Barbara Ehrenreich: Not So Pretty in Pink (The Pink-Ribbon Breast Cancer Cult)

[marmar]

from TomDispatch:



Not So Pretty in Pink
The Uproar Over New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines

By Barbara Ehrenreich


Has feminism been replaced by the pink-ribbon breast cancer cult? When the House of Representatives passed the Stupak amendment, which would take abortion rights away even from women who have private insurance, the female response ranged from muted to inaudible.

A few weeks later, when the United States Preventive Services Task Force recommended that regular screening mammography not start until age 50, all hell broke loose. Sheryl Crow, Whoopi Goldberg, and Olivia Newton-John raised their voices in protest; a few dozen non-boldface women picketed the Department of Health and Human Services. If you didn’t look too closely, it almost seemed as if the women’s health movement of the 1970s and 1980s had returned in full force.

Never mind that Dr. Susan Love, author of what the New York Times dubbed “the bible for women with breast cancer,” endorses the new guidelines along with leading women’s health groups like Breast Cancer Action, the National Breast Cancer Coalition, and the National Women’s Health Network (NWHN). For years, these groups have been warning about the excessive use of screening mammography in the U.S., which carries its own dangers and leads to no detectible lowering of breast cancer mortality relative to less mammogram-happy nations.

Nonetheless, on CNN last week, we had the unsettling spectacle of NWHN director and noted women’s health advocate Cindy Pearson speaking out for the new guidelines, while ordinary women lined up to attribute their survival from the disease to mammography. Once upon a time, grassroots women challenged the establishment by figuratively burning their bras. Now, in some masochistic perversion of feminism, they are raising their voices to yell, “Squeeze our tits!” ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175171/tomgram%3A__barbara_ehrenreich%2C_welcome_to_the_women%27s_movement_2.0/#more

[waterscalm]

1. My friend's breast cancer was detected early by a mamogram. She was 42 at

the time.I am very unsettled over these new recommendations.

[Demeter]

2. Women Need Healthcare Without Restrictions

They should get any service and any test any time they need it without anybody second-guessing. Without exceptions for anybody else's "sensitivities" or religious or economic prejudices. Similarly, women have the right to refuse the same.

[Tansy_Gold]

5. What she said. n/t

[Demeter]

3. Women Need Healthcare Without Restrictions

They should get any service and any test any time they need it without anybody second-guessing. Without exceptions for anybody else's "sensitivities" or religious or economic prejudices. Similarly, women have the right to refuse the same.

[Tansy_Gold]

6. What she said AGAIN

Because it can't be said too often.

Health care is health care. It is not religion.

[IrateCitizen]

11. Health care is a limited resource, like all others

Nobody has a right to health care without restrictions, especially if we want to provide it to everyone. I'm sorry if that's an uncomfortable or seemingly indifferent thing to say, but it's the plain truth. These services must be funded somehow, so we need to do the best we can to ensure that those services are not spent on those who really don't need them.

From what I have heard and read, the reason this guideline was changed was because the overwhelming majority of women are NOT at high risk of breast cancer in their 40s. Also, for those who ARE high-risk, such as women with a genetic predisposition or African-American women, the old guidelines are still in place -- mammograms at 40 (or even earlier).

I give kudos to Barbara Ehrenreich -- herself a breast cancer survivor -- for writing about this in such a pragmatic, clear-headed way.

[Gman]

4. The Stupak amendment does not take away abortion rights

I wish people would quit lying about it because they just don't like the health care bill.

[Lorien]

8. It does for those who can't afford one otherwise

but why fight for the rights of the other gender, right?

[MH1]

9. It limits access

which takes it away from people who can be stopped by those barriers.

Which is EXACTLY what the right wing wants to do. You see, they really don't mind if the rich among them still have access. Just in case, you know.

[IrateCitizen]

7. It's the generational gap of feminism

Look at the people Ehrenreich cited as being up in arms about the breast cancer guidelines -- the youngest one on the list is Cheryl Crow, and she's in her mid-to-late 40s. They are all members of the generation that grew up in, or on the coattails of, the feminist movement. They're not nearly as vocal about abortion because it isn't a personal issue to them anymore, while breast cancer is. And, if there's one thing that comes out as consistent about most people's politics, it is that the personal trumps all else.

As for the change in guidelines, it was developed primarily as a means of controlling costs in this one specific area. Rant and rave against it all you want, but controlling costs IS a vital part of expanding health care coverage in this country. Every other nation that has universal care does it -- part of the reason that they focus on preventative health care as opposed to sick care. Also, it should be noted that the guidelines changes have many exemptions for higher-risk patients, such as those with breast cancer in their family or African-American women who have a much higher incidence, which maintain the old standard of 40.

Considering that Ehrenreich is a breast cancer survivor herself, I think she's being pretty pragmatic in looking at the big picture on this instead of focusing on the personal, as scary as that personal might be.

[SharonAnn]

12. That's why I say that younger women are going to have to fight more for their rights.

I grew when we didn't have many and I fought like heck to get them. Health care, jobs, pay, choice,sports in school, credit, etc.

If the younger women are taking these rights for granted, they're going to be really surprised if they're taken away.

The anti-women groups, religious and not religious, are always out there trying to subjugate us. Always.

The right-wing radio and TV hosts are big enablers of this sexism.

[Better Today]

10. It is really hard to wrap my head around where womens' equality has gone

since the 70s. And unfortunately the worse at holding us back, focusing on trivial crap, belittling those that attempt to step forward. . . all comes from women.

We are our own worst enemy. Perhaps its just our nature to hate each other.