Pink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women's Health - Hardcover

Sulik, Gayle A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199740453 ISBN 13: 9780199740451

Publisher: OUP USA, 2010

Synopsis

Pink ribbon paraphernalia saturate shopping malls, billboards, magazines, television, and other venues, all in the name of breast cancer awareness. In this compelling and provocative work, Gayle Sulik shows that though this "pink ribbon culture" has brought breast cancer advocacy much attention, it has not had the desired effect of improving women's health. It may, in fact, have done the opposite. Based on eight years of research, analysis of advertisements and breast cancer awareness campaigns, and hundreds of interviews with those affected by the disease, Pink Ribbon Blues highlights the hidden costs of the pink ribbon as an industry, one in which breast cancer has become merely a brand name with a pink logo. Indeed, while survivors and supporters walk, run, and purchase ribbons for a cure, cancer rates rise, the cancer industry thrives, corporations claim responsible citizenship while profiting from the disease, and breast cancer is stigmatized anew for those who reject the pink ribbon model. But Sulik also outlines alternative organizations that make a real difference, highlights what they do differently, and presents a new agenda for the future.

About this title

About the Author

Gayle A. Sulik is a medical sociologist and was a 2008 Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities for her research on breast cancer culture.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP USA
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199740453
• ISBN 13: 9780199740451
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 424