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There’s a lot of talk about breast cancer awareness – the need for awareness, the desire to raise awareness, the use of pink ribbons or bracelets or t-shirts to symbolize awareness.
The awareness mantra works for generating interest in the cause of breast cancer, creating fanfare, selling products, and maintaining the message that breast cancer is important. Is that really awareness?
Awareness refers to “consciousness,” “conscious knowledge,” or “mindfulness.”
By this definition, how AWARE are we about breast cancer?
For Instance:
- Are we moved by inspirational stories but wary of getting to the nitty gritty realities of the disease?
- Do we look for evidence-based information, and know how to make sense of it?
- What is the “eradication” of breast cancer, and what might be done to achieve it?
- Do we assess the accuracy, balance, and context of health news?
- Do we consider the extent to which a company, organization, or individual has the expertise to tell us anything at all about health or illness?
- Are we able to discern myths from facts? Well-grounded hope from misleading hype?
- Do we read the fine print of pink-ribboned products and consider the practices of sponsoring/partnering corporations?
- Do we know how to evaluate charitable organizations, and who to trust when making decisions about our own charitable giving?
- Do we think about how conflicts of interest may be shaping the marketing or programming decisions of nonprofit organizations and others who administer breast cancer related programs?
- Do we have any idea how much money is raised in the name of breast cancer or how it is spent?
- Do we imagine how diverse communities of people with breast cancer and other diseases feel about how they are represented (or not) in the multitude of breast cancer campaigns?
- Do we think about the big picture when it comes to breast cancer? (i.e., What’s at stake, and for whom? What would it take to stop cancer before it starts? What kinds of “actions” would really make a difference in stopping the epidemic?)
Conscious knowledge comes from paying attention and being alert. The closer one looks at something, the greater the potential for deepening knowledge and becoming more aware.
Instead of fueling the pink ribbon industry, let’s spend the next thirty days Raising Consciousness about breast cancer!
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You’ll find the “30 Days” Table of Contents listed here as the month progresses.
- The Inspirational. Vs. The Actual by Gayle Sulik
- Left Behind by Jody Schoger
- Factoids and Impressions in Breast Cancer Advertising by Gayle Sulik
- Factoids, Impressions, and Impressions (or, Take “Action” Against Breast Cancer: Buy Stuff & Support Our Sponsors!) by Rachel Cheetham Moro.
- Watch Out for Junk News by Gayle Sulik
- Critical Health Literacy and Evidence-Based Practice by Gayle Sulik
- The Dream of Eradication by Gayle Sulik (originally published 2/10/11)
- Taking Action Against Pinkwashing: An Interview With Breast Cancer Action’s Karuna Jaggar by Gayle Sulik
- Pink Ribbons, Inc. by Gayle Sulik
- {Re-Think Your Pitch} Q&A With A National Brand Over Breast Cancer by Kate-Madonna Hindes
- “After the Cure” by Gayle Sulik
- Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day is October 13th by Gayle Sulik
- Medical Progress and Stage 4 Breast Cancer: Re-Learning the Lessons of Elizabeth Edwards’ Death by Gayle Sulik (originally published 3/14/11)
- The Cancer Show: A Cast of Thousands by Gayle Sulik and The Cancer Show
- The Cloud that Doesn’t Go Away by Kirsten Kaae RN, BSN, LPC, M.Ed.
- Loss and Remembering: A Story of Heather Beyer by Bill Noren
- Excerpt from Being Sarah by Sarah Horton
- Advertising WHAT??? by Nizarys Vargas and Sarah Roman
- Birth of the Perpetual Fundraising Industry by Gayle Sulik
- Industry Ties to Nonprofits by Gayle Sulik
- Navigating the Charity World with Form 990: Uses and Limitations by Gayle Sulik
- Pinking the Global Landscape, and the Global Market by Gayle Sulik
- Tracking the Big “K” by Gayle Sulik
- “Survival” and “Cure” are NOT Interchangeable Words by AnneMarie Ciccarella
- Being a Change Agent with Clinical Trials by Lori Marx-Rubiner
- Daring to be Powerful by Kathi Kolb
- March, Run, or Streak to a Different Drummer! by Gayle Sulik
- The Intervention Begins With Us! by Gayle Sulik
- A Portrait of Cathie Malhouitre: Uncompromising, Unembellished Reality by Gayle Sulik
- “Pink Ribbon Blues” – A Poem by Gayle Sulik
There is a ‘dearth’ of information ABOUT ‘those of us with “Advanced Breast Cancer” — STAGE IV (+).
With everyone ‘jumping on the EARLY DETECTION bandwagon’ and talking about
the ‘WONDERFUL CURE RATES’ — where is the ‘money’ going for researching
“Metastatic Breast Cancer”.
Or does the ‘Community At-Large’ already consider ‘us’ “Hopeless / Helpless”.
Long past time to move beyond the buzz words to deeper consciousness about this whole pink culture.
What a wonderful thing it would be if the primary focus was really on the CURE –
which means RESEARCH. We are still losing too many women to this disease.
“Do we have any idea how much money is raised in the name of breast cancer or how it is spent?”
Says it all, right there!
What a BRILLIANT idea! Every question you pose is thought provoking and insightful.
And to Jacqueline, I made it my business this month to switch any talk of ribbons and races to the unchanged NUMBERS (not statistics, those can be skewed….numbers don’t lie) on those living with mets. You are not forgotten. THAT IS “MY PROMISE” to all.
[…] of pink ribbon culture is Gayle Sulik, who wrote the book Pink Ribbon Blues. She will be blogging 30 Days of Breast Cancer Awareness and her first installment, the Inspirational vs. the Actual, looks […]
[…] tremendous efforts you might enjoy reviewing: Being Sarah, author of a book by the same name, and Gayle Sulik, author of Pink Ribbon Blues. And there are many more worthy posts among the women who are […]