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After being diagnosed when she was 23, she became determined to educate other young people about early detection.
She spent the next 15 years educating young people about early detection through her nonprofit organization, CoppaFeel, and in a 2021 memoir, “Glittering a Turd.” On Monday, CoppaFeel announced that Ms. Hallenga had died at 38.
Ms. Hallenga first felt a lump in 2009 when she was in Beijing working for a travel company and teaching on the side. During a visit back home in the Midlands in central England, Ms. Hallenga went to her internist. She told The Guardian that her doctor had blamed the lump on hormonal changes associated with her birth control pill.
It's sad, but she did a lot with the time she had.
I'm not trying to diminish Kris's accomplishments or attack her, but I really hate how weirdly sexual breast cancer awareness stuff is. "Coppafeel" and "save second base" and "save the ta tas" are just so off putting to me. I get that sex sells and ultimately we want to "sell" awareness and these campaigns are successful. It just feels like another way women can't escape being sexualized, even when we have cancer.
Right? Testicular cancer should be "Fondle your OWN balls, men!" Prostate cancer: "Like anal sex? well stick a finger up your butt and check yourself"
None of these would EVER fly. Yet another reason I hate this book/woman: https://ovarit.com/o/Women/554996/book-review-tits-up-by-sarah-thornton-the-new-york-times
I loved the use of "tits up" in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel bc it meant take up space, be brave, believe in yourself. Here it just means we should all be defined by our boobs and how much we can get for our bodies on the open market. This is why I keep droning on and on about NEOliberal
feminism.Well, that's what was trending when she was first creating her brand. But guess what? They've had a refresh, and now it's "check your chest! Breast cancer can affect any body!" Which is true ... but it has the hollow sort of truth that "pregnant people" has. It mainly affects women - and it ONLY affects breast tisssue. IMO... it should still be "check your breasts" with an aside that "hey guys, you can get breast cancer, too!"
One of the "bodies" they show checking for cancer is a trans man... aka a woman with double mastectomy scars. Imagine going to all that to prove you're not a woman, only to find yourself with a "woman's" cancer. Weird how rather than normalize the fact that men have breasts, we're trying to rename the location.
So first women were oversexualized, now we're being stripped of our sex. Yay?