Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy

Pink Ribbons, Inc. is an excellent overview of breast cancer philanthrophy's relationship to breast cancer research politics. As an epidemiology graduate student, most of the people I know with criticisms of current breast cancer research agendas are medical researchers. This book gave me valuable insights into why we have such a difficult time obtaining grants to research the correlation between environmental toxins and breast cancer. However, because it appears to be written for academics who specialize in breast cancer history, it glosses over the social and political context that these changes are occurring in. Anyone interested in this book should read Barron H. Lerner's The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America or Robert Aronowitz's Unnatural History: Breast Cancer and American Society (Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine) before reading this.

She seemed to be saying people stick pink ribbons on their products to be 'current', 'trendy' and ultimately to get consumers to purchase their product. And, this is true to some extent. Savvy marketers understand that these events translate into big bucks. This is a far cry from the 1970's when it was still scandalous to talk about breast cancer in public. Traveling back in time, we would not find any ribbons anywhere. People apparently must have held to a policy that talking about breast cancer ultimately spread it. However, because breast cancer does strike anybody anywhere, raising that public awareness has become an important public action. Where it differs from the AIDS awareness (which also became trendy) and why more conservative organizations feel free to join their feminist counterparts in this cause is because cancer is not a condition which is transmitted around through the public population through a transmission of bodily fluids. So while I do think that those other people promoting pink ribbon-themed materials also want a cancer-free world, I doubt they precisely share the same politics of feminist health care activists. In the 1970's, these women envisioned low-cost, multicultural, and high-quality healthcare models which placed women themselves as equal partners in the decision-making process about their own bodies. To some extent, the current pink ribbon market flooding could be a re-co modification of women by the status quo according to the author. Women's breast health is being reduced to a symbol as opposed to the more substantive and ultimately three-dimensional reality which would be required when dealing with a person attached to the breast. But since cancer does not discriminate, splitting hairs over the source of political support and current marketing strategies seems like a ridiculous quibble. Let's instead close ranks and just work together to say that cancer is bad and should be eradicated, while working towards an agreeable compromise in strategy.

I do think that the awareness of preventative screening and making women conscious of their health is a positive testament to many runs and galas dedicated to a cure for breast cancer. Treatment options are still evolving but overall, the pink ribbon phenomenon has created the awareness of the disease like never before. What this book does examine is what happens beyond the gala fundraisers ... how does the money raised translate into actual cure outcomes? This is similar to the commens made when AIDS fundraising crossed into a showbiz opportunity. However, despite the pinkwash of breast cancer awareness month ... one thing really seems to be clear ... the condition is top of mind, women are more likely to mind their health, and more money is raised than before towards treatment. Like the saying ... all roads lead eventually lead to Rome .... all efforts eventually lead to a cure in some way, shape, or form. Nothing is ever wasted especially when the intent of many individual fundraisers really is true and comes from the heart.