The politics behind the pink ribbon

Submitted by Michael on Wed, 2008-10-22 20:33

Article here. Excerpt:

'Some advocates for research into other diseases, and some scientists, worry the breast cancer movement is hogging the spotlight — and the money — at the expense of other worthy causes. Some within the breast cancer movement itself accuse advocacy organizations and corporate donors of “pink washing,” using a veneer of altruism to cover up practices these critics find objectionable.

In the world of cancer charities and government funding, breast cancer is queen. The top four breast cancer charities take in a combined annual revenue of roughly $256 million according to their tax returns...
...
The National Cancer Institute (NCI) devoted $572.4 million researching breast cancer in 2007. Other National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding for breast cancer boosted the total spent on the disease to $705 million. Plus, the Department of Defense operates its own breast cancer research outfit at a cost of another $138 million in fiscal 2008.

By way of comparison, in 2007 the NCI spent $226.9 million studying lung cancer, the leading cancer killer in the U.S., and $73.3 million studying pancreatic cancer, which kills nearly as many patients as breast cancer, usually within a year of diagnosis. Cardiovascular disease, the biggest killer of both men and women, received $381 million.'

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I work (for my sins) for the NHS... This month has been Hell-ish. We get constant email reminders. The restaurant at my hospital is festooned with pink balloons, posters, leaflets etc etc etc. And each day they've had pink plastic roses on the dining tables...

Next March is the first Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. I expect VERY little in the way of recognition of this at my workplace.

Apparently the NHS contributes TEN times as much money towards breast cancer than it does towards prostate cancer.

I've been wearing my BLUE ribbon all month by the way. ;-)

_________

"They have the right to work wherever they want to - as long as they have dinner ready when you get home." (John Wayne)

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Submitted by Proud_to_be_a_man on Thu, 2008-10-23 18:08

Why are men offended and surprised by this? Men treat women with the same reverence and overindulgence everyday. How can such pandering by men "everyday" not translate into "women's so-called cancer" getting more attention than cancer that largely affects men?

Are people that dumb to think that you can consistently treat a gender (i.e. women) like they are special for thousands of years and expect them not to always reap the benefits? Men can put a stop to this. They just refuse to do what is necessary in order to do so.

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Submitted by Timothy on Fri, 2008-10-24 15:56

One of the central overlooked facets of feminism is poor strategy. Lung cancer kills many more women than breast cancer yet breast cancer gets much more money than lung cancer. I call this a poor allocation of resources. Note: I'm looking at this from a gynocentric view to point out how women have not helped women. Men comprise of two thirds of lung cancer deaths.

I can come up with example after example of bad strategy and unintended consequences from feminists.

As usual, resist wherever possible. If asked if you would like to donate to breast cancer, reply with something like: "No, but when [name of store] decides to raise money for prostate cancer, I'll donate then. Did you know that prostate cancer kills about the same amount of men per year as breast cancer yet breast cancer gets six times more funding?"

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Submitted by canaryguy on Sat, 2008-10-25 13:05