Pink Ribbons Inc.: A Different Kind of Book Review

I’m plowing through Samantha King’s 2006 book, Pink Ribbons Inc.—Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, writing notes, questions, and comments on almost every page.

I’ve also dog-eared at least half the pages in the book, and filled the endpapers with my own thoughts and notes for future blog posts. Guess I’ll have to buy another copy to have King sign for me when I meet her, which I hope to do.

It is comforting to me that an academic, in a heavily researched volume, came to many of the same conclusions that I have come to during the years that I’ve lived with breast cancer. I reached these conclusions mostly through my emotional responses to the same topics that King writes about from the academic’s perspective—pink ribbons, cause marketing, the exploitation of middle-class women with breast cancer, and more.

It’s comforting to me to see my emotional and logical responses to these issues backed up by facts and careful research. Thanks, Samantha.

I also didn’t realize, until about a year ago, that San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Action has been on the same page for years. Guess I was too busy with my own cancer experience to be more than vaguely aware of the work of this group until last year when one of their staff contacted me in response to my Boycott October posts.

Now, having read what King has to say about the work of BCA, I plan to offer my services to the group and I’ve sent off an e-mail (no response yet).

The above is my reaction to the book, but I want to leave you with more.

Read:
Words to Think About

Buy the book:
Pink Ribbons Inc.

@ Jeanne Sather 2007.

Comments

[laurie]

Did you email the SF BCA or a more local one? Different BCA's vary pretty significantly in their activism and approach. For example, the Montreal BCA is like the SF one but my local one is much more conservative.

[jeanne]

I e-mailed the one in SF. I don't think we have a chapter here in Seattle. Hoping to hear back from them.

[GingerB]

I'm not so keen on BCA. I felt like their paper on AI drugs was pretty bogus.

But I dislike all the commercialization of breast cancer.

When I go to the RFC and see all the corporate logos and the Fortune 500 lined up to sell you this and that I am reminded of the Country Joe and the Fish song from Woodstock where he sings about "selling the army the tools of the trade."

[jeanne]

Ginger--can you tell me more about the paper? Or give me a link to it? I don't know anything about this.

Thanks,

Jeanne