Actually Donna Reed was pretty cool and part of the freedom to be female has to do with having the freedom to choose to stay at home and raise your children. Too many times women who choose to do so are somehow considered less female than thaose who choose the career path. Both are valid choices, are they not?
No one said that sugary treats were healthy on an on-going basis- however moderation in all things is a delightful way to add enjoyment to life. A few sweets here and there can sweeten one’s disposition immensely. The point was not to make an intense political statement but to encourage readers to themselves do something in the fight against breast cancer. Of course, I realize it was no where near as significant as using a pink font on your website as you did here http://www.codepink4peace.org/ but we are still learning. :)

Oh goodness, where to begin…first of all,I know all feminist organizations look alike, but… FPN and Code Pink are completely separate organizations. Their use of shocking pink has nothing to do with breast cancer. Unlike them, I have no html skills and don’t even know how to make my font pink.

Secondly, and I’m not about to get into a Mommy Wars discussion here, Donna Reed had her moments, but she stayed home because that was what white middle class women did then, it had nothing to do with making a choice.

As for promoting baking or buying stuff, especially unhealthy stuff to do something as you say–can you name another disease for which we bake and shop? I sure can’t. If you want to do something–try writing to your elected officials and telling them to put more money into finding the causes of breast cancer and to hold companies that knowingly expose us to carcinogens accountable for their actions.

I think you missed the point.

Ok, I’ll bite, what is the point?

So you pick apart the piece without even knowing the point? We’re showing our support for the cause and raising awareness. By the way, we never claimed composting will cure anything.

Sure we can write our elected officials, and who says many of us haven’t? However, this is how we’re choosing to raise awareness. One thing we won’t stoop to is rewarding someone’s positive efforts with negativity. Many bloggers won’t do this sort of thing because of reactions like yours. Instead of belittling efforts to raise awareness, you should be encouraging them.

First of all, I’m sure you mean well in your efforts, but truly, who isn’t aware of breast cancer by now and indeed, a recent study found that focusing on awareness can lead to complacency. Secondly, buying stuff so that a small percentage of what you pay will go for the cure is absurd–you don’t see them doing that for prostate cancer do you? Or any other disease. Mostly what it does is make the manufacturers of all this stuff a bit richer and let’s us off the hook instead of rising to the challenge of taking real substantive action. Bear in mind that Komen and ACS get substantial funding from numerous companies that a. make carcinogenic products and b. profit from curing rather than finding the cause in the first place.

Totally agree with this article. Far too much emphasis is placed on raising breast cancer awareness and not enough is being done about the causes of breast cancer. Additionally, far too many companies are making vast profits by selling items of which only a tiny percentage actually reaches charities and organisations researching breast cancer. As the writer of this article stated, why are there not products being sold to raise awareness of prostate cancer? Also, why the emphasis on pink. Is pink the only colour women are permitted to use? Why not blue? Or is that because blue is male?

I was thinking about this quite a bit because October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month and it has become over shadowed by the shower of pink ribbons and other items that “fight for a cure”. I work for a DV agency and we are constantly asked during the month of October what our purple ribbons are for.

I wonder who is the PR genius that decided that Breast Cancer needed all this attention and funding? How did this come about and how come other issues that effect women (possibly even more) get less funding and less media attention. I think some of it has to do with the fact that cancer is not something someone chooses to get and it has very little social stigma. Everyone can agree that cancer is terrible. Also, I think that our society covets breasts and even if it subversively there is a motive to uphold the standard of beauty that we as Americans have come to hold. With an issue like domestic violence there is a great amount of gray area and misunderstanding about the dynamics, cause, etc. Thoughts?