Pink Ribbon Culture Vs. Feminism

Pink Ribbon Culture v. Feminism The pink ribbon culture is getting out hands. Up until the late 1990’s, the breast cancer sisterhood stood as a symbol of unification, advocacy and women empowerment. It is not a secret that the women’s health movement helped to encourage women with breast cancer to support each other. These women fought ardently to ban cruel medical procedures and to increase federal funds for the research of a cure. Feminism is what led women to speak up and find solutions to a problem that was only discussed behind closed doors. However, the development of what is today known as the pink ribbon culture has transformed the breast cancer sisterhood into a club of conformist Disney princesses. Nowadays, most breast cancer patients stopped seeking answers. Apparently it is more logical to support the cause by buying a bunch of pink products from big companies rather than actually fighting for the cause. In the article
Feminists have always fought to demand their rightful place in society and to shatter the myth that women are fragile. Today, the pink ribbon cult imposes an ultra-feminine theme that correlates femininity to childhood. As stated by Ehrenreich “Obedience is the message behind the infantilizing theme in breast cancer culture” (Ehrenreich 32). Women who are diagnosed with breast cancer should not under any circumstance allow neither their doctors nor their families to portray them as delicate and prone to faint in the face of devastating news. The teddy bears, the pinkness, the journal writings with Crayola are extremely degrading. It is not okay to treat women like children. It is not okay to deprive them from critically thinking and from analyzing the risks and pain that certain inefficient medical protocols can cause. Women should understand that femininity is a form of expressing who the genuinely are rather than a reason for society to treat them like