Rethinkpink

Moving beyond Breast Cancer Awareness SWS Distinguished Feminist Lecture

Bibliographic Data

ID2367722
AuthorsGayle Sulik (Independent Scholar, USA, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume28
Issue5
Pages655-678
Publication date2014-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGender & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0891-2432 • E-ISSN: 1552-3977
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0891243214540991
OpenAlexW2004824799
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited25

Over the last 30 years the breast cancer movement has worked to make breast cancer a national priority, raise awareness and funds, galvanize social support, and impact the direction of research. Women have been at the forefront of information sharing, activism, and patient empowerment. Treatments have improved incrementally and mortality rates have declined overall. By these indicators, the movement is a success. Yet, 70 percent of those diagnosed with breast cancer have none of the known risk factors, making causation and prevention uncertain; approximately 40,000 women (and men) die from metastatic breast cancer each year, a number that hasn't changed for decades; corporate and political agendas stand in the way of patients' rights and access to quality care; profit motives and disease branding supersede efforts to provide meaningful support and accurate health information; and breast cancer is popularized to the degree that 'pink consumption' has become more of a trendy pastime than a rallying call for social change. Tenacious activists and a growing number of citizens, though divergent in the problems they tackle and methods they use, share a critical stance that fosters new thinking about breast cancer and calls for transparency, accountability, and alternatives to the pink ribbon

Accountability · Breast cancer · Breast cancer awareness · Business · Cancer · Economic growth · Economics · Empowerment · Health care · Political science · Politics · Public relations · BRCA gene mutations in cancer · Global Cancer Incidence and Screening · Medicine · Pharmaceutical industry and healthcare

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