Mainstream cancer culture is a complex concept that has strengths and weaknesses. Many organizations increase awareness and donate money for research. Though, organizations have ulterior motives to not donate as much money for increased profit or carry cancer-linking chemicals despite being advocates for stopping the breast cancer epidemic.
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about breast cancer is the symbol of a pink ribbon. In high school, many football players in the month of October, which is breast cancer awareness month, would be embellished with pink cleats or socks. We even had a “pink out” for one of the football games where everyone would dress in pink for that particular game. As enlightening as this is, some women who suffer/has suffered from breast cancer feel as though they are being trivialized with the pink ribbon. One woman from the stage four breast cancer support group says that she wants others to see the women who go through this not just the pink ribbon (Pool, 2017). There is effort in changing this symbol to one of meaning. Breast Cancer Action has changed its symbol to a full moon symbolizing the embellishment on women warriors of an ancient matriarchal society (Ley, 2009).
Countless companies have made their products the color pink in support of breast cancer. Corporations advocating for breast cancer research or cure, most of the time, allow a portion of their profits to be donated to breast cancer research. In advocating for breast cancer by promise of donation, consumers think a great portion of the price will go to breast cancer research. For some companies, donations are not as large as they seem. For example, some years ago the American Express company said that for the month of October they will donate a portion of money from each product bought with an American Express card. What they had in fine print was that from each purchase they would donate a penny no matter the cost of each item (Pool, 2017). Called “pink-washing” by critics, it is a company’s chance to increase their visibility to the public and their own profit margins (Ley, 2009).
Some organizations have the right idea in donating money to breast cancer research, but the focus of breast cancer research may be skewed. The federal government is believed to give only 3-5% of their donated research money to prevention (Pool, 2017). The donation money from breast cancer advocacy companies tends to support research to find a cure instead of disease prevention (Ley, 2009). In stopping the increase of diagnosed breast cancer patients, great attention has to be paid to prevention. Even companies who had joined in on the mainstream breast cancer culture had cancer-linked ingredients in their product. Take for example General Mills. They had Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) in their dairy products, which has been linked to breast cancer (Ley, 2009). Large corporations fail to realize the areas of research that their donation money should go to and their own products that advocate for breast cancer awareness, but can be linked to causing cancer.
Around the world, every 23 seconds someone is diagnosed with breast cancer. And every 69 seconds someone dies (Pool, 2017). Events for breast cancer awareness and donations to research are the right idea in trying to absolve the breast cancer epidemic. The complacency that the mainstream cancer culture encourages is a major disadvantage to the cause. Mainstream cancer culture needs vast improvement by truly supporting the woman instead of the symbol, donating more of their profits to research, focusing on needed areas of research, and creating products that match their advocacy in order to dissolve the encouragement of complacency and to overall help the breast cancer epidemic.
Ley, B. “Chapter 5: The Cultural Politics of Sisterhood.” From Pink to Green: Disease Prevention and the Environmental Breast Cancer Movement. 2009. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kQtCIl0qJU_xgjxn6PKffp0BhyZqCUqm/view.
Pool, L. Pink Ribbons, Inc. Dailymotion, 3 Aug. 2017, www.dailymotion.com/video/x5vqdad.
Hi Stephanie!
You make some really good points about the disadvantages of mainstream breast cancer culture! Between the pink ribbon feminizing the issue, small donations and lack of focus on specific areas of research, there are definitely many weaknesses surrounding the epidemic. And what’s even worse is that many people are not aware of these issues. When people donate their money to these corporations or foundations, they really don’t know where their money is going to. They may not know that some of the products they purchase, that are in support of breast cancer research, actually contain carcinogens. Or that only a small portion of their money reaches the actual cause they thought they were donating to. Honestly, I didn’t even know much about this issue until this week.
It’s difficult to think of, but are there any strengths to the mainstream breast cancer culture? What positives do you think have come out of this? In both the video “Pink Ribbons Inc.” and the article “The Cultural Politics of Sisterhood”, no strengths were directly mentioned, but you could gather some. In the video, you see thousands of women standing together in support of a cause. So maybe a positive outcome of this is the supportive community of women that it has created. Or that it’s sparked conversations about other possible causes and research tactics.
Hi Stephanie, I really enjoyed reading about your points of the downsides of mainstream breast cancer culture. Your point about the pink ribbon is very important, and I discussed the same thing in my post, pointing out that the breast cancer movement is related to an image rather than the real women who go through this experience. In an effort to bring awareness to the actual women, do you believe that there should be less collaborations from companies to breast cancer awareness organizations? I believe that they should, because I feel that there are times when people put the image of the pink ribbon on items as if they were raising money for breast care awareness, but often cheat and scheme people out of their own money. I believe that the focus should be placed on the women more than the object and that there should be more research done in efforts to help breast cancer patients.