What do you think of all of these different causes that ask that you wear pink or purple or whatever?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because it is “Paint the Town Pink” in the towns all over my county this month. How much money does this cost? What does it really benefit? It seems an awful waste to me of money that would be better spent on research. I, too, have heard of a lot of criticism of the pinkification of breast cancer. I don’t like it.

I had been thinking of asking a Fluther question about it so I’m glad you did.

Pink cars make me think a May Kay Cosmetics. Pink ribbons and ribbon puns are breast cancer.

The one positive thing I give Komen credit for us making it ok to talk about breast cancer in mixed company. Women no longer deal with it in isolation.

My mom worked in cancer research (in procurement) and she said back 35 years ago that they has too much money. Research wasn’t advancing much at the time. This is before the genome full sequencing happened. Back then she always told me never give to cancer. Since then there have been advances.

I’m more concerned about heart disease, and I like the red dress. I feel like heart disease needs a voice just like breast cancer needed one back when Komen started.

I ignore them. But I can’t ignore the fact that other people love trinkets and swag and tchotchkes. No problem with that.

But in particular, the Susan Komen foundation was co-opted by conservatives fighting against CONTRACEPTION. They are working to return us to the Dark Ages.

@Call_Me_Jay Komen fights against contraception? Are you sure? Or, are you just talking about Komen not helping to fund mammograms at Planned Parenthood anymore? I heard she did that, but I’ve never researched it. That she cut her funding and raised her salary. That’s what I heard.

@JLeslie The Komen foundation was overrun with conservatives whose goal was eliminating Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood’s main focus is contraception.

I hate it. I don’t think it does anything to raise awareness. Who is not already aware that breast cancer is a thing? The ribbon colours have become a marketing brand like any other. I avoid any product with these logos.

I was going to find an article to link with further discussion about this, but I see many others here are “aware”, so I won’t tie a ribbon on it. ;)

@Call_Me_Jay I don’t think I’d call that fighting against contraception. They are against abortion and young sex. The Evangelicals are not against contraception like the Catholics. And, as far as the Catholics go, most use contraception.

@JLeslie If “most Catholics” as you say use contraception then they are living in direct conflict with the Vatican’s tenets regarding contraception…

__“The Church has always taught the intrinsic evil of contraception, that is, of every marital act intentionally rendered unfruitful. This teaching is to be held as definitive and irreformable. “__

At my Catholic high school, I was once in a theology class with one of the more informed theology teachers. She was talking about contraception and how it is in conflict with Catholic doctrine (It is). She then referenced a survey that said 9 in 10 Catholics used contraception. She then said that 1 in 10 Catholics are lying.

I read a few years ago that very little of the Komen pink ribbon stuff’s profits go to actual breast cancer research. It turned me off and so I try to avoid buying that stuff. I don’t usually wear certain colors on the days when we’re supposed to wear the colors for awareness. I agree with @JLeslie that the good thing about these organizations is they get us talking about the diseases.

I hate that sort of hype. There are so many ways to raise awareness without making a giggling game of it. Komen didn’t get us talking about breast cancer, activist sufferers, survivors and families did. Same with other gynecologic cancers and conditions. My mother’s generation was embarrassed to have/deal with these problems, my generation and my kids’ generation are more motivated by outrage that more isn’t being done to address all these medical things. Teaching that a man isn’t weak because he has a heart condition or that a woman isn’t “cheap” if she has cervical cancer. (It used to be posited that cervical cancer was the result of promiscuous behavior).

Awareness is a good thing. Marketing hype disguised as a tool to promote awareness is a cheat.

@Cruiser The stat I always heard is 90% of Catholics use contraception. Most of my friends are Catholic, and only one uses rhythm for birth control, the rest use the pill, barrier, had their tubes blocked, etc. Not to mention rhythm is a form of birth control, but it’s officially ok with the church I guess. Here is a recent article regarding what the Pope and other Priests say. I still know Catholics (in America) who have 4 and more children. Of them, I know one who is going to have as many babies as God gives her. There is still some pressure to have large families from some Priests. Look at Italy, very Catholic country next to the Vatican, and less than 2 babies per woman. The government is worried about the social system because of it.

Any married women with fewer than 6 children by age 60, who married by age 25 either does something to prevent pregnancy, or has fertility related problems, or almost never has sex.

My husband has 9 aunts and uncles on his Catholic side. His mother told me she never thought about how many children she would have, it’s just whatever comes. Those days are over for most Catholics.

@JLeslie Being raised Catholic I am well aware of all the Catholic teachings that even devote Catholics regularly break and why I eventually left the church because the notion of sinning and then confessing your sins and you have a clean slate with no other consequences than a handful of Hail Mary’s. To me this example of the use of contraception in the Catholic Church is “evil” is a parallel to the Conservative Rights fervent support of Pro-Life movement. Both movements are out of date and sorely out of touch with rational modern day thinking.

It seems as though people are doing it for their own reputations. The victims are put on the mental backburner. Also, big businesses smell funny.

We should start a foundation that brings awareness to the ridiculousness of foundations. But would we wear colors?

In my county, pink ribbons are put up all over the various towns and lots of signage isput up. I think it is a huge waste of money!

The Evangelicals are not against contraception like the Catholics.

If you’re trying to shut down Planned Parenthood, you are against contraception.

It’s not about abortion. If it were, they would applaud Planned Parenthood for preventing unwanted pregnancies and greatly reducing the number of abortions.

So interesting to me how many people are negative about all the hoopla associated with the Komen events.

When I worked for a bra company we used to do fit events where part of the money was donated to Komen. I generally don’t like any charity to be associated with a work place, especially if it puts pressure on employees to donate. This didn’t do that, we had no pressure to donate money ourselves. I have never personally donated to Komen. I know many women who have had breast cancer unfortunately.

@canidmajor I disagree, because part of Komen’s motivation was her sister died almost in silence.

The only reason most people know you cervical cancer from your boyfriend was because it became common knowledge when Merck developed a vaccine and wanted to make money. Our government and science knew for years and years that HPV was associated with cervical cancer. I knew when I was 18 or 19 when I was in college. That’s 30 years ago. Most of my peers didn’t know. Even when they were diagnosed with cancer or dysplasia their doctor never told them how the cancer develops. Either the doctor was ignorant or didn’t think the information was pertinent I guess??i have no idea what those doctors were thinking.

It’s true, back then they talked about promiscuity being a risk factor. Gotta curb that sinful sex. In fact, the more people you have sex with the more chances of getting an STD, that’s true in a way. But, that particular STD you can have sex with one or few men and you are likely to get HPV, assuming he is not a virgin, because it was so damned prevalent. Now, society generally knows that HPV can cause cervical cancer, but why do we say that? Why don’t we say can cause mucous tissues to develop cancer? Your tongue, anus, and cervix. Why? Again, Puritan bullshit that let’s women lose body parts and die. Women and gay men. Farrah Faucet died from this type of cancer. The cause was very rarely talked about. Mike Douglas mentioned in an interview that cancers in the mouth can be caused by HPV and all hell broke loose. It was really horrific how the media handled his statement.

I’m tired as hell of slacktivism. Who the fuck hasn’t heard of cancer? We don’t need awareness, we need research. The “wear x color” nonsense just gives people a way to feel like they’re helping without having to make any kind of sacrifice.

I experienced this personally myself recently. I’m running a fundraiser for IBD right now. I posted about my fundraiser on Tumblr. Now if you’re familiar with the culture on that website at all, a lot of people there claim to be super committed to issues of equality and helping the disadvantaged so I thought I’d get lots of donations. Nope. What I got was lots and lots of shares – people shared my post on their own blogs, and then patted themselves on the back for “raising awareness” and went on with their days. These shares allowed my post to reach a wider audience, an audience which then, again, shared my post and did not donate because that would require an actual sacrifice. In the end I got some 50 shares and not a single donation from anybody on Tumblr.

@Mariah Phooey!

Well, @JLeslie, disagree all you want. We were setting up fundraisers and raising awareness in the 70s. They weren’t as flashy, and no one was buying pink stuff, but it was there. Buy into the hype all you want, but saying that this one group started awareness or that group was the first to raise money is just flat out untrue.

What I really admire is the reaction and response that Humans Of New York gets. Many people, becoming aware and helping with small amounts.

@jleslie. The hoopla surrounding Susan G Koman is the fact that only 20% of donations goes to actual research. Susan’s sister makes 688,000 a year. She is getting rich off of her sister’s death. We don’t need any more awareness ribbons. We need research dollars.

@canidmajor I agree with that actually. I think women were really beginning to be heard more in the 70’s and at minimum were talking to each other. I come from a family that openly talked about body parts and illness, including mental illness. I don’t think that was very typical then. Maybe typical for Jews, but not greater society.

@chyna What percentage of the total is that salary? It does sound on the high side for a charity. I think it usually tops out more around $500k for very large charities. I’ll assume the research percentage is correct. I’ll point out that some dollars go to paying for screening for women. Or, it used to. Now with them leaving PP maybe that changed? Anyway, it might be 20% research, 20% screening, 20% administrative, etc. I’m not sure how that charity breaks down. If research has plateaued I’d like donation to go towards helping women pay for services.

I’m not defending Komen, I’m just pointing out that research isn’t the only positive thing done with donations.

I hear you though. When Oprah created her Angel network her donation wasn’t “money” it was paying for all the administrative costs so when people donated their money went 100% to charity.