Think Before You Pink
This week, my students in WMS 320 are thinking about “Feminist Activism and Human Bodies.” It’s a fitting topic considering the recent controversy between Susan G. Komen for the Cure (formerly known as The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation) and Planned Parenthood. As anyone who has been on the Internet or watched the news in the last two weeks is aware, on January 31 Komen announced that it would no longer be granting money to help fund cancer screening services at Planned Parenthood.
In a heated election year where women’s health and reproductive freedoms seem to be at the front of battle lines, this move had many people quickly arguing that Komen was putting politics before the welfare of women’s health. It has been no secret that Karen Handel, a Republican who was appointed Komen’s senior vice president for public policy in April 2011, is against Planned Parenthood. Perhaps what no one expected was the way that Planned Parenthood—through social media—would fight back. Almost immediately, angry responses began popping up on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. Planned Parenthood quickly joined in with its own official responses, as well as posting links to the media’s coverage of the story, re-Tweeting pro-@PPact Tweets, all the while reminding individuals how they, too, could help support Planned Parenthood.
When all was said and done, Planned Parenthood received over $400,000 in just 24 hours, as well as a $250,000 pledge from Michael Bloomberg. As donations to Planned Parenthood continued to pour in, and amidst continued public pressure, Komen announced on February 3 that it “will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants.” On February 7, as a result of the controversy, Handel resigned from Komen. Discussing the matter in an interview with The Daily Beast on February 10 Handel conceded, “Komen doesn’t have the strength [of Planned Parenthood] in the area of social media.”
This statement is directly relevant to what I am trying to get students in WMS 320 to think about this semester: how social media has changed the landscape for personal and political activism. While some of them have jumped on-board the Twitter wagon, it has been surprising to me how reluctant many of them have been to use Twitter and this blog platform to partake in their own “feminist thought into action.” I am hoping some of them will comment their thoughts about this here. In the meantime, I have been thinking of ways to integrate social media into the classroom even more, not only for WMS 320, but also for WMS 150 and my courses at RISD.
The Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy also has me thinking about the role of “awareness” in social activism, especially as it relates to women’s health. Each semester in WMS 150 I have my students read Barbara Ehrenreich’s somewhat controversial essay “Welcome to Cancerland.” In it, Ehrenreich discusses what she refers to as the “cult of pink kitsch” and its infantilaztion of women. Komen, with its partnership with companies like Kentucky Fried Chicken (and their infamous 2010 “Buckets for a Cure” campaign), has long been accused of the type of “pinkwashing” that Ehrenreich refers to in her essay. Along with this article, I take the opportunity to educate my students on the business model of cause marketing, and ask them to consider the ways in which breast cancer, and its ubiquitous “pink ribbon,” has been used to sell everything from highlighters to hand guns. Students are routinely shocked to find out that the pink ribbon is unregulated in terms of marketing, and that companies routinely use it to sell products (particularly in October) without any consistent regulation on where funds raised for “Breast Cancer Awareness” actually go.
I then show students the following sets of images and ask them, how, exactly, do bracelets saying “i ♥ boobies” raise awareness of anything other than the fact that women’s breasts are constantly being exploited and fetishized? What do products such as these, or “high heel” races for charity, do other than capitalize on the sexist stereotypes that women are routinely subjected to in society? At this point, aren’t we as a culture already “aware” of breast cancer?
Now, I realize that thirty years ago breast cancer was a “women’s issue,” suffered in silence, rarely even discussed by those dying from it. I am certainly not advocating going back to this secrecy or shame. Fortunately, we have moved past this stage, and today breast cancer is one of the most highly visible diseases in American culture (heck, we even have a month set aside for its awareness). My point is, when does awareness move on to action?
In 2010 the National Institutes of Health, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the nation’s primary medical research agency, designated $631.2 million in breast cancer research, more than twice the amount allocated for any other disease. Yet, according to the CDC, between the years of 1998 and 2007 (the most recent year for which data is available) incidences of breast cancer in the United States have only decreased by 1.3% per year, with virtually no change in the rates of breast cancer among black women. Obviously money—and awareness—are not enough. While funding certainly needs to continue to go in to research and helping those who suffer from breast cancer and other illness, perhaps the Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy can be productive in getting us to think about activism—and breast cancer—in new ways. Since 1990 Breast Cancer Action, a grassroots activism group out of San Francisco, has been arguing that “the breast cancer epidemic is a public health crisis, and a social justice issue.” They advocate for “systemic change that will end the breast cancer epidemic, while supporting women & men at risk for and living with breast cancer.” For those looking to take action aimed at prevention, or to learn more about their “Think Before You Pink” campaign, I highly encourage you to visit their website: http://bcaction.org/. Their priorities, which include creating a different kind of awareness, “that it is not just genes, but social injustices — political, economic, and racial inequities — that lead to disparities in breast cancer outcomes” speaks to the type of consciousness that can lead to real change.
Jenn Brandt 
To me this idea of “pink awareness” is very interesting. I feel as if I can look at it many different ways. For example, you cannot feed into it because it is just a form of marketing to support capitalism as professor Brandt states in her blog. I agree with this, how are we suppose to know that supposedly every $1 of the $5 you spend goes to breast cancer awareness, frankly we don’t. But when you are at the cash register and the cashier asks if you would like to donate a dollar to support breast cancer awareness what do you say…No I don’t believe that my money is going to be going to the right place, take your pink and shove it! For myself I don’t because I feel like a bitch if I don’t. It’s like a peer pressure sort of thing. I don’t want that cashier to give me a nasty look and think I am some sort of bitch for not donating a dollar. So in reaction to all of this I think that we as a society need to do the right thing and maybe put a little bit more research into where our money is going. If we are going off of the color pink here then it should be used to raise awareness and money should be going to the rightful place, not down the gullet of a KFC consumer. If enough people wanted to I am sure there could be a social movement to make sure that not just breast cancer but all cancer awareness money is going to the right place not in someone’s pocket for benefit. But it is hard to do this, for example, even myself had no idea that this “pink washing” is not the best of things. Honestly it is almost as if you do not want to even think that much into it, because you feel like a bad person if you do. Like okay I donated my dollar did my good deed for the day, and you go about your day feeling a little bit better about yourself… this idea is socially integrated into our minds, because we like the way we feel after we donate, at least I do.
So what’s the whole point here…that we need to raise awareness on cancer awareness. We need to not let these big consumer assholes like KFC steal our money, and we need to realize that promoting awareness is more than just wearing pink. I think a good start to this type of activism would just get the article about the way the color pink is used as a capitalistic tool instead of support before breast cancer for the public to see. This simple step may get people to think twice about where they donate a dollar, and true cancer awareness fundraisers can be promoted in a more in local manner, which would support the community better.
I was unaware of the poor regulation of breast cancer awareness products until I came home from the store with a “Better Homes and Gardens” cookbook that a coworker gave me that had a big pink ribbon on it. She told me of her disgust with the way that companies use breast cancer as a vehicle for profit by marketing that pink ribbon. Not only are they using a disease to sell a product, but one can’t always be sure that the company is actually giving proceeds to breast cancer research. I agree that breast cancer “awareness” is not enough to make me feel good about a company using cancer to profit itself. Now that I think of it, I would expect behavior like that from a company like “Better Homes and Gardens” who in the past have contained extremely sexist ads in their catalogue.
I do not really know how I feel about Susan G. Komen after this whole situation. Why now? What happened that made them want to take the funding away from Planned Parenthood? It is understandable to maybe lower the amount of money given, but too fully take away funding is just confusing to me. Every disease now a days has their own color, but what does a color have to do with a disease? I am a part of ZTA on campus and our philanthropy is Breast Cancer Awareness and Education. We collect the pink lids from the yogurt and send them in to collect money for breast cancer, but like Laudine said how do we really know where the money is going. There are all of these different products out there now that have the pink ribbon on them. I see no reason for hole punchers and paper clips to be in support of breast cancer. It is just another way for companies to make themselves look good because they are supporting a good cause. People start to feel an obligation to buy these products, assuming that some of their money is going towards breast cancer research, but is that truly where their money is going? And if they do donate to the cause they leave feeling so much better about themselves because they have done their “good deed for the day.” I am the same way, I feel as though I am being a bad person if I do not do everything I can to help fund breast cancer research. I always leave the story thinking about where my money is going. My dad says the same thing every time, “Spend your money in a more productive way to help instead of supporting these companies.” I know that my dad is right, but at the same time I still think that I am doing the right thing by buying these products. Society has made us think that is what we are supposed to do, but I feel like there is a hidden agenda.