Subscribe to Breaking News
Loading ...Neff: Merchandizing breast cancer
I’m not in the pink.
Look around these days at the supermarkets and department stores and you are likely to see a lot of pink.
October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.And awareness we need. Awareness saves lives.
Today there are about 2.5 million breast cancer survivors living in the United States.
The American Cancer Society estimates that 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer will have been diagnosed among women in the United States this year.
An estimated 40,170 women will die from the disease this year.
And research shows that the rate of breast cancer among lesbians and bisexual women is higher than among heterosexual women.
“Cancer is a disease that shatters our lives and ravages our community in epidemic proportions,” reads the preamble to the Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Women Cancer Patients’ Bill of Rights from The Mautner Project: The National Lesbian Health Organization.
Yes, awareness we need, because a recent national survey found that too few — not even a majority — in the adult U.S. population know what breast cancer is, know that breast cancer is a malignant tumor that grows in one or both breasts, that breast cancer usually develops in the ducts or lobules of the breast.
Yet another survey found a large majority of the U.S. adult population knows the pink ribbon is a symbol for breast cancer awareness and associate pink with the disease.
How is it that a campaign to fight a killer disease, a campaign to raise money for research and discover new cures and identify causes, a campaign to promote preventative health measures and to improve treatment methods, has developed into a culture, a fashion, a trend, a marketing mania?
In a speech in 2001, feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich, then undergoing treatment for breast cancer, wrote about “breast cancer culture.”
“How to define breast cancer culture?
“It’s very pink and femme and frilly — all about pink ribbons, pink rhinestone pins, pink T-shirts and, of course, a lot about cosmetics. The American Cancer Society offers a program called ‘Look Good…Feel Better,’ which gives out free cosmetics to women undergoing breast cancer treatment. The Libby Ross Foundation gives breast cancer patients a free tote bag containing Estee Lauder body crème, a pink satin pillowcase, a set of Japanese cosmetics and two rhinestone bracelets. And no one, so far as I could determine, was complaining about the strange idea that you can fight a potentially fatal disease with eyeliner and blush.”
The culture has expanded since 2001, with a proliferation of pink-packaged products — soap, mouthwash, toothpaste, cookies, credit, gasoline, candies, cosmetics, teddy bears, T-shirts, shoes, handbags, totes, batteries, electronics, musical instruments, magazines, cereals, sodas and beers. Board an airline this month and you might be able to sip a Pink Ribbon Chardonnay as you jet from here to there.
Some companies are dedicating much higher percentages of sales for research and breast cancer programs than others — meaning buyers beware.
I don’t bemoan or want to tear down pink power, and I respect the sisterhood of women coming together in city after city to walk for a cure and march for a cause.
I don’t question the commitment of those in the women’s health movement advocating for change — in the medical professional and at the legislative level.
But this commercialization of the movement seems unprecedented and inappropriate, and I believe it has borrowed the spotlight from a grassroots effort for real reform.
Not one of the dozen press releases from companies touting the sale of a Breast Cancer Awareness pink product contained a quote or a statement encouraging women to get mammograms or conduct self-examinations. And not one corporate spokesperson I spoke with wanted to talk about health care policies, medical research and treatment options.
You might think of it this way: We who should be seeing red — over too few treatment options a lack of preventative care, denied treatment under their insurance and, most recently, denied a public option for coverage — are being encouraged to get cozy — and tricked into complacency — in pink.
This is an excellent article. I admit early on in reading I disagreed with you about the campaign being a bad thing early on. We recently had a discussion about this in my non profit class. The entire phenomenon of people giving for the wrong reasons. I personally believe that it doesn’t really matter why people give as long as they are giving. However, it does matter what is being done by the people who are receiving the money. I think the pink ribbon program is good for what it’s worth. It’s a marketing campaign to raise money for breast cancer research. That’s all it’s ever really been, and that is indeed a good thing. It allows people to give without really making any change to their regularly schedule spending habits, which increases monetary resources. Awesome.
However, the question that this article really raises is “Is that all the campaign should be?”. I am inclined to say no. It should be more than it is. It should be educational, and address a broader set of concerns in terms of how does society deal with this disease. I think the example of cosmetics to make people feel better about themselves is a perfect example. It’s frivolous to the extreme. I understand where they are coming from, and they aren’t completely off mark per se, but they’re still mostly off mark. It’s a similar approach to the women who after loosing a breast to cancer have that part of their body elaborately tattooed so they can make it beautiful again and reclaim themselves. The tattoo process is dramatic and has specific psychological trans formative effects because of the ritualized nature of it, and that the women have to invest so much in the process. Throwing on some mascara that was given to you is I’m sad to say throwing a coat of paint on a substantial problem. We need to address the issues in a more meaningful way.
Capitalism rules and cancer and AIDS are a capitalist’s dream. Why would anyone *cure* a disease when one could make untold amounts of money from its treatment, research, and, yes, marketing? The sad and ugly truth about cancer (and perhaps especially breast cancer) is that it is lucrative. We are not people, we are piles of money in the eyes of industry.