Anti Pink: Enlighten me

You know what I see "awareness" having accomplished most of the time here? An 18 or 20 year old who apparently has never been taught the most basic health information about what is normal like fibrocystic or hormonal breasts convinced she has cancer because she has a lump, or someone with the slightest rash or pimple on their breast convinced they have inflammatory breast cancer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KzAykxDhGg

Breast  Cancer  awareness has become a political hot potato to the detriment to all of us!  No politician would dare support the US Preventative Disease Task Force's mammography guidelines.  Would it be that terrible for our country's recommendation to be in line with Canada and Europe's recommendations?  What I'd like to hear on October 1st shouted from the mountain tops is that population based screening mammograms do save lives but not as many lives as we thought and we need better screening methods.  Blood tests that will make imaging obsolete.

We need fearless, feckless voices that will speak up in October and say it is time to forgo some of that screening and use the money saved to find a better screening method, better treatments, a vaccine to prevent cancer and if there is still money left over....A CURE!

cider!  I continue to keep you in my thoughts and prayers!  And, regarding the film, Pink Ribbon Blues, I had previously read the book before it was made into a documentary.  As I read it, my heart started missing beats!  The author had put into words how I was feeling!  Until I read the book, I thought I was the only one who puked at the sight of pink!

I am not as angry as some folks are towards Komen.  I am happy that they started the ball rolling with awareness and they continue to give grants....one of which I'm involved with.  That said, the problem is that too many INTELLIGENT women are bewitched by the Pink washing.  Don't they know too much of a good thing is bad for you???!!!!

One day soon, we won't be talking about the different types of cancers.  Guess what? Researchers are discovering the means of how cancers form in the body irrespective of its location.  So soon we will no longer be referring to liver cancer or breast cancer or kidney cancer or whatever!  Soon there will no longer be "breast" cancer.  We will be grouping cancers by their genetic compositions!   It will be Cancer Awareness...a rainbow!  And soon after that rainbow appears...it will lead to that pot if gold...also known as a cure!

anti pink? 

Yes I am

I am one of those who gets hot and bothered by the "pink thing". I have not had cancer, but I certainly have seen too much of it in my family, and in friends, and my own family history has meant I have made choices for myself due to the risk despite being healthy.

Beesie hit right on for many of my own feelings about pinkwashing, etc.

I second the recommendation for watching the film Pink Ribbons, Inc. (there is also a book, which I have read, but the movie is great for the narrative and is different than the book).  You also get to see the wonderful sarcastic and intelligent late Barbara Brenner in it.  Samantha King, author of the book and who appears in the film, calls the pink ribbon movement "the tyranny of cheerfulness"; that kind of hits on the point for me.

The movie raises some interesting points - including about those football players/the NFL; like how for them doing pink thing was a way to try and turn around a lot of negative publicity due to several domestic violence incidents, etc. Kind of makes me wonder why they oh, don't know, didn't try and focus on fundraising for domestic violence victims and counseling....of course, then the focus would have remained on the domestic violence issues, not the fuzzy feel-good pink awareness campaign that diverted attention away from the domestic violence issues.

Also, it is pretty abysmal how few dollars goes to actual research, and especially Stage IV research. Barbara Brenner talks about those pink lids in the movie, about how much is spent sending back a lid for a few cents to be donated....when that person could have just donated the money instead. The pinkwashing of products is ridiculous, it really is. 

My other big issue is, as others pointed out, is how much misinformation it spreads. How many people who think breast cancer is the "good cancer" to get because "98 survival rate if caught early!" without any concept of what survival rates are based on or mean, or what is "early". It gets to point where people just ASSUME people had their cancer caught early and are going to survive because "it's so beatable! When my mother was first diagnosed, she had a few people just say, without ANY knowledge of her actual diagnosis beyond having BC, "at least they caught it early!". Well, no, they didn't, as mammograms missed it for who knows how long, and she was Stage III with 19+ nodes. 8 years later, she was diagnosed with mets, while still on an AI. Many of those same people who said "at leat they caught it early" did not understand how that could be as she had had mastectomies, radiation, chemo, and so on. They did not know that one is not cured just because they are treated. Of course, in terms of the 5 year survival rates, she was one of those that would show as having survived. 

Similarly, I have seen stories on here of women diagnosed be asked ridiculous things like "well, weren't you getting mammograms?" due to misconceptions mammograms catch every possible cancer early on. Way to shame or guilt the victim, often without grounds because they either WERE getting mammograms and mammograms can miss a LOT, especially in dense breasts, or certain cancers like ILC, or were not in the screening age for them. One of my husband's friends was 29 when she was first diagnosed. Way before she was even eligible for regular screening (she did not have breast cancer in her family and was not considered high risk). She was 31 when she died, after a metastatic recurrence. After many in her life thought she had "beat it" since it was caught "early" and she had treatment.

And yeah, the "save the tatas" or "i love boobies" or whatever campaigns are, in my view, are trying to make a horrific disease cutesy and sexy. No thanks. I don't want people to "feel good" about breast cancer. I don't want to see women being infantilized in a sea of feather boas and pink tutus. I don't want the focus to be on the "ta tas". I want it to be on the lives. If breast cancer only stayed in the breast, women would not be dying of it.  I want people who have no experience with breast cancer to know how horrible it is, how un-pretty it is, how un-pink it is, how even treatments that do save lives can have devastating side effects, how even after treatment cancer can come back and the focus is no longer on "cure" but "slowing progression", and to want to do more, and to actually ask where their money is going, and why more is not going to research, such as Stage IV funding, instead of paying Nancy Brinker's hefty salary. I want people to know that breast cancer is not just a way to get a "boob job" as I also have seen comments on!

What disturbs me about the "Pink" tyranny is that - underlying it - is the assumption that there is a right way and a wrong way to get through a breast cancer diagnosis/treatment.  That we must stay positive.  That we must wear a wig and lipstick if we are going to feel better.  That breast cancer is a blessing if we just open ourselves to the possibilities.  But what is the most disturbing is the deeply buried "take away" message that a lot of people are left with; that if you don't do these things, if you are not positive, that if you don't try to look better, that if you don't consider your experience a blessing and an opportunity to give thanks for everything in your life that is good, then - somehow - you're going about it all wrong and you risk a "bad" outcome.

In addition, the whole "pink" thang is, I feel, a "prettification" of an extremely deadly disease in order to make it palatable for others.  I cannot tell you how many times people have said to me, "... breast cancer is curable these days ..." or "... oh, when you're five years out, you never have to worry about getting cancer again ..." or "... I'll never get breast cancer, I have a mammogram every year..." or (my personal favourite) "... my mother just wasn't positive enough and her cancer came back..." 

[Or that breast cancer is an opportunity for a free boob job and/or tummy tuck.   And that our hair will grow back more lustrous and thick than ever, that our skin will never be as beautiful and clear as it was during chemo (my jaw dropped at that one) and that treatment is an opportunity to lose that weight and look great!  Seriously, I encountered all of these things from various people (many who should have known better) during my diagnostic/treatment process.]

Moreover, the use of pink - the perennially favourite colour of little girls - infantalises the entire breast cancer experience and its dark realities, but that's just my opinion.  In the end, there is no right or wrong way to get through cancer; there is just YOUR way.  If being pink and positive works for you, then more power to you; you have to do what you can to get through this in any way that you can.  However, anger and fear are, also, valid emotions that can be very motivating, and shouldn't be criticised or thought wrong.  Anger kept me pushing through treatment, determined to see it through to the end when I was, sometimes, too tired to get up in the morning.  The Pink Ribbon Tyranny doesn't take into account all of the complexities of breast cancer experience and makes some pretty damned huge assumptions about how women should go about handling it.

THAT's my objection to pink.

The year I was diagnosed i was going through chemo in October, MY awareness of the disease was high but i did not know prior to that how insidious the disease could be, did not know personally how horrible chemo was nor did I have a clue how burned you got from rads...Everywhere i went someone was asking me to donate to awareness....it was raw and very painful...

My take is this...if you need a blender, mixer, coffee mug whatever and you so happen to buy a pink one good for you but please don't go out buying the stuff because it IS pink...Like any charity or cause, do your research to see how much of your money goes to the cause and what they are working towards. I tend to donate to local charities that help people in my area with travel expenses, food expenses or something tangible to help assist them in their time of pain. We have several local groups that give women money for travel, or gas cards, or to use at your discretion to use as you need best.

I doubt there is a woman out there that does not know about BC, they (just like us) have NO CLUE at all it entails, how many differing scenarios there are, that surgery can be almost drive through if you don't do recon and that the effects of chemo can be a gift that keeps on giving.

While I realize that there is a need for research, I have little faith that there will ever be a cure because there is no money in curing it. Look in your chemo rooms,,,how many are sitting there???  Each treatment costing 6K or more... I tell people that ask me if you want to give, give to a local group that assists women in your area, go buy groceries, gas cards, or prepare a meal for a sister that is struggling with BC.. Because we have been there we KNOW what touched our hearts when we were going through treatments. We know how to assist someone..we know what to write in the cards..Pinktober woulld not survive if women did not support it. I think in a small way it is women who want to validate the journey by sporting the ribbon (and that's okay) and also there are women that pray that by buying something pink that the beast won't find them...There are two sides of this and there is no right or wrong. We are each compelled to defend our stance. IF you love pinktober good for you. I personally dread it because it brings me right back to the day at the cash register, wearing my hot prickly wig, with mouth sores from the chemo and feeling like i was dragging a cruise ship behind me when the cute perky teen asks me...would you like to donate a dollar for breast cancer awareness??? There was your moment, do you pounce or do you just brush it aside and nod no....I wanted to say SO MUCH and yet i didn't. What kind of awareness are we purchasing?....I wish we could buy our way into obliterating this disease! But we are raising the $$ for advances in treatments, new drugs, new ways to try to prolong life WITH cancer...I guess that will have to do.

and one more thing...just noticed the OP is from Eagan MN. I think there is a geographic component to all this...in rural America it is still more rare to see everything all pink, and people take it as a nice gesture. On the coasts it is a different story, and when I am in a big city I get Octobered out a lot faster.

I have to say I have very mixed feelings about that film. I loved the part with the stage 4 support group and was glad they got a voice. I really had a problem with the video effects and music at the walk...it made the women participating look like they were foolish. I am loathe to mock people sincerely tying to help us, even if I sometimes think they are not going about it the right way.

I just watched it again and I didn't get that feeling.  I looked at it a different way.  That all of that stuff in the beginning of the video is inspiring, raising hope.  I thought the point is that companies are taking advantage of the pink ribbon, it is being commercialized for their gain, their profit and we are loosing sight of why the walks and the awareness was started.   And the creators of the video are trying to redirect the powers at be (I never use that expression, really) to be in search of a cure.  I hope that we find a cure, it truly saddens me to see that there are some 20 year olds on bco dealing with stage IV breast cancer.  When I was in my 20's I was working at my first job and hoping to find a husband and to start a family, etc.  I found my first fibroadenoma at 19 and that was bad enough.