{"id":2015,"date":"2010-10-12T15:05:35","date_gmt":"2010-10-12T20:05:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/citings\/?p=2015"},"modified":"2010-10-13T09:01:06","modified_gmt":"2010-10-13T14:01:06","slug":"sociology-of-pink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/2010\/10\/12\/sociology-of-pink\/","title":{"rendered":"Sociology of Pink"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Two weeks into Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the pink ribbons have been fluttering in full force. A <a href=\"http:\/\/well.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/10\/11\/pink-ribbon-fatigue\/\" target=\"_blank\">New York Times blog<\/a> urges a little reflection on the meaning of this now ubiquitous phenomenon:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>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 \u201cpink ribbon  culture.\u201d Medical sociologist Gayle A. Sulik, author of the new book \u201cPink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women\u2019s Health\u201d (Oxford University Press), calls it \u201cthe rise of pink October.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPink ribbon paraphernalia saturate shopping malls, billboards, magazines, television and other entertainment venues,\u201d she writes on her Web site.  \u201cThe pervasiveness of the pink ribbon campaign leads many people to  believe that the fight against breast cancer is progressing, when in  truth it\u2019s barely begun.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The campaign builds on a long history of breast cancer activism, beginning in the 1970s, and now represents mainstream recognition of the cause.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>So how can the pink ribbon be objectionable? Among the first salvos  against the pink ribbon was a 2001 article in Harper\u2019s magazine entitled  \u201cWelcome to Cancerland,\u201d 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A few additional critiques:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In \u201cPink Ribbon Blues,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n<p>And like Ms. Ehrenreich, Ms. Sulik worries that the color pink  reinforces stereotypical notions of gender \u2014 for example, that recovery  from breast cancer necessarily entails having breast reconstruction,  wearing makeup and \u201crestoring the feminine body.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Ms. Sulik closely examines what she calls the \u201cfinancial  incentives that keep the war on breast cancer profitable.\u201d 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/well.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/10\/11\/pink-ribbon-fatigue\/\" target=\"_blank\">Read the rest<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39074],"tags":[851,39112,245,39114,39113,152,807],"class_list":["post-2015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sightings","tag-body","tag-culture","tag-feminism","tag-gender","tag-health","tag-medical","tag-socialmovement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2015"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2018,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2015\/revisions\/2018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/clippings\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}