I don't need to re-hash everything that happened last week with the fallout from the Susan G. Komen Foundation's decision to withdraw its funding to Planned Parenthood, followed several days later by an all-too-obvious about-face. Suffice to say I'm not sorry that Komen has been exposed for its hypocrisy.
Pink ribbons, yellow bracelets: what do they mean? In the beginning, they may have connoted survivorship, awareness, or empathy, but all too quickly they became hollow marketing gimmicks, and at least in the case of Komen, frequently linked to corporations that, in the words of Ricky Ricardo, "have some 'splaining to do" about how they can purport to promote cancer "awareness" while simultaneously selling toxic products. (Breast Cancer Action is the organization to support, folks. They call out the bullshit.)
Aside from all of that, I have a couple of major gripes with both Komen and LiveStrong:
The first is why, as a culture, we're so quick to support so-called cancer "awareness" for those cancers related to sexuality (at least, if you're heterosexual). I'm thinking here of the noxious "save the ta-tas" stickers and shirts (oh, and by the way, they're not only gross, but THEIR FONT IS HIDEOUS, and, since this is a fashion/design blog, let me also say that both Komen and the "save the ta-tas" folks really favor an INSIPID shade of pink).
This "sexualization" of cancer is not only reductive for those women and men who are coping with breast and testicular cancers, but it demeans the very real sexual side effects that many of us have dealt with as part of our diseases and/or treatments, myself included. You don't have to have breast cancer, testicular or prostate cancer, or undergo a prostatectomy to become infertile or to experience a long-term loss of sexual desire. Other cancers can also wreak havoc on this part of your life. (To all of those husbands and wives and partners out there who have continued to love us and have been patient with us as we have, or haven't, gotten our groove back, thank you. We are blessed to be sexually and emotionally intimate with you.)
The second major gripe is that since these cancers get so much attention, perhaps because they're tied up very obviously in our collective consciousness with sex and virility, other cancers get comparatively little press, and, more crucially, research funding.
Here's the thing, though: no cancer is sexy, and cancer doesn't play fair. If it did, I wouldn't have a glioma. No one "deserves" cancer: not me, not the two-pack-a-day guy, not my family members and friends and friends' friends who have had other cancers. (Take a look at Tara Parker-Pope's 2008 column on this topic. Note, too, that lung cancer is the biggest cancer killer. Is it underfunded because we associate it with smoking, an increasingly stigmatized behavior, or because it's not tangentially associated with getting it on?)
But since our culture seems to be wedded to empty gestures and bumper-sticker politics, I'd like to request an "awareness" ribbon for gliomas. It will be an orange, pink, black and white Pucci print, and it will look like this:
Namaste,
Kelley
lost a friend recently to breast cancer who made me aware of "pink washing" - I always look into WHERE my funds are going now and try to specify research.
ReplyDeleteJanine - I am so sorry for your loss. I certainly don't mean to diminish the seriousness of breast cancer or testicular cancer - my own grandmother lost a breast to breast cancer, in fact.
DeleteBut I am tired not only of pinkwashing, but of the relentless cheery, frequently superficial, (and to me, often empty) focus of most public discourse aimed at people with cancer. I'd like to see more honest discussion of some of these harder issues, including how cancer can change one's sex life.
Don't get me wrong - losing one's hair, for example, can be a big deal, but so is the deadening of one's sex drive, or finding out that chemo/radiation has left you unable to sexually reproduce. (To be fair, there is more attention to this as regards men's sexuality, unsurprisingly.) As much as I loved my male doctors in New Zealand and love my oncologist here in the US, not once did any of them ask about how and whether cancer had affected my libido, or mention diminished sex drive as a possible side effect of treatment, although it's well-known as such.
I agree about the pink. Thanks for this. I also wanted to write and ask that you look into supporting Dr. Susan Love's work with Army of Women. Nobody is making greater strides in research, and without so much pink. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteIn my first grad school program I became obsessed with Barbara Ehrenreich's 2001 piece Welcome to Cancerland. Obsessed with its ideas and angles and persuasions, but also obsessed with its structure and syntax and style. I took it apart to study her patterns and tried (poorly) to mimic it in my own critical pieces for school. I read it before I thought of myself as a writer, and credit that piece, among others, for showing me what twenty-five years of prior schooling and reading hadn't yet done for some reason, the direct impact of a well written, well researched, timely, and elegant piece by an author who *should* be writing it. All of this is to say, when I read this post, I was reminded of that piece from eleven years ago, and felt the same way all over again. Thanks for this and everything else you post here. I love your blog!
ReplyDelete