When talking about the mainstream breast cancer culture, there are many positive and negative views on it. Being 2019, and having the technology that we have, breast cancer is very shown to the people all over media through and by different groups and organizations. As we know, obviously breast cancer is not good in any way, which is why, the groups who create movements about breast cancer only focus on the positives such as the amount they raised to help find a cure or their overall achievements as a group. You will never see a sign about the research of breast cancer showing the negative aspects of it because they do not want any sort of negativity associated with that specific medical group.

Like several people talked about in their blog posts, when we think of breast cancer, one of the first visuals and images that comes to our mind is a pink ribbon. I know this, especially, being in greek life and having certain sororities specifically focusing on breast cancer. Each year during breast cancer awareness month, they pass out light pink ribbons. Many people put these on their backpacks because it is a cute color and ribbon. Although,as people place these on their backpacks, I sincerely don’t think people take the time to understand the suffering and pain this illness has caused so many people. Breast cancer takes so many lives, such as almost my moms, and so many other people I know as well. As talked about in the film “Pink Ribbons”, it talks about how basically this pink color associated with breast cancer and the femininity of it distracts most people, whom have never been individually affected by this cancer, from all of the lives it has claimed and how these pink ribbons and color of them makes people almost oblivious of the struggles and issues people with breast cancer go through. As Pool talks about, there are so many groups and organizations that do help raise and donate money specifically towards the research of breast cancer, but it THAT much money is being raised all year for consecutive years, why isn’t there more of a cure/more advanced technology for this disease than there was years ago? Where is this money all going? As shown in the film, hundreds and thousands of companies raise money for this research, but when it comes to donating their money that they raised, only a very small amount goes into this ( Pool, 2017). I know that the issue with raising money and donating it to the research is a direct problem because, as I mentioned above, for the amounts of money being ‘raised’ there has been no significant findings or better technology for treating this disease in years. As I talked about in one of my blog posts, when I was only six years old, my mom got breast cancer. I remember my sister and I , at such a young age, were so worried about getting this cancer since our mom had it. I remember going up to my mom one night and asking her if she thinks I will get it when I am older. Her response, as I remember very clearly, was “When you are older, you won’t have to worry about a thing since they will have such advanced technology when you are grown up”. 13 years later, there has been no significant findings and research for breast cancer because the funds for it are not being met. This really frustrates and upsets me at the same time.

As Ley talks about, mainstream breast cancer and its research states that women are strong and they will fight through this. They don’t need the government or any big cooperations involved to help them since, clearly, they haven’t. As it also talks about a lot in Leys piece, the term ‘survivor’ us a very controversial word to use when talking about breast cancer. Many women whom have overcome this struggle like being called a survivor, but also a lot of women do not like this because as the women talked about, if someone cannot win the battle of cancer, they or the cancer wins. Both cannot.

As talked about in the beginning of this piece, many advertisements about breast cancer that you see from big cooperations and teams are sent out there because they know that by using breast cancer, it will distract the viewer into helping donate and find research for it only to find out the group advertising has absolutely nothing to do with breast cancer and just wanted you to view their page for the benefit of their own group. Breast cancer research is portrayed to all of the positive aspects, although, after watching the film and reading the article about the negative aspects associated with mainstream breast cancer, it really surprised me.

Ley, B. (2009). Chapter 5:  The Cultural Politics of Sisterhood. In From Pink to Green. 

Pool, L. (2017) Pink Ribbons, Inc. Retrieved from https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5vqdad.