October is “Breast Cancer Awareness Month” and I’m sure you won't be able to miss this information. "Pink Ribbon Blues" is meant to debunk the "Pink-tober" effect. Practically every retailer gets into the pink ideal, as usual. In fact, last year, my husband’s employer printed up pink t-shirts and all employees were required to sit for a group photo that is displayed on their Facebook page. While the company (to our knowledge) hasn’t donated to any group or fund in an effort to eradicate breast cancer, their pink attire is meant to demonstrate their support, care and concern for breast cancer as an issue in our society. This is exactly the problem with the entire “pink” campaign as highlighted in Gayle Sulik’s book, PINK RIBBON BLUES: HOW BREAST CANCER CULTURE UNDERMINES WOMEN’S HEALTH (Oxford University Press, 2001).
A woman who had breast cancer when she was in her mid-twenties stated that she avoided the media during October and tried to steer clear of retailers as much as possible because she wanted “to buy my English muffins and not be reminded of” her cancer. Imagine what this is like for women who have or know women who have breast cancer? Every time they do anything in the fall months, they’re reminded of the disease. What if every other kind of cancer suffered this media and sales blitz? With a month for each, stores would consist of a rainbow of competing interests! We’d ask ourselves, “Do I buy pink vanilla ice cream to support breast cancer or purchase yellow toilet tissue to show my allegiance to those who suffer from lymphoma?”
While we might want to support organizations that contribute to research, detection and treatment for breast cancer, we must also consider that corporations are making money off of breast cancer. When we buy the Yoplait with the “pink foil top” instead of the Chobani in October, we choose to support one corporation over another because of a cause with which the company aligns itself in an effort to influence us to buy their product. The pink that covers packaging and that is dyed or applied to every product is rather sickly upon closer inspection. Sulik asks after seeing a grocery store full of pink balloons and baked goods, “Is breast cancer really so festive?”
Not only is the pink campaign tiresome in every retail setting to people with or without breast cancer, it conveys a specific image and sets standards about the expectation of women with cancer. As Sulik points out, there are memoirs and articles about how women are supposed to “kick cancer’s butt wearing high heels.” This means that while we fight a potentially deadly disease, the treatment for which is its own kind of poison, we’re supposed to still uphold ideals of femininity and beauty. We don’t put on combat boots to fight cancer, we wear heels! Imagine if our doctors told us we’d feel better when we had the flu if we just got up and put on makeup in the morning, even as we tasted the lipstick when our attempt at breakfast failed or the mascara blackened our already sunken and feverish eyes.
As a society, we need to “think” about all kinds of cancer and the causes of cancer for sure, yet I believe we should leave the “pink” out of it.
A different version of this article was first published at HerCircleEzine.com 12/6/12: http://www.hercircleezine.com/2012/12/06/go-pink-for-breast-cancer-maybe-its-time-we-rethink-pink/
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