Paying the price of Pink: Does breast cancer awareness actually suffer?
Tweet
As you can tell from previous posts I’ve been thinking about the pink malarkey that surrounds breast cancer. It may be my personal problem. I’m perfectly prepared to own it, if it just mine. I agree my ennui may mean I’m a weirdo outlier. If not, though, that weariness must surely ring warning bells for breast cancer charities? Is there a chance that their activities, hitherto highly regarded, are shading into the counterproductive?
Wearing me down with all the repetitive pinkness isn’t a successful campaigning outcome if I share my deep sighs with other women. I’m a middle aged woman, fast heading into the post-menopausal high risk group, well aware that breast cancer kills. Women should never be worn down to disengagement with breast awareness, and certainly not at my age.
I read in Wikipedia that this is the 25th year of pink and Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the US. If that’s also true in the UK – it certainly feels like reality – no wonder I’m not clear how more ‘aware’ I can get. I think it was James Thurber who described graduation from university as meaning the educational authorities had decided they’d provided him with enough knowledge and so they had declared him ‘full’. I’m full. No more space for breast awareness, not until the messages change.
All the pink products sold to raise awareness, and responsible for my awareness fatigue used to symbolise women and breast cancer, women and health, but are we totally sure those products have not now become the message, rather than representing it? If a woman wants a pink ceramic hair straightener just how much better informed about breast cancer and breast awareness is she now than she was before she bought it, with 10% of the charge given to some breast cancer charity or other? A previous posting, probably more than one given how much I wonder about it, has commented on the ambiguity of breast cancer awareness. How often do ‘we’ the public think it’s about health promotion, and how often is it nothing of the sort, or is so tangentially connected that it is dancing on the head of a pin to assert that the purchase of a pink themed thing is part of breast cancer awareness?
They are already wondering about this in the US. Breast Cancer Action has a range of fascinating content on its website – the stuff about screening and mammography is well worth looking at (though the bits about screening women in their 40's is their practice, not ours).
They also have some simple consumer advice for anyone considering the purchase of pink products in order to support breast cancer charities, and show solidarity. The advice is for the US context and so it may be a bit different here but the ‘caveat emptor’ nature of the content is good enough advice for us.
They seem to accept pink marketing as legitimate but take a sceptical stance on how it is actually done. They don’t mention anything about how breast cancer awareness and health promotion is advanced by the purchase of a pink thing so I assume they assume it isn't. Below are the edited highlights.
1. How much money from your purchase actually goes toward breast cancer? Is the amount clearly stated on the package?
When the package does state the amount of the donation, is that amount enough? Is this a significant contribution, or a piddly amount? You decide. If you can’t tell how much money is being donated, or if you don’t think it’s enough, give directly instead.
2. What is the maximum amount that will be donated?
Many companies place a cap on the amount of money that will be donated. But if they’ve capped their contributions this means that once they had reached the limit they stopped contributing, no matter how many pairs of jeans were purchased.
3. How are the funds being raised?
Does making the purchase ensure a contribution to the cause? Or do you, the shopper, have to jump through hoops to make sure the money gets where it’s supposed to go?
4. To what breast cancer organisation does the money go, and what types of programs does it support?
Does the product’s package tell you where the money goes, which charity and what will be done with it? Research? Breast cancer services? Campaigning?
5. What is the company doing to assure that its products are not actually contributing to cases of breast cancer?
And here is the direct link to their full version.
It seems there is a price to pay for all the pink. Is health promotion as awareness losing out to big business awareness? Have we stepped towards pink product awareness and away from breast cancer awareness? It is curious indeed, and then some, if some aspects of Breast Cancer Awareness Month are managing to reduce breast cancer to background noise behind consumerism.
Time for someone to go in there, fetch breast cancer out and stick it where it should be, with all the other other women's health issues.
