Pink ribbon blues: snappy comeback lines

kira66715 · April 2011

A woman who used to post here frequently: KAK, has me following her blog--The Accidental Amazon:http://accidentalamazon.com/ and the blog of Gail Stulik a sociologist and author of "Pink Ribbon Blues": http://gaylesulik.com/, and the most recent blog from Stulik is about the pink ribbon culture vs. meaningful progress against the disease.

She quoted some come back lines to organizations that talk about "breast cancer awareness" but don't do much to deal with better treatment and/or who sexualize women for the cause. It's from another blog, I hate breast cancer

"As a start, consider some of these fun new slogans from the blog, I Hate Breast Cancer."Let Me Tell You About My Side EffectsNeuropathy: It’s Not All It’s Cracked Up to BeWhat Part of Incurable Disease Don’t You Understand?Thank Goodnesss I Have Chemo Brain, Because You Look Pretty ForgettableScrew Research, I’d Rather Buy Pink Crap from a Shallow & Useless GroupWear Black & Save the Rack! As we all struggle with what to do with comments on our appearance and garments, these just struck me. I know they're not really on point for LE, but the chronic disease comment is. I hope no one finds these offensive, but after the first October I experienced after my diagnosis and treatment, when I hurled the Oprah magazine that said "I lost a breast but my heart grew." and felt like a failure because I was just miserable with recovering from treatment and dealing with LE and now I was upset because I was not transformed in a postitive way by bc and LE. I've never appreciated the pink movement. I know it gives many of the women I see in the office a sense of hope and solidarity--but, for me, I take the Barbara Ehrenreich approach:http://www.barbaraehrenreich.com/cancerland.htm "Welcome to Cancerland" This is the one great truth that I bring out of the breast-cancer experience, which did not, I can now report, make me prettier or stronger, more feminine or spiritual -- only more deeply angry. What sustained me through the "treatments" is a purifying rage, a resolve, framed in the sleepless nights of chemotherapy, to see the last polluter, along with, say, the last smug health insurance operative, strangled with the last pink ribbon. Cancer or no cancer, I will not live that long of course. But I know this much right now for sure: I will not go into that last good night with a teddy bear tucked under my arm.

Kira

BoobsinaBox · April 2011

Kira, that's a powerful post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and those of others. This whole experience is just beyond those who haven't been through it.

Dawn

kira66715 · April 2011

Thanks Dawn, the blog struck me and then I posted and was so afraid it was offensive. I'm no longer as angry as Barbara Ehrenreich, but I've been there.

Driving home, I passed an Exxon gas truck with a pink ribbon festooned along it, with the comments "The Orange for the Pink" and all I could think about was toxic waste and marketing and no clue of the real human suffering behind the "feel good" slogans.

Kira

BeckySharp · April 2011

Kira,

Heavy, profound. With the LE rearing its head on me and the interminable wrapping, I have almost forgotten that I had cancer. I have LE. I think I am more angry/distressed about that. A hidden culture.

Becky

Sher · April 2011

Pink was never one of my favorite colors before breast cancer and I like it even less now. Is there a fact sheet somewhere that lists how much is actually raised with all these different pink movements?

Both my sisters have bought me assorted pink stuff and I think they feel they are supporting me in a positive way with their purchases/gifts. So if pink stuff is puchased and given as a way of saying, "I care" and if money is actually being raised, then I can live with all the pink. But the organizations that do it just for a gimmick to sell their product - that upsets me.

I need a new avatar!

kira66715 · April 2011

Sher, I went to Stulik's blog, and she wrote about a web page called Komen Watch that follows the money:

http://gaylesulik.com/?p=7143

http://komenwatch.org/

I haven't studied this at all, like women who wrote the blog, but I'll try and educate myself.

Kira

Lunakin · April 2011

I hate pink. I hate it even more since my Dx.

Overhelpful person: "Don't you want to talk to another survivor?" Me: "They only know you're a breast cancer survivor after you die of something else."

Too much pink-washing from corporations trying to sell product because they give $0.01 per thousand to "breast cancer awareness." Come on, we're all too aware. How about some prevention research? Why has BC risen from 1:26 in the early-mid 1900s to the 1:8 today? 1:7 in the Puget Sound region.

Take this radio spot I've heard for a breast-cancer walk/run event -- it ends with saccharine music and a sugary voice saying: "Because everyone deserves a lifetime." Well, yeah, everyone does get a lifetime. Some of us just have shorter ones. Some of us have lifetimes without (a) breast(s). Or lifetimes with LE.

Why don't they give men with prostate cancer little stuffed (blue) teddy bears?

Luv the "Let me tell you about my side effects" line! Sometimes I say "Breasts are highly over-rated," which usually shuts 'em up.

Lunakin · April 2011

Becky, I agree with you. It's the LE, and the AI s/es, and everything else that started with the painful biopsies when tethered by an IV and placed into position so you can't move while men stick sharp objects in your breast.

Just read a couple of medical articles written by MDs wondering why women would have a prophylactic contralateral mastectomy, since it usually doesn't lower the mortality risk much. They were completely clueless about all the morbidity that results from a BC Dx & Tx.

Breast Cancer Action (bcaction.org) has good info on pinkwashing, etc.

Suzybelle · April 2011

The thing that bothers me is that as people who have or have had bc, we are supposed to be brave, strong, stoic, positive, etc. I get so sick of the Joan of Arc, martyr crap that people try to lay on me. Uh, hell to the no I am not grateful or happy to have gone through the past year and no, it didn't make me stronger, or better, or more spiritual. I was already pretty cool with myself before all this, thank you very much. They don't do that to people with other diseases/cancers(I was an early stage bc patient, and I'm very grateful). My uncle is stage IV lung cancer, and nobody is sending him pink crap telling him how brave he is and he's a 'survivor'. And he is actually an awesome human being who deserves some kudos for handling a totally sucky situation in a very classy way.

There is something really creepy about how society or corporations have managed to market, package, and spin a horrible disease into something almost attractive or acceptable. Why is bc pink and fluffy and sweet now? It sure hasn't felt that way to me. Is it because I'm a girl? Because it's my boobs? I don't get it. And it freaks me out sometimes, because I can tell people who really didn't give me a second thought before all this are now abnormally interested in my bc and the le, and my whole experience. Call me crazy, but I don't think bc or le are very interesting or fascinating. I don't even know if that will make sense to you guys.

It's just very strange and yukky to me.

Anonymous · April 2011

Suzybelle - You made a lot of sense to me. I have been told a number of times that I am an inspiration and I am strong. I have no clue of what they are saying. I cried during my infusions, I cried at night - all night, I curled up into a ball and hid. I wasn't strong. I wasn't a super woman. I am still dealing with the aftershocks and depression and let's not forget the anger. I hate pink. I hate pink ribbons. The color of the ribbon should be the color of watercolors when you mix them all together. You know... the ugly, grayish color. Thanks for listening to my soapbox.

kira66715 · April 2011

Hillck/Cindy--you are always welcome on this thread--I just posted it here, because it's where I feel most comfortable, it's not really about LE per se, but about this whole marketing thing and the "role" of the courageous breast cancer survivor, and why every product I buy has a pink ribbon on it--and yet I don't think that ribbon is actually helping me. And that the head of Komen is making a CEO salary off of breast cancer just feels completely wrong.

Suzy--good point that no one is marketing lung cancer products--like little teddy bears with oxygen tubing. And what about prostate cancer--no blue ribbons and catchy slogans about incontinence and erectile dysfunction.

Somehow sexuality and cancer and marketing got all mixed up, and I resent being told that breast cancer is a gift. It's not. It's a disease. And lymphedema totally sucks--to grab one of those slogans: "Let me tell you about my side effects!" and "What part of an incurable disease don't you get."

Thanks for understanding.

Kira

SpecialK · April 2011

Hi ladies -

I was diagnosed on 9/27/10 - 3 days before the onlsaught of October's BC Awareness. I was still in that shell-shocked, can't sleep, terror-filled stage when you have some answers but many more need to come. The grocery store was full of pink lids on mayonnaise jars, on tv football players wearing pink jerseys, pink banners were everywhere, commercials for pink perfume, pink scarves, pink cans of chili etc. It was oppressive and so in your face that all it did was fuel the panic for me. I have calmed down now but the timing SUCKED! I realize that the funds raised do provide benefits, but the way big businesses have co-opted this disease to market products is pretty obscene. I too have received pink ribbon pins, bears, etc. and they are all put away - can't look at them right now. I have had 5 surgeries since Nov. and am 2/3 of the way through chemo. I am looking at several more surgeries to come, continuing Herceptin, and all the other stuff we all have to go through in this process of living with BC. I am not sure what my state of mind will be by next October, but I think there needs to be more awareness of what the commercialization of this disease really means, and how it affects all of us whether we have BC or not.

duckyb1 · April 2011

Going to a LE specialist Monday.........showed the RO my arm yesterday, and she said she wants it checked, even though it is slightly fuller then the other one.................they only took out 8 nodes........all negative........but the damn dye didn't take well enough to please my BS, so to be sure he took nodes..............now I wish he hadn't, but everyone said "he had to be certain", so off i go................I can just tell my shirt sleeves on the right arm feel a little more snug then the left. ........could still be surgery swelling, but they are not taking that chance.

kira66715 · April 2011

Ducky, there's a new position paper out from the National Lymphedema network about early diagnosis of lymphedema--early diagnosis and treatment leads to better outcomes.

Here's a link to stepupspeakout, and the site was created by women who post here to gather information on lymphedema.

Good that your radiation oncologist is concerned.

http://www.stepup-speakout.org/What_%20is%20_Lymphedema.htm

This is not my favorite page on the site, but at the bottom is a link to a great handout/overview from Livestrong

http://www.livestrong.org/Get-Help/Learn-About-Cancer/Cancer-Support-Topics/Physical-Effects-of-Cancer/Lymphedema

Let us know how you make out.

Kira

kane744 · May 2011

Still catching up here. I got sucked in to joining a breast cancer group last year. I thought it would be meetings providing help to those going through particularly bad times, or just diagnosed, etc. Oh no. What it REALLY was were announcement after announcement about fundraiser after fundraiser. Once in a great while, a woman would shyly bring up some struggle she was experiencing and everyone oooohed and ahhhhhhed and then it was back to business as usual. Buy this, join that, etc. What finally did it for me was when I went to the leaders asking if we could do a session on lymphedema so that women would know what they are up against. Got that blank eyed stare and that did it for me. Once the head of sales for some BC drug company gave a session on the power of meditation and positive thinking. Oh VOMIT. Pink has always been a favorite color of mine. Have a lot of it in my wardrobe. But come Sept./Oct,, you won't see me wearing a stitch of it. Hey, maybe we should do a march topless so the world can see what it's really all about!!

sjguillaume · November 2011

so glad I came across this post. I was beginning to think I was one of the only ones getting worked up over the whole pink washing movement. I started a face book group because I was so upset about my experiences... http://www.facebook.com/groups/316651888349941/

"What sustained me through the "treatments" is a purifying rage, a resolve, framed in the sleepless nights of chemotherapy, to see the last polluter, along with, say, the last smug health insurance operative, strangled with the last pink ribbon. Cancer or no cancer, I will not live that long of course. But I know this much right now for sure: I will not go into that last good night with a teddy bear tucked under my arm. " AMEN!

Lunakin · November 2011

A pink compact mirror. That's what one of the local hospitals gives new patients as an incentive for getting a mammogram with them during October. Spleeeeach!

And the announcement said "It's a fact that breast cancer caught early is curable."

I still haven't calmed down enough to write them a fact-quoting letter telling them just how that statement is wrong.

I'll enclose a cute toy truck w/my letter to the man heading their marketing dept.

Pink ribbon blues: snappy comeback lines

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