You need former Ms. editor Letty Cottin Pogrebin‘s new book How to Be a Friend to a Friend Who’s Sick. Everyone needs this book. If you have a sick friend, if you are a sick friend, if your friend has a family member who is sick, here’s where to turn to learn how to help [...]
When it comes to women’s health, corporate interests and profits have been driving the agenda for far too long. There’s no better example than breast cancer, where companies make billions selling pink ribbon products in the name of the disease, and yet we have too little to show for this money. The commodification of breast [...]
All through October, we’ve been wagging our fingers at inane products that will pink up your life but do little to actually help those with breast cancer. For the final day of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we decided to shine a light on some pampering items that are directly useful to people battling the disease. [...]
As breast cancer awareness campaigns have become more visible, and the color pink has become emblematic of survivors and those who support their struggle, I interpret the omnipresent October color as a way to mobilize social consciousness, action and hope. As a woman, I am incredibly grateful to see our national embrace of an initiative [...]
Race, class and gender snake their way into practically everything, and all of these identities come to a critical head with black women and breast cancer. In the past 25 years, the gap between the percentage of African American women and white women who die from breast cancer has only grown wider, with black women [...]
For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Ms. blog will be running a series of pieces devoted to the disease and activism around it. Isn’t breast cancer so pretty? Far from it–though cosmetic companies seem to be one of the most prevalent groups championing breast-cancer awareness with beauty products that make you glisten and glitter pink from head [...]
For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Ms. blog will be running a series of pieces devoted to the disease and activism around it. It is now October, which means that Halloween is around the corner, the pumpkin decorations are out and … what is that? Oh, the color pink, slathered onto every billboard, advertisement and product possible. [...]
For Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Ms. blog will be running a series of pieces devoted to the disease and activism around it. It’s fun. It’s flirty. And it grabs a person’s eye. Shirts, baseball caps and rubber bracelets emblazoned with the slogans “Save the tatas,” “Save second base,” “I heart boobies.” With each Breast [...]
In early 2012, the decision by Susan G. Komen for the Cure to cut ties with Planned Parenthood (and then the semi-reversal of that decision), sent the organization into a frenzied state of damage control. Attendance at Komen events declined, donations dropped and the organization immediately sought advice from a former White House press secretary [...]
Pink Ribbons, Inc., a documentary based on the 2008 book by Samantha King, looks at the effects of “pinkwashing” (when companies use the ubiquitous breast cancer-related pink ribbon to promote a product while also selling products linked to the disease), damns the ribbon as contaminated by profit. At first, the ominous soundtrack feels heavy-handed as it [...]
