Pink Ribbons, Inc: Breast Cancer and the Politics of PhilanthropyIn 2005, more than one million people participated in the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s Race for the Cure, the largest network of 5K runs in the world. Consumers thoughtfully choose products ranging from yogurt to cars, responding to the promise that these purchases will contribute to a cure for the disease. And hundreds of companies and organizations support Breast Cancer Awareness Month, founded by a pharmaceutical company in 1985 and now recognized annually by the president of the United States. What could be wrong with that? In Pink Ribbons, Inc., Samantha King traces how breast cancer has been transformed from a stigmatized disease and individual tragedy to a market-driven industry of survivorship. In an unprecedented outpouring of philanthropy, corporations turn their formidable promotion machines on the curing of the disease while dwarfing public health prevention efforts and stifling the calls for investigation into why and how breast cancer affects such a vast number of people. Here, for the first time, King questions the effectiveness and legitimacy of privately funded efforts to stop the epidemic among American women. Pink Ribbons, Inc. grapples with issues of gender and race in breast cancer campaigns of businesses such as the National Football League; recounts the legislative history behind the breast cancer awareness postage stamp—the first stamp in American history to raise funds for use outside the U.S. Postal Service; and reveals the cultural impact of activity-based fund-raising, such as the Race for the Cure. Throughout, King probes the profound implications of consumer-oriented philanthropy on how patients experience breast cancer, the research of the biomedical community, and the political and medical institutions that the breast cancer movement seeks to change. Highly revelatory—at times shocking—Pink Ribbons, Inc. challenges the commercialization of the breast cancer movement, its place in U.S. culture, and its influence on ideas of good citizenship, responsible consumption, and generosity. Samantha King is associate professor of physical and health education and women’s studies at Queen’s University, in Kingston, Ontario. |
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Pink ribbons, inc.: breast cancer and the politics of philanthropy
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictIn researching the history behind the ubiquitous symbol of breast cancer awareness, King (Queen's Univ., Kingston, Ont.) notes the corporate imprimatur on the design and on the campaigns in honor of ... Read full review
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Page 106 - We condemn attempts to label us as "victims," which implies defeat, and we are only occasionally "patients," which implies passivity, helplessness, and dependence upon the care of others. We are "people with AIDS.
Page 4 - ... historic models of organizational life. The business corporation, which took its present shape in the first decades of the twentieth century, was the one new social invention to be added to these historic forms. The men who created that form — Theodore N. Vail who put together AT&T, Walter Teagle of Standard Oil of New Jersey, Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors — designed an instrument which coordinates men, materials, and markets lor the production of goods and services at least cost with...
Page 35 - ... dangerous fantasy of reconstruction, I find little support in the broader female environment for my rejection of what feels like a cosmetic sham. But I believe that socially sanctioned prosthesis is merely another way of keeping women with breast cancer silent and separate from each other. For instance, what would happen if an army of one-breasted women descended upon Congress and demanded that the use of carcinogenic, fatstored hormones in beef-feed be outlawed?
Page xix - The technique for establishing reference isoquants is called hedonic price index analysis, and it is beyond the scope of this book. Suffice it to say that the technique is both widely used and widely criticized.
Page 114 - How do my experiences with cancer fit into the larger tapestry of my work as a Black woman, into the history of all women? And most of all, how do I fight the despair born of fear and anger and powerlessness which is my greatest internal enemy? I have found that battling despair does not mean closing my eyes to the enormity of the tasks of effecting change, nor ignoring the strength and the barbarity of the forces aligned against us. It means teaching, surviving and fighting with the most important...
Page 63 - Countless Americans gave blood in the aftermath of the attacks. New Yorkers opened their homes to evacuated neighbors. We are waiting patiently in long security lines. Children across America have organized lemonade and cookie sales for children in Afghanistan. And we can do more. Since September the 1 1th, many Americans, especially young Americans, are rethinking their career choices. They're being drawn to careers of service, as police or firemen, emergency health workers, teachers, counselors,...
Page 114 - ... and powerlessness which is my greatest internal enemy? I have found that battling despair does not mean closing my eyes to the enormity of the tasks of effecting change, nor ignoring the strength and the barbarity of the forces aligned against us. It means teaching, surviving and fighting with the most important resource I have, myself, and taking joy in that battle. It means, for me, recognizing the enemy outside and the enemy within, and knowing that my work is part of a continuum of women's...
Page 121 - Health, a joint effort of the American Cancer Society, the American Lung Association, and the American Heart Association.
Page 44 - the intimate public sphere of the US present tense renders citizenship as a condition of social membership produced by personal acts and values, especially acts originating in or directed toward family life. No longer valuing personhood as something directed toward public life, contemporary nationalist ideology recognizes a public good only in a particularly constricted nation of simultaneously lived private worlds
Bibliographic information
| Title | Pink Ribbons, Inc: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy |
| Author | Samantha King |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | U of Minnesota Press, 2006 |
| ISBN | 0816648980, 9780816648986 |
| Length | 157 pages |
| Subjects | › › Health & Fitness / Diseases / Cancer Political Science / Comparative Politics |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |