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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
Does "shopping for the cure" cheapen the reality of breast cancer?
Oct 10, 2005 | It's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and we're awash in a sea of pink. Pink ribbons, pink wristbands, pink Cartier watches, pink makeup kits, pink Tic Tacs, a pink Delta airplane, pink nail polish, a pink Montegrappa Micra Pen, pink bouquets, pink tweezers, pink candles, pink jeweled key fobs, pink totes, pink shower gel, pink tea, pink moisturizer, pink Lean Cuisines, pink teddy bears, pink Waterford crystal, pink Post-its, pink M&Ms, pink sneakers, pink umbrellas, pink yogurt, pink golf balls, pink pencil sharpeners, and even pink toilet paper. That's right, wipe for the cure.
It seems as if every corporation with female customers has realized that pinking it up can be good for business. Take Avon, for example, the fairy godmother of pink events. On its Web site Avon claims that between 1992 and 2004 it donated $350 million for "medical research, access to treatment, screening, support services, and education." Three hundred and fifty million over 12 years is a lot of money, true, but let's remember that we're not talking about an anonymous donation. Avon scores a lot of pink P.R. points for its "breast cancer crusade," and the company's dedication to the cause is good for the bottom line, too. According to Breast Cancer Action, a grass-roots organization in San Francisco, Avon's 4-year-old Kiss Goodbye to Breast Cancer lipstick line actually drove a 6 percent growth in the sale of its lipstick units.
There is a particular irony in this corporate sponsorship. Many cosmetics contain parabens, estrogenic chemical preservatives that can disrupt normal hormone functions, and exposure to such external estrogens has been shown to increase the risk of breast cancer. Another common ingredient in cosmetics is phthalates, which cause a broad range of birth defects and reproductive problems in laboratory animals. A recent study by researchers at the University of Missouri at Columbia found that prenatal exposure to some phthalates can disrupt normal male reproductive tract development. The link between environmental pollutants and breast cancer is also becoming clearer. When absorbed into the body, certain pesticides, plastics additives, and chemicals present in foods, household dust and air act like estrogen, possibly increasing the risk of breast cancer.
Given this, to some women the very idea of a corporate-sponsored breast cancer awareness month is dubious. Peggy Orenstein, author of "Schoolgirls: Young Women, Self Esteem and the Confidence Gap" and "Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids, and Life in a Half-Changed world," was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997 at age 35. She believes that by encouraging women to "Shop for the Cure," pink October cheapens the reality of breast cancer. "It provides people with the illusion of activism in the place of real action," she says. It also troubles Orenstein that so many of the October events focus on awareness and screening, rather than on the causes of breast cancer. "When corporations dominate the giving, they drive the direction of the research and right now, they routinely steer it away from investigating potential environmental links to cancer," she says. "Focusing on the environment wouldn't serve the interests of Big Pink companies like Chevron, whose Bay Area oil refinery has had notorious toxic accidents."
In November 2001, Barbara Ehrenreich published an article in Harper's, "Welcome to Cancerland," which expressed her umbrage at the "cult of pink kitsch." The teddy bears, the pink journals complete with crayons where a breast cancer patient was supposed to "express different moods, different thoughts," all these were part of what Ehrenreich viewed as a "general chorus of sentimentality and good cheer" in which everyone is a survivor until the moment she isn't, and breast cancer is "a chance for creative self-transformation -- a makeover opportunity." Ehrenreich wrote about the vast culture of women with breast cancer, their families and friends as a kind of religion complete with its own salvation and redemption: a cure. October is, then, breast cancer's high holy days, when the pink "amulets and talismans" of the faith are most prevalent, readily available even to the unconverted.
I absolutely sympathize with Orenstein's and Ehrenreich's resistance to the cult of pink. I'm fairly certain that if were diagnosed with breast cancer I wouldn't gloss my lips with Stila pink tint or blush my cheeks with Remy's Hint of Cure. I wouldn't Sip a Republic of Tea for the Cure or have a Wacoal bra Fit for the Cure. Like Orenstein, I find the notion of a vast commercial enterprise devoted to breast cancer very unsettling, and like Ehrenreich, I resent the implication that an ill woman, or any woman, should be treated like a child.
