Two weeks into Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the pink ribbons have been fluttering in full force. A New York Times blog urges a little reflection on the meaning of this now ubiquitous phenomenon:
The pink ribbon has been a spectacular success in terms of bringing recognition and funding to the breast cancer cause. But now there is a growing impatience about what some critics have termed “pink ribbon culture.” Medical sociologist Gayle A. Sulik, author of the new book “Pink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women’s Health” (Oxford University Press), calls it “the rise of pink October.”
“Pink ribbon paraphernalia saturate shopping malls, billboards, magazines, television and other entertainment venues,” she writes on her Web site. “The pervasiveness of the pink ribbon campaign leads many people to believe that the fight against breast cancer is progressing, when in truth it’s barely begun.”
The campaign builds on a long history of breast cancer activism, beginning in the 1970s, and now represents mainstream recognition of the cause.
So how can the pink ribbon be objectionable? Among the first salvos against the pink ribbon was a 2001 article in Harper’s magazine entitled “Welcome to Cancerland,” written by the well-known feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich. Herself a breast cancer patient, Ms. Ehrenreich delivered a scathing attack on the kitsch and sentimentality that she believed pervaded breast cancer activism.
A few additional critiques:
In “Pink Ribbon Blues,” Ms. Sulik offers three main objections to the pink ribbon. First, she worries that pink ribbon campaigns impose a model of optimism and uplift on women with breast cancer, although many such women actually feel cynicism, anger and similar emotions.
And like Ms. Ehrenreich, Ms. Sulik worries that the color pink reinforces stereotypical notions of gender — for example, that recovery from breast cancer necessarily entails having breast reconstruction, wearing makeup and “restoring the feminine body.”
Finally, Ms. Sulik closely examines what she calls the “financial incentives that keep the war on breast cancer profitable.” She reports that the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which annually sponsors over 125 annual Races for the Cure and more than a dozen three-day, 60-mile walks, has close to 200 corporate partners, including many drug companies. These associations, she warns, are a potential conflict of interest.
Comments 4
Gayle Sulik — November 3, 2010
Go Sociology!
If you are interested in more sociology of pink, I've written more about it on my website, specifically in 'What's in a color' http://gaylesulik.com/?p=836 and 'Swimming in a sea of pink' http://gaylesulik.com/?p=2566.
Not Thinking Pink « Lisa deGruyter — November 4, 2010
[...] of relief that another Breast Cancer Awareness Month had passed, and been cheered to find that I am not the only one who feels that way about it, when the latest Beating the Bounds popped up with a post about another cancer (and other fatal [...]
Shannon — November 8, 2010
Thanks for the comment, Gayle. And congrats on getting this press coverage!
Gayle Sulik — November 16, 2010
There was another review in The New York Times by Abigail Zuger MD that speaks to the power of social science to understand diseases. What a wonderful endorsement!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/health/26zuger.html
And, on Sunday there was a piece in The New York Times Magazine by Peggy Orenstein about making breast cancer sexy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/magazine/14FOB-wwln-t.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=sulik&st=cse
I've posted about it too. http://gaylesulik.com/?p=3382