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My husband and I purchased a new mattress set (after 16 years...it was time) and that means two things: new sheets and pillows (trust me on this one...okay) and a trip to Linen & Things!
I got 4 new Queen-sized pillows made by Wamsutta (at $10.00 a pop) saved 20% with their in-store coupon, which made a donation to the Komen Foundation and left feeling good about my purchase.
At least, I think I did.
Companies like Fuji Film, Visa, Yankee Candle and the makers of M&M's urge consumers to "think pink," when making their purchases - especially in October!
As if I needed an excuse to eat candy - Halloween is just around the corner! - October is breast cancer awareness month and websites are seeing pink, including the Style Files at Style for Free.
Whether it's message shirts, wrist bands or - dare I say it? - boob-a-thons, getting involved in health campaigns has become very...fashionable. But, there's a rather large contention of bloggers who don't see "buying goods that do good" as all that great - especially the "pink ribbon campaign" of breast cancer awareness - other than making for really big business.
In her thought-provoking post - "Crunch for the Cure" - Twisty lets us know exactly how she feels, as she reads Samantha King's "Pink Ribbons, Inc."
What a page-turner. It concerns a subject I enjoy finding despicable, the ‘market-driven industry for [breast cancer] survivorship’. [It may or may not interest you to know, if you’re just joining us, that my fascination for this topic is not merely academic; I was diagnosed exactly a year ago with stage 3 breast cancer.]
And wonders, along with dozens of her readers who've already commented, "What will happen to global consumerism if breast cancer is ever really cured?"
Thanks to the cancer industrial complex, now everyone can participate in marketing cheap crap to consumers, maintaining a “tyranny of cheerfulness,†and preserving the blue-eyed American family fantasy with its sentimentalized white nurturing mother centerpiece. It’s as easy as buying a bag of junk food.
Or, four Queen-sized pillows, apparently.
The Charity Blog Network further informs us on King's assertion, "that some corporate-sponsored breast cancer fundraising has become such "market-driven industy" that it focuses less on research and unfortunately places more importance on profit:"
Breast cancer will afflict as many as one in nine women in Canada and kill one in 27 of them. King's book, which will be published in August, "Pink Ribbons Inc: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy" maintains that when the pink ribbon campaign became the insignia of the breast cancer cause, corporations starting cashing in.
I happen to agree with CBN in believing that, "again, this comes down to you, the ones who actually give to these causes," in finding out, "exactly where and how much of your donation dollars are going to [the] cause you support."
According to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Better Business Bureau standards require charities to spend at least 50% of all contributions on their stated causes:
More than 80% of all donations to the National Breast Cancer Foundation benefit free mammograms to needy women, educational programs and cancer research projects.
Weighing in on the other side of the "sink the pink" debate, I believe that the Pink Princess makes a very good point:
Not many people know the power of one color, and how many people’s lives it has affected. Yoplait Save Lids to Lives campaign is only one of the thousands of fundraisers geared towards Breast Cancer Awareness. So next time you see a woman wearing a pink ribbon know that this color may have affected her or someone she knows. So many women in the world are proud to wear the color pink. It is a celebration of our womanhood and joining together to help one another. When I think of the color pink, I can think of all the women’s lives this simple color has saved.
And that ain't even half-bad.
Charities have become big business - Pink Ribbon, Inc. has made it painfully clear - but, then again, giving the gift of hope to those in need is perhaps...business with a purpose.
[Disturbing factoid: This year in America, more than 211,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 43,300 die. One woman in eight either has or will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. In addition, 1,600 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer and 400 will die this year. If detected early, the five-year
