Pinkwashing

Pinkwashing is a term that refers to the idea that pink, and pink ribbons, are being used as a money making tool in the name of awareness.  If you look around, you'll find pinkwashed items all over the place.  It makes sense, I mean who doesn't love a boob for some reason or another?  Sadly though, it has turned one of the nastiest diseases that invades so many of our lives, into another tool for corporate greed.

Instead of trying to link to all of these terms and articles and useful things, I am going to tell you to read this wonderful post by another survivor whose blog I follow.  She has linked to all of the important things and puts a lot of this issue into perfect words.

The piece that has come into focus for me over this past year is that as a survivor I feel even more strongly that we shouldn't be "used" to make money for anyone.  Yes, we should raise awareness (particularly those of us who are young because many people, including doctors, forget that young women get breast cancer too), we should raise money for research, and services such as support during and after treatment, and prevention and diagnostics.  There are many, many, many important places that the money can and should go.  So to think about a gun company using pink to sell more guns (even if a portion is donated) makes me a little ill.  I am definitely hoping that the whole Susan G Komen debacle has brought some level of awareness to people regarding what some of these major groups actually do with their funds, and to the issue of pinkwashing in general.

It was pretty amazing to see how quickly the outrage at Komen's decision spread through the internet, and how quickly change happened as a result.  I don't believe social networking was the true reason that Komen back tracked, especially since they had local chapters speaking out, and board members publicly resigning due to the decision, but it feels like it helped.  It makes me wonder what sort of difference we could really make if people would just pay attention to the world (country, county, town!) for 10 minutes of their extended online time each day.  I guess it is the activist in me stirring a little.  Of course not many causes bring people together quite like saving the ta-tas!