papers this week about a young model, excuse me glamour model, called Claire Tully who wanted to donate the money she will raise from the reality programme Failte Towers to a breast cancer charity. Breast cancer was close to Claire’s heart as both her mam and granny had suffered from it. An obvious choice for Claire then.
But the breast cancer charity didn’t want her money. In fact, three breast cancer charities snubbed the money. Why? Because they didn’t want to be associated with a glamour model? Because that might taint the image of breast cancer charities as being made up of cutesy things like cookies, pink ribbons and pretty bumper stickers for your car?
This story really pissed me off. I’ve had no immediate experience of breast cancer, so please forgive me if I’m not getting the full picture here, but isn’t the point of breast cancer charities to raise money for research to help cure those who suffer from it? And isn’t money money? Surely the breast cancer charities don’t get to say no to money just because they don’t agree with the career choice of the person giving it? The newspapers said Claire Tully’s €5,000 donation is the equivalent of selling 5,000 of those little pink pins they sell on the street.
I found it hard to convince myself that the breast cancer charities would have turned down the €5,000 had it come from Jordan/Katie Price, even though she too started as a glamour model.
The Mayo based Rock Chicks have decided Claire’s money is good enough for them. But how must Claire Tully be feeling about it all? Pretty gutted I’d say.
That’s a really depressing story. I can understand them not wanting money made from, I dunno, coursing or badger-baiting or something, but this is just pure nasty bigotry. Poor Claire Tully. I wonder how the charities justified it to themselves.
Is that true??? Jesus.
I read an interview where she said that much of her motivation to model stems from wanting to raise breast cancer awareness. She seemed like a really together girl. Actually, her whole tale is fascinating - she’s been offered a PhD place in Cambridge to study HIV-related immunology or something, but is going to continue to model for the time being.
I think a lot of people had a problem with that - something along the lines of, why waste that truly brilliant brain by taking your clothes off. I say fair fucks to her.
Wow, beggers cant be choosers I say. That’s terrible.
God, that makes me angry. Here’s a woman trying to do some real good in the world and all the charity can do is be prissy and pissy towards her.
There’s a great deal of sexism involved with breast cancer campaigns. All that pink horse crap and ultra femme stuff they shove at women. This doesn’t surprise me.
Idiots. I’d seriously think twice about buying one of their silly little pins again.
How unbelievably snooty - it’s not as if the money comes from Nazi fundraisers. Or are certain cancer charities doing so good out of the HSE that they don’t need additional donations?
Part of the issue is that their main financial support comes from the over-50 A/B consumers. I’d guess that the decision was made in a poorly-judged attempt to avoid alienating an existing (and extremely lucrative) support base, and then badly communicated.