Our Bodies, Ourselves (175 page)

Dedicated to the health and well-being of girls and young women, Hardy Girls Healthy Women (hghw.org) is a nonprofit that works to give girls opportunities to explore new interests and build alliances with other girls. The organization trains adults who work with girls in second to twelfth grade and develops programs that encourage girls to think critically about media depictions of women and recognize and address unfairness. On the website, a program participant named Beth says: “When I see an ad that is selling women instead of the product, I recognize it. When I hear a sexist comment, I recognize it. And when I feel the need to speak my mind, I do, and without feeling out of line.”
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Geared toward an older demographic, Name It, Change It (nameitchangeit.org) is a nonpartisan organization that works to end sexist and misogynistic coverage of women candidates in the media. The site has exposed sexist comments by radio hosts, pundits, bloggers, and journalists that undermine women candidates and leaders.

Finally, if you're tired of stories that misrepresent girls and women—or leave us out of the picture entirely—visit Women, Action & the Media (womenactionmedia.org), also known as WAM! This organization aims to change the narrative by connecting and supporting media makers, activists, academics, and funders working to advance women's media participation, ownership, and representation. Among its many offerings is an active and informative Listserv that welcomes students as well as professionals.

In October 2010, Hunter College—in partnership with the Women's Media Center, Hardy Girls Healthy Women, Ms. Foundation, and numerous other educators and organizations—held the first-ever SPARK Summit (sparksum mit.com) to counter the increasing sexualization of girls in the media.

SPARK in this instance stands for Sexualization Protest: Action, Resistance, Knowledge. Speakers tackled a wide variety of issues, including the marketing of padded bras and thong underwear to little girls, the passive or hypersexualized roles of girls and women in TV and films, and the link between self-sexualization and low self-esteem in teens. More than three hundred people attended the summit, with hundreds more participating online.

At the Women Media Center's action station—dubbed “Changing the Conversation/Amplifying Your Voice”—girls created their own video journalism, submitted posts to WMC's blog, and reported on incidents of sexism through the WMC's Sexism Watch campaign. Some girls went on to be featured on NPR and CBS, in The Huffington Post, in
El Diario
, and in other media outlets.

As one speaker at the summit explained, the focus wasn't antisex but, rather, anti-exploitation. Women and girls need to think critically about the messages they're receiving and “take sexy back”—in other words, reclaim their sexuality in a healthy and positive way.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, more than 80,000 chemicals in use in the United States have never been fully tested for their potential adverse impact on humans or the environment. While the European Union has banned 1,100 dangerous chemicals from use in personal care products, the FDA has banned or restricted only 11. (For more information on toxics and chemicals and their effect on our health, see
Chapter 25
, “Environmental and Occupational Health.”)

Consider the case of bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical used to make plastics more durable. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence that BPA disrupts the endocrine system and has been shown to cause cancer as well as developmental and reproductive problems, the product is still
used in water bottles, baby bottles, the lining of aluminum cans, and other food and drink packaging. Seven states and a few cities have passed laws prohibiting the sale of baby bottles containing BPA, but the federal government has yet to pass a nationwide ban on the chemical's use in food and drink containers. (Notably, the European Union and Canada have already banned the use of BPA in baby bottles.)

For years, activist groups have taken up the slack, delving into critical issues about the safety of our food, water, and air and carrying out their own research into the effects of chemicals in the environment. The Silent Spring Institute, for example, works to identify and cast light on the links between environmental issues and women's health, particularly breast cancer. Formed in 1994 to investigate the higher rates of breast cancer on Cape Cod, the organization took its name from Rachel Carson's landmark 1962 book
Silent Spring
, which helped launch the environmental movement. The coalition of scientists, physicians, and public health activists at the institute has undertaken research into, among other issues, the environmental causes of breast cancer, rates of household exposure to endocrine disrupters, and the presence of hormone-disrupting chemicals in septic systems.

In an open letter on the organization's website (silentspring.org), Silent Spring Institute executive director Julia G. Brody details the important questions we should be asking about the link between environmental issues and breast cancer and other diseases: “In the past decade, the very personal question, ‘Why did I get breast cancer?' has been transformed. New voices ask, ‘Why do we have breast cancer rates higher than generations before and among the highest in the world? What can we do as a community of women and men to change the legacy for our daughters?'”

Website: bcaction.org

In the past two decades, the fight against breast cancer has become a popular cause. Walks, runs, and fund-raisers exist in every major city in the United States. Breast Cancer Action (BCA) has used this growing public interest to challenge the cancer industry—that is, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, research institutes, and other organizations—and insist on increased focus on prevention.

BCA's Think Before You Pink initiative (thinkbeforeyoupink.org) has challenged a number of misguided breast cancer awareness campaigns that trivialize or sexualize breast cancer—for example, taking to task one manufacturer for selling pink ribbon thongs imprinted with the slogan “I've lost my boobies, but not my sex appeal.”

BCA also targets pinkwashers, or companies profiting from pink-cause marketing that make or sell products that could increase the risk of breast cancer. One such pinkwashing campaign was KFC's “Buckets for the Cure,”
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an attempt by the fried chicken franchise to raise breast cancer awareness in partnership with Susan G. Komen for the Cure. BCA exposed the hypocrisy of linking fast food—and franchises disproportionately located in low-income neighborhoods with limited access to fresh, healthful food options—to efforts to reduce the rate of breast cancer.

In an interview on NPR, Barbara Brenner, former executive director of BCA, countered the assumption that all the marketing and awareness around the disease have solved the problem, saying that “if shopping could cure breast cancer, it would be cured by now.” She continued, “Awareness we have, the question is, what are we doing about it? And when companies can just slap a pink ribbon on any product, then
we're in trouble, because many of those products don't do anything for breast cancer. And many of them are actually harmful to our health.”
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© Sarah Harding for Breast Cancer Action

In 2008, Think Before You Pink took on the mainstream dairy industry. Yoplait was selling pink-lidded yogurt to raise money for breast cancer. Yoplait's yogurt, however, was made from milk containing recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), an artificial hormone injected into cows to make them produce more milk; rBGH may be associated with increased rates of breast, prostate, colon, and other cancers. BCA started an online campaign to raise awareness about the issue and helped activists get their message directly to the CEO of Yoplait's parent company, General Mills. As a result of the campaign, Yoplait changed to rBGH-free milk. Shortly after, the second-largest dairy product manufacturer, Dannon, followed suit.

The backlash against pinkwashing is gaining momentum and more people—and media—are questioning if the focus on awareness is helping women. In the article “The Downside of Awareness Campaigns,” the
Los Angeles Times
reported this troubling statistic: “The stark reality is that in the 26 years since the campaign [National Breast Cancer Awareness Month] began, deaths from breast cancer have dropped only slightly—about 2 percent per year, starting in 1990.” Certain breast cancer–related issues, such as overdiagnosis and overtreatment, the article continues, don't make it into the mainstream literature or most large-scale advocacy compaigns.
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When buying pink products or donating to breast cancer causes, find out about the company's environmental practices (to learn whether the company contributes to the problem) and how much of the money raised actually goes to support breast cancer research or treatment.

Many women with breast cancer are inspired to ask questions and get involved in efforts to find the answers. One woman recalls how meeting and working with other women transformed her experience:

I was first diagnosed with breast cancer in September of 1991 at the age of forty-two. I was angry, depressed, and hopelessly paralyzed. I was certain that I would die—never to see my children grow up. Within two months, I found a small group of women who were meeting at a coffee shop in my neighborhood. What began as a support group turned into a call to action. I recall bringing homemade petitions to the group and asking people to sign letters to senators, representatives, and even the president of the United States asking for more money for
research. We found women in other support groups who were also wanting to mobilize—to channel our anger and our energy. We started to talk about things like environmental exposures and prevention.…As I think back to those first years, I remember clearly the faces of the women in those groups. Some are still alive, many are not. Now it is clear to me how much becoming active in a movement was a vital piece of my getting through treatment and getting well again. For this I am eternally grateful.

In our increasingly plugged-in and interconnected world, it's never been easier to read stories and view videos created by women working to secure sexual and reproductive health rights around the world. You don't have to look any farther than Facebook, Flickr, or YouTube to be awed by the range of actions held during the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence (16dayscwgl.rutgers.edu), the international campaign that runs from November 25 (International Day Against Violence Against Women) to December 10 (International Human Rights Day), or to connect deeply with one girl's story about how she is creating change in her community.