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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Phew, what a breath of fresh air. Every October I cringe under the assault of Pink ribbons and then feel desperately guilty that I'm not conforming to the 'all girls together to cure breast cancer' image. As a breast cancer survivor I am grateful for the research and money that's gone into improving screening and treatment - but that's not the whole story - and this book covers an intriguingly wide view of the effect the Pink Ribbon has had on potential public discussion of the breast cancer epidemic.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
An excellent critique of the marketing phenomena that is breast cancer in the US. Much of what is said is applicable to the UK.
A really interesting read about the mass social movement in a neoliberal society. Great section on the tyranny of cheerfulness, how women with breast cancer are expected to remain positive to the point where if they do not survive then is this a result of them not trying hard enough.
Fascinating about how corporate America got involved as a result of the government cutting welfare and expecting corporates to pick up the tab.
A really interesting read about the mass social movement in a neoliberal society. Great section on the tyranny of cheerfulness, how women with breast cancer are expected to remain positive to the point where if they do not survive then is this a result of them not trying hard enough.
Fascinating about how corporate America got involved as a result of the government cutting welfare and expecting corporates to pick up the tab.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
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7 reviews
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Excellent academic overview of current breast cancer funding
7 Dec 2007
Format:Hardcover
Pink Ribbons, Inc. is an excellent overview of breast cancer philanthrophy's relationship to breast cancer research politics. As an epidemiology graduate student, most of the people I know with criticisms of current breast cancer research agendas are medical researchers. This book gave me valuable insights into why we have such a difficult time obtaining grants to research the correlation between environmental toxins and breast cancer.
However, because it appears to be written for academics who specialize in breast cancer history, it glosses over the social and political context that these changes are occurring in. Anyone interested in this book should read Barron H. Lerner's The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America or Robert Aronowitz's Unnatural History: Breast Cancer and American Society (Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine) before reading this.
However, because it appears to be written for academics who specialize in breast cancer history, it glosses over the social and political context that these changes are occurring in. Anyone interested in this book should read Barron H. Lerner's The Breast Cancer Wars: Hope, Fear, and the Pursuit of a Cure in Twentieth-Century America or Robert Aronowitz's Unnatural History: Breast Cancer and American Society (Cambridge Studies in the History of Medicine) before reading this.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Now a documentary film premiered at Toronto Film Festival 2011
2 Oct 2011
Format:Hardcover
This documentary, based on Samantha King's Pink Ribbons Inc., was produced by Ravida Din, directed by Lea Pool, and written by Patricia Kearns, Nancy Guerin, Pool. Readers can look up more specifics. The reviews are excellent for this National Film Board of Canada release.
I've had King's excellent book for years, and yet I am surprised that I never got around to writing a review here, but attribute that omission to constantly referencing the book in the many articles, letters to editors, legislators, businesses, medical organizations, "pink" organizations, etc., I have sent in an attempt to remove the pink fog from the horrendous status of care for breast health and breast diseases.
I firmly believe that what King presents effects every single aspect of the care, or lack of care, women receive, as the more "pink," "feel-good," "infantilization," and all the rest of it that is allowed to numb and dumb. I grant that a small percentage of men get breast cancer, but I will not diminish the fact of gender-based disease by using the ubquitious, "people" when talking about breast cancer).
The big "K" has it's registered trademark. I thought of a new one today -- just popped into my mind after seeing a comic strip, no less, that was all about "pink." Caveat -- it's black humor. Here it is:
"Breast cancer for women, not for profit."
As to King's book being too academic - any woman who has had to deal with breast anomalies - learns so much about medicine, and the politics of medicine, than she might well be granted an honorary degree. And, having a very average brain, assure everyone that her writings, and the message, were crystal clear to me.
I hope the documentary receives a wide, and accessible release, because film has such power, and between King's work, (and the work of others), and film itself, I pray - I really pray -- that the public will be motivated to abandon pink profiteering, and focus on what exactly happens to women who have concerns about their breasts, the scattershot approach to care that they receive, especially if faced with unclear results, or absence of cancer -- that's poorly expressed - women who enter the cancer-system, and ultimately learns that she has a non-cancerous condition, is utterly abandoned. That's the next book I want to see written.
I've had King's excellent book for years, and yet I am surprised that I never got around to writing a review here, but attribute that omission to constantly referencing the book in the many articles, letters to editors, legislators, businesses, medical organizations, "pink" organizations, etc., I have sent in an attempt to remove the pink fog from the horrendous status of care for breast health and breast diseases.
I firmly believe that what King presents effects every single aspect of the care, or lack of care, women receive, as the more "pink," "feel-good," "infantilization," and all the rest of it that is allowed to numb and dumb. I grant that a small percentage of men get breast cancer, but I will not diminish the fact of gender-based disease by using the ubquitious, "people" when talking about breast cancer).
The big "K" has it's registered trademark. I thought of a new one today -- just popped into my mind after seeing a comic strip, no less, that was all about "pink." Caveat -- it's black humor. Here it is:
"Breast cancer for women, not for profit."
As to King's book being too academic - any woman who has had to deal with breast anomalies - learns so much about medicine, and the politics of medicine, than she might well be granted an honorary degree. And, having a very average brain, assure everyone that her writings, and the message, were crystal clear to me.
I hope the documentary receives a wide, and accessible release, because film has such power, and between King's work, (and the work of others), and film itself, I pray - I really pray -- that the public will be motivated to abandon pink profiteering, and focus on what exactly happens to women who have concerns about their breasts, the scattershot approach to care that they receive, especially if faced with unclear results, or absence of cancer -- that's poorly expressed - women who enter the cancer-system, and ultimately learns that she has a non-cancerous condition, is utterly abandoned. That's the next book I want to see written.
14 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Off on too many tangents
12 Jan 2010
Format:Paperback
King's premise is good: Where is all the money going when we consumers virtuously buy a box of crackers of a carton of yogurt decorated with a pink ribbon? Having experienced breast cancer, I am sick and tired of seeing pink ribbons everywhere I look, and have become cynical about the plethora of alleged research that's being funded right and left. Like King, I doubt that a cure is possible--there are too many factors contributing to the disease and too many different bodies experiencing it. The best we can hope for is to mitigate the causes and find more effective treatment.
King rightly points out that hopping on the "cure breast cancer!" bandwagon is just another marketing tool for companies hoping to enhance their images in the public's eyes. For example, she exposes that one would need to eat three cartons of yogurt every day for four months in order for the little lids to amount to a trifling $36. Skip the calories and send your money to your nearest research facility: that's much more effective.
But King gets caught up in a scholarly wordiness that is hard to plow through. She also spends too much verbiage criticizing the big, bad businesses that are hiding behind the pink ribbons. She feels government should "mitigate the effects of capitalism" by offering universal health care and offering more assistance to "underserved" populations. The book turns into a treatise on social policy and this angle dilutes her message. And I wonder if King realizes that the money for social programs must come from somewhere. She doesn't seem to understand that businesses pay a lot of taxes and employ people, who in turn pay taxes too, and that government has no income except those taxes!
This book needed some serious editing and cutting to make it more accessible to the general reader. But then it would only have been an article.
King rightly points out that hopping on the "cure breast cancer!" bandwagon is just another marketing tool for companies hoping to enhance their images in the public's eyes. For example, she exposes that one would need to eat three cartons of yogurt every day for four months in order for the little lids to amount to a trifling $36. Skip the calories and send your money to your nearest research facility: that's much more effective.
But King gets caught up in a scholarly wordiness that is hard to plow through. She also spends too much verbiage criticizing the big, bad businesses that are hiding behind the pink ribbons. She feels government should "mitigate the effects of capitalism" by offering universal health care and offering more assistance to "underserved" populations. The book turns into a treatise on social policy and this angle dilutes her message. And I wonder if King realizes that the money for social programs must come from somewhere. She doesn't seem to understand that businesses pay a lot of taxes and employ people, who in turn pay taxes too, and that government has no income except those taxes!
This book needed some serious editing and cutting to make it more accessible to the general reader. But then it would only have been an article.
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