Why is there no prostate cancer movement?

For over a year now, my dad has been a one man army, educating other rural men in central Wisconsin about prostate cancer. When I was home for Christmas, my mother told me that both she and my father wonder why there is such a campaign against breast cancer but no such campaign for men. Both cancers have deeply touched his family. His mom had a single mastectomy and three of his sisters had double mastectomies, all due to breast cancer. As I explained in this post, my grandfather on that side also had prostate cancer that went unchecked and spread to his testicles.

The breast cancer movement is so big because more women die from breast cancer than men die from prostate cancer, but it is a little odd that there is almost no grassroots prostate cancer movement at all.

At first, I didn't know why there was no prostate cancer movement. After a little bit of thinking, though, it hit me. The breast cancer movement works well because women identify with the victims of breast cancer and realize that it could be them next. Men have been trained not to identify with victims because men are not supposed to be victims.

Thankfully, my dad grew up in the closest thing to a matriarchal family one might be able to have in our patriarchal society. Not only did he have 9 sisters, but his mother was the dominant parent in the house. His father was there, of course, he just wasn't as talkative or as visible a presence next to my grandmother. Because of that, my dad doesn't have a lot of the stupid perceptions that a lot of American [rural, white, christian] men have. I was 20 years old before I ever thought that my dad might have wanted a son and it doesn't seem to phase my dad that my mother is more educated and makes more money than he does.

So, obviously, when my dad got prostate cancer and learned that a lot of old men like himself were in the dark about their own health, he started talking.