Pinkwashing Turns on Itself with Breast Cancer Awareness Gun

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Smith & Wesson Breast Cancer Awareness PistolOctober was Breast Cancer Awareness month, and the group Breast Cancer Action seized on the opportunity to promote its Think Before you Pink campaign to raise awareness of how companies are increasingly exploiting breast cancer as a marketing device to sell products -- some of which are actually harmful to women's health. Pink ribbon campaigns are offering up some bizarre, albeit benign products like a breast cancer awareness toaster and a breast cancer awareness floating Beer Pong table. But the most bizarre item yet to have a pink ribbon slapped on it must be Smith & Wesson's Pink Breast Cancer Awareness 9 mm Pistol, promoted by a woman named Julie Goloski, Smith and Wesson's Consumer Program Manager and a sharpshooter herself. Goloski is promoting S&W's breast cancer awareness pistol on her Facebook page, saying "October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Breast Cancer Awareness M&P’s are shipping to dealers. I am thrilled to have my name associated with such a worthy cause and one of my favorite firearms." According to a 2008 report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, firearms are the second most common cause of violent deaths of women, accounting for 29.2% of all violent deaths among females in the U.S. in 2008.

Main Source: 
GunBroker.com, November 3, 2009
Topics: 
Corporate Campaigns
Ethics
Health

Comments

Johnny Thujone replied on

Anne, you stated

"I challenge the appropriateness of "pinking" a product so closely associated with being used to purposefully wound and kill, and leveraging it supposedly to fight a disease that also wounds and kills."

Any cure for cancer would involve "killing" bad cells. In same same way as a woman would wield a pistol to kill a rapist or a murderer that would victimize her, doctor's would sight in on malignant cells and destroy them.

By your logic, because something living is killed in the process of purging disease, a cure for cancer is, as you put it, bizarre.

Rapists, murderers, and other predators that aim in on women are the life-sized versions of the cancerous cells that prey on an unfortunate number of females. You support a cure for cancer, something which only exists in theory and that we're desperately on the hunt for. However, we've had a publicly available cure to protect women from evil men for hundreds of years... Why are you so for one, but wish to victimize more and more women by taking the other out of their hands?

Anne Landman replied on

A single human being who acts maliciously cannot be compared to a cancer cell, unless they reproduce uncontrollably, with each new person wielding a gun in a similarly malicious manner.

Anne Landman

Anonymous replied on

"firearms are the second most common cause of violent deaths of women"

How are Firearms the CAUSE of death??? Wouldn't homicide be the cause of death? The gun didn't cause her death, the person behind the trigger did! People can get bludgeoned to death with a pink toaster, or stabbed in the eye with a pink pen or toothbrush just as much as they could get shot with a pink gun.

The company is giving money to breast cancer research. Shouldn't you celebrate that? Would you rather they didn't give their profits to charities and kept it instead? The author of this articles ignorance astounds me.

Previous Poster replied on

I have rarely seen such a complete example of someone who refuses to let her opinion be swayed by facts, or so eager to engage in ad hominem attacks. Ms. Landeman, I encourage you to actually read and consider perspectives other than your own.

Anonymous replied on

I am a woman I think it's a wonderful Idea to promote Gun ownership Especially if as you claim Woman are Victims of Violence They should educate and protect them selves and their families, We all should,
It is recommended that you do Self breast Examines to protect yourself.
We Should also recommend That people get Educated in handling Guns for protection
By the way their are worse things Then Death..So STOP THE FEAR FACTOR and get Educated.
Guns Save Lives!

Anonymous replied on

Anne Landman will not be broken so stop trying. She is just like Rosie O . I'll bet she thinks her home security system works just like it does on TV! She probably believes that the bad guy will just run away and the proper response is to run to her ringing phone instead of her home defense gun. She is a product of her environment and she will not be changed unless she opens up her mind and actually starts reading history books. Sad :(

Beans replied on

I think it is a wonderful idea that Smith and Wesson is making this gun. I hope more gun companies follow suit in making guns to support a wonderful cause. Having my own dealings with breast cancer any bit of support helps.

BCAction replied on

What the Cluck? Tell KFC and Susan G. Komen for the Cure to stop pinkwashing!
With their "Buckets for the Cure" campaign, KFC and Susan G. Komen for the Cure are telling us to buy buckets of unhealthy food to cure a disease that kills women. When a company purports to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribboned product, but manufactures products that are linked to the disease, we call that pinkwashing. Make no mistake--every pink bucket purchase will do more to benefit KFC's bottom line than it will to cure breast cancer. Join us in telling KFC and Susan G. Komen for the Cure to rethink this pinkwashing partnership.

Breast Cancer Action
bcaction.org

Anonymous replied on

Thanks for letting me know about this PR campaign. I'll buy one for my wife, one for my mother, two for my daughters. Maybe S&W will give you a commission for promoting their products and programs.

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