breast cancer awareness month
Oct. 26th, 2005 10:03 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
merchimerchSince October is almost over, and I haven't really said anything about breast cancer awareness month, I thought I'd post an article that I thought was really powerful on the subject of the pink ribbon campaign, and the saccharine quality of many of the mainstream ribbon campaigns. This article is from Harpers, by Barbara Ehrenreich, and is long, but really thought provoking.
I think she is right in her point that while all the pink items that encourage us to shop for a cure may raise awareness (which is good), they still haven't broken down a flawed medical system (and arguably society) which still has a very skewed manner of dealing with women and their gender specific diseases.
This is one of my favorite quotes from the article, which is her writing about her reaction to a gift bag that she received after treatments: "The infantilizing trope is perplexing. Centrainly men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not receive gifts of matchbox cars"
http://www.bcaction.org/PDF/Harpers.pdf
I think she is right in her point that while all the pink items that encourage us to shop for a cure may raise awareness (which is good), they still haven't broken down a flawed medical system (and arguably society) which still has a very skewed manner of dealing with women and their gender specific diseases.
This is one of my favorite quotes from the article, which is her writing about her reaction to a gift bag that she received after treatments: "The infantilizing trope is perplexing. Centrainly men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not receive gifts of matchbox cars"
http://www.bcaction.org/PDF/Harpers.pdf
