Pinktober Revolution
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Sula, I'm sorry I mistook the post for yours. Too many threads, too many comments to keep them all straight! And yes, there are times--and especially for work--when one must suck it up and smile....
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sas-schatzi wrote:
Cheerleading for BCO. They are our home, our resource, we gain so much by being here. They have costs. Let's help.
They make periodic requests by email. They're is the donation link in the header. An easy way for those that do online banking is to set up a donation on a predictable basis.
We need to do this. They take care of us. Let's make sure we take care of them.
You don't have to send a check. Do it simply in your online banking. But if you are still stuck on checks.........
To donate by mail, please send your check payable to Breastcancer.org to:
120 E. Lancaster Avenue | Suite 201 | Ardmore, PA 19003link to BCO Our biggest advocate
https://community.breastcancer.org/forum/110/topic/834331?page=1
Link to the mainboard donation page
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Sas- thank you for the nudge. I made a gift in honor of my monthly chemo group a couple of months ago.
I thought about what you said about automatic donations each month. I checked out your link and saw that very VERY small donations can be set up. As low as $5. One Starbucks. Not trying to twist anyone's arm but it is important for a charity with ongoing expenses to have some idea if what's coming in every month, rather than waiting for random donations to fall into the checking account.
I am on disability, a fixed income, with no outside savings to speak of. Breast cancer has devastated me and my bank account. On the other hand BCO literally saved my sanity.
I gave gotten "clean" information here when I was scared. I have met real friends here when I felt alone.
Charity Navigator ranks bco at 4 out of 4 stars. 💫💫💫💫 And they do more good every day than a thousand pink tacos sold, haha.
So I found a way to set up a modest monthly donation. I'll never miss it, even on my budget.
Again, not trying to nag. Just sharing my thoughts.
Thanks again forthis thread, Sas AND bco. This healthy outlet for my frustrations saves me oodles in therapy and Ativan.
Everybody have a great day!
Katy
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here is a vast improvement. It's the first example I've seen of a corporation respecting breast cancer awareness without tying their donations to a sale. This link is full of education about bc with no pinkwashing. They are not donating a % of sales. Instead they are educating and matching funds. BRAVO!!!
http://www.beautycounter.com/know-everything/what-...
This is just a partial meme, but you can see it is tasteful. The hot link above will show you what could be a template for how to turn pinktober around. Please check it out and share on your FB pages.
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thank you for the nudges. I will make a donation to BCO also. Saved my sanity more than once, for sure
Octogirl
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Jackbirdie, thanks very much for the link to BeautyCounter. Shared.
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If you guys can do it, I can do it. I agree, our hometeam is the best place to start so BCO it is!
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Just reporting in. I had made a series of complaints on the Ulta FB page because I found their "gorgeous hair month" packaged with Katie Holmes, a pink ribbon and how "proud they all are" bla bla blahhh, offensive. Even mocking of breast cancer patients, since many of us still don't have any hair. The company emailed me back and I ended up connecting for a phone meeting with one of their corporate execs this morning.
They received many other complaints besides mine, (I have seen them myself on their FB page) and as of this morning have started something new, which is a bit more like a donation than a sale, and there is a very touching video of a young survivor, with not much hair, telling her story. Not once in the video is buying something pink mentioned.
The company still has some pink programs, but they are distinctly less sales-opportunistic than some other companies. You know, the 10% of all pink tacos going to the .komen game.
Flash forward to my phone conversation with them. It was not hostile, and was about half an hour long. The company executive did read partially from her script in telling me that they care, my opinion matters, etc. but once that was out of the way, she seemed to be genuinely listening (and repeated back to me her understanding) and offered some suggestions of her own. I asked for them to consider breaking the tie completely between charitable giving and sales. To consider using October for education and donation, perhaps matching funds, instead of the current widespread template of objectification and opportunism.
So we shall see. I am beginning to think that we have to come up with the solution ourselves and tell them all what we want. Otherwise all of these companies will continue to follow this same insensitive, ineffective, template for pinktober policy.
I urge any of you feeling spunky today to go to Ulta's FB page and ask them to continue to change their approach during pinktober. While we have their attention. If just a couple of companies successfully adopt a new way, (e.g. Beautycounter) the rest may follow.
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I sent an email to the pink taco place asking where the $$ raised would go. Next day they answered, said 100% of money would go to bc research foundation. Never heard of it. Looked them up, they claim 91 cents of every dollar is used to fund research. Have a bunch of MDs, and PhDs all over the world doing research.
Better than giving it to Komen I guess. And that's what said in my email thanking them for the answer.Still can't go there this month.
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good for you for following up. And I agree almost anything better than Komen.
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Good work Jack and Spookies. I'm continuing my campaign to publicise the fact that Pinktober is reinforcing BC as a female only disease and stopping men from seeking attention. These late diagnoses lowers our survival rates. Thanks a lot Komen and others on the bandwagon.
I've been interviewed for a story on this by the medical reporter of a major Australian newspaper. I'll post a link when the article appears.
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Excellent, Trvltxt! I'll look forward to that. I thought it was interesting that in my research regarding the dangerous substances/chemicals in cosmetics, it says men (in the US) use an average of 6 "personal care " products a day. And therefore also very much at risk.
It also mentioned that the US FDA has banned fewer than a dozen chemicals, while countries in Western Europe have banned over a THOUSAND! Not sure what it's like in OZ. But I am very curious why our 'powers that be'think it's ok to have these thousands of products still on the market?
I don't know how long ago these things were banned, but it would be interesting to see if the number of bc and other cancercases decline over time in countries that protect their consumers better, eh?
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Jackb, if the FDA is not responsible for monitoring a chemical ---they don't. There is an organization that monitors otc supplements, but they are in serious trouble right now b/c the New York State attorney general has brought suit against them for false advertising. Named in the suit was Walmart, Walgreens, Target, GNC, and two more. No clue who monitors chemicals in otc personal care products. Try PETA.
Great job on talking with the CEO.
Spookie, could that have been BCRF---Breast Cancer Research Fund. I did a thing on the companion thread--List organizations. It was started by Estee Lauder. Link is in the topic box. BCRF does major funding of research. But the connection to Lauder could be a problem. Estee lauder cleaned up their American products and stopped animal testing. But they were trying to get entry into China. China requires animal testing. I haven't looked at it since whatever my post date is on the List thread.
Someone someplace mentioned Breast Cancer Fund. I think they are one of several that were found to be shysters, just this year.
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I spoke to a restaurant manager about pinkwashing because of their pink ribbon wine promotion. Alcohol is a known breast cancer risk. He said he would pass my comments on to the higher-ups, and that someone else had raised a similar objection. Baby step, I know, but this discussion is helping to turn me into an activist.
Traveltext, what are your two best slogans concerning breast cancer in men? For my buttons.
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I just have to say - I am so proud of everyone on this thread following up on pinkwashing. Your efforts are inspiring.
sj
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Shetland and traveltext
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Great activism, all!! I'm inspired.0
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Dug a little deeper. Yep, you're right SAS, there is a connection to Lauder in their Shop Pink
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Spookie, I did a thing on the list thread. The best organization I think is StandUp2C. Ruthrbu did a thing on the list thread. Very insightful. STU2C has avoided all the Komen fiasco stuff. STU2C is the charitable arm of the entertainment industry. STU2C all their money is spent on the charity. The administrative salaries are paid by members of the entertainment industry. I thought that was amazingly well thought out. I could be naïve. But I liked it.
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great job on the digging. And my research shows Estee Lauder has not cleaned up their act.
http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/search.php?query=Estée+Lauder&h=Search
I searched the name Estée Lauder on the ewg.org skindeep database. Still too much red (for danger) there for my taste. Ewg is an independent non profit that Evaluates 66,000+ personal care products.
The whole of the traditional rank and file cosmetics industries lobbies against legislation even requiring them to disclose ingredients, much less stop using them. And the FDA has no teeth. Or will, apparently.
That Estée Lauder holds itself out as a caring company by funding bcrf, while continuing to sell carcinogenic products is the most sophisticated -and hard to root out- pinkwashing of all. Because we want to believe they are doing good. What they are doing is using breast cancer awareness to rehabilitate their image, while continuing to poison the marketplace. Cancer patients as well as the general population men, women AND children alike.
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Estee Lauder founded BCRF and sat on the board until her death from ovarian cancer. BCRF has done millions and millions towards research. She's also responsible for pink. Their is a whole controversial story and corporation nastiness when it started. A woman started it and Lauder wanted it. Wasn't a nice story. Google "beginning of pink and Lauder"
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Hi Bluedog, welcome, jump in the waters nice
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Here is that story on the first pink ribbons: (from Bcaction webpage)
In the early 1990s, a 68-year-old woman named Charlotte Haley—whose grandmother, sister, and daughter had all had breast cancer—began making peach-colored ribbons by hand in her dining room. She distributed them at her local supermarket, along with cards that read: ?The National Cancer Institute annual budget is $1.8 billion, only 5 percent goes for cancer prevention. Help us wake up our legislators and America by wearing this ribbon.?
Syndicated columnist Liz Smith wrote about Haley's grassroots organizing effort in her column one day in 1992, and executives from Estée Lauder and Self magazine approached Haley for permission to use her concept. Haley refused to relinquish ownership of her ribbon: as the former editor of Self recalls, "She said we were too commercial." Lawyers advised the companies to go ahead and use a ribbon but to choose another color, and they settled on pink, the quintessential female color. Within a year, Charlotte Haley's handmade peach ribbon was history, and the pink ribbon has since become a worldwide symbol for breast cancer "awareness."
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Shetland, slogans include:
Men have breasts too!
And this one:
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I'm not sure I'd pitch Lauder herself entirely as the enemy--speaking as a patient at the Breast Center she helped found at Sloan Kettering.
Katy, you're right, of course, that these corporations--and many others--use charity to polish their image. It's the two-faced image that needs attention. And the controversy goes back over a decade if not more. What would it take to move forward?
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BTW: PETA SUCKS!! Do not support PETA, they kill the animals that they claim they are saving. Especially pit bulls, they believe the breed should be wiped out. So please do not in any way support PETA.
Good work all of you!! I think our gang is making excellent headway with this. I'm happy that my FB posts about avoiding pink are being shared by my friends.
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Jackie, I am just catching up with the posts here. The Beauty Counter approach seems like the right path to take. I am just wondering about the organization they donate to, Breast Cancer Fund. I do not know anything about whether it is reputable or not.
Now, about Ulta. Wow,you have done great contacting them. I plan to visit their website because I do shop their stores as they carry resonably priced paraben free cosmetics and other products. I agree that we need to let others know how this awareness month could be improved upon. You say it so well: I asked for them to consider breaking the tie completely between charitable giving and sales. To consider using October for education and donation, perhaps matching funds, instead of the current widespread template of objectification and opportunism.
That's as far as I got in the reading and wanted to write down my thoughts before reading further. Thank you so much for all of your intelligent, worthwhile efforts on changing the bc awareness approach
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The Tampa Bay Times did a study, came up with the 10 worst charities in USA. Breast Cancer Fund was one of them. Along with some surprising others.
And Glennie, you're right. PETA does suck. And lie.
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Just to be clear, Breast Cancer Research Foundation is the one started by Estée Lauder. It is still funded by the corporation and by her personal legacy, as well as many other corporate and non profit donors and partners. Although is was started by Lauder, it is run independently, and is given 4 out of 4 stars by charity navigator. Ulta is partnered with this one.
Breast Cancer Fund is something different. it gets 2 out of 4 stars. I wonder if the bad guys and wannabes cloud the water on purpose by naming themselves quite similarly to a good one,
Even though I feel that the modern day Estée Lauder Company is somewhat exempted from criticism because of their association with BCRF, that is not the foundation's fault.
As I said earlier, perhaps the way out of this mess is to ask companies specifically to adopt a new template, which severs the connection between any hint of profit mongering, and simply adopts a traditional donation and matching funds format, with special attention to educating the public
Nobody is saying Breast Cancer Awareness month is bad, or that companies should stop being involved in it. But they can do so much more by being wiser and braver about how they handle the money, especially by scrutinizing very carefully where the money goes, and what % is spent in research, what % on metastatic research, etc. The profiteering and appearance of profiteering must end.
**You should not have to make a purchase of a company's product to trigger their charitable giving.**
This is an important point. I think this would also reduce the amount of sexualization and objectification, since the charitable giving wouldn't be subject to, or dependent on, big marketing's "Look At Me" philosophy and practice.
Furthermore, somehow, all of the efforts of all of the charities need to be accountable in the big picture so that duplication of effort is stopped, and new and exciting areas of research can be pursued. Even the best of charities have funneled money to something that has been tested hundreds of times, while leaving other important areas unexplored.
It's a lot to take on. But I think we have gotten mad enough to turn that anger into a bonfire. I'm so proud of everyone here. Just reading about it and not turning away is something. Not everyone has the ability to do the same kind or the same amount of activism. But know that every bit of progress starts with one letter. One phone call. Signing an online petition. Being well informed and gently correcting a friend or colleague that doesn't understand. It all helps.
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