Another Breast Cancer Awareness Month is upon us, which will
mean lots of pink ribbons. The pink ribbon has been a
spectacular success in terms of bringing recognition and funding
to the breast cancer cause. But now there is a growing
impatience about what some critics have termed “pink ribbon
culture.” Medical sociologist Gayle A. Sulik, author of the new
book “Pink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines
Women’s Health” (Oxford University Press), calls it “the rise of
pink October.” “Pink ribbon paraphernalia saturate shopping
malls, billboards, magazines, television and other entertainment
venues,” she writes on her Web site. “The pervasiveness of the
pink ribbon campaign leads many people to believe that the fight
against breast cancer is progressing, when in truth it’s barely
begun.” The National Breast Cancer Coalition, a highly visible
activist group based in Washington, D.C., has also taken a swipe
at pink culture as it tries to reconfigure breast cancer
activism through a highly ambitious