Pinkwashing Turns on Itself with Breast Cancer Awareness Gun
Share this
October 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.
- 74713 reads
Printer-friendly version- Add new comment
- permalink
Today's popular content
- Wisconsin’s System Increasingly Rigged Against the Unemployed (56)
- Resources for Investigating ALEC/NRA Gun Bills (48)
- The Health Care Industry vs. Health Reform (32)
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food" (28)
- About ALEC Exposed (23)
- Harold Camping's Global Apocalypse PR Campaign (23)
- More Corporations Drop Off ALEC's Conference Brochure (20)
- Dear WWII Vets, Forget About the Monument, They Are Gunning for Your Social Security (18)
- PBS Killed Wisconsin Uprising Documentary "Citizen Koch" To Appease Koch Brothers (18)
- Why Do We Need Health Care Reform? Don't Ask George Will (18)
Readers' Comments
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: pbarnrob
-
Submitted by: EarlBowden
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: Anonymous
-
Submitted by: AndrewG
Comments
Irony?
I will take your percieved irony and raise you 2x irony. The terrorist's assault was stopped by someone with a firearm.
Unfortunately for the victims of this terrorist attack on a military base, they are flatly prohibited from carrying personal firearms aboard a government installation to protect themselves from such an attack. It's the same "soft target" for a mind-set criminal as a public school. Nobody is carrying a firearm but the terrorist, therefore, his likelihood for "success" in his goal for slaughtering multiple targets is greatly increased.
Your irrational fear of guns is understandable given the fact that your conditioning as a "open-minded, rational liberal" has been exceptionally effective. If you ever come to South Texas, my wife and I would love to introduce you and educate you about the safe and proper handling and use of firearms. If you would like, I can also direct you toward someone in your own neighborhood who is a certified (dare I scare you more with a simple acronym?) NRA instructor and who can introduce you to firearms in a safe and productive manner. You have my email attached to this note.
Breast cancer is a threat to women the world over. Terrorists and criminals are too. If you would just open your mind to understand that firearms are much more like chemotherapy than any of your other half-baked analogies (they can both kill or cure, depending upon how they are used), your world might be a better, safer place. People might also take you more seriously and less offensively.
Good evening.
flynylon
You missed the point
The point is, the product the company manufactures is not responsible for a single death (man or women) in this or any other country. The person responsible for the deaths when a firearm is used as a tool is the person pulling the trigger. This is the same as choosing to smoke. The person responsible for the repercussions of smoking is the person who, knowing the possible consequences, lights up. Smith and Wesson is a great company that makes a great product, that is used for good every day. Many women (and men) have used their products to fend off attackers, and to preserve their life and the lives of their loved ones. Many law enforcement officers use their products to preserve the peace and protect the good people of this country. It is strange, you only see the product being used to hurt women, but where are your percentages describing the number of women who are going out and purchasing (and using when necessary) their product to defend their right to life and liberty? I say, by giving women the ability (with proper training) to defend themselves from any attacker, and to choose not to be a victim, the products Smith and Wesson provides actually empowers women. I (might) feel bad for anybody who decides to accost Julie in a dark ally (or anywhere else). I commend S&W and Julie for donating their hard earned money to a cause as worthy as the fight against breast cancer. So should you.
Gun
The gun store owner is a responsible business man and community leader. He is a member of the NRA and noted advocate of gun safety - keeping all his personal firearms locked in a biometric safe. He has applied to the local little league to sponsor a team. The league committee has voted on the application and I shall reveal their decision once a best answer is chosen here.
They didn't miss the point, your point is invalid.
The leading causes of death for women are heart disease, cancer and then stroke. Not guns. In fact, guns are not a "cause" of death in women at all. Homicide is a CAUSE of death.
Did you mean to say that guns are used in the majority of homicides of which women are the victim? Ok then, that's true. But why stop with gun manufacturers? Since in the overwhelming majority of homicides in which women are the victim, the perpetrator is a man, you should probably just reject any donations or support by men for the breast cancer cause as cynical nonsense. After all, men are the leading killers of women—regardless of method—so how could they possibly have an interest in supporting breast cancer research and treatment? That is literally how silly your "point" is.
And men are the majority of homicide victims, not women, and most of those men are killed with guns. If a gun maker donated money to testicular or prostate cancer research, nobody would be making the same ridiculous criticism you're making here. They would appreciate the donation.
"This is ... roughly the equivalent of a cigarette maker selling a special pink cigarette for women, and then donating a tiny percentage of the profits from it to a women's lung cancer fund."
No, it's not even remotely equivalent. That analogy would only make sense if guns caused breast cancer.
Anne doesn't get it...
Anne,
You are the one that misses the point. The Smith & Wesson pistol is not a "device that is one of the leading causes of death in women." Rather, it is a weapon used to defend women hundreds of times daily.
As a police officer, I see the reality of death daily. I don't just sit back and talk about it, or read about it, or even -gasp- blog about it. Firearms are used to defend people FAR more than they are used illegally.
Stop repeating what you have been told, but do not know.
Richard
You missed the point
The point is, the product the company manufactures is not responsible for a single death (man or women) in this or any other country. The person responsible for the deaths when a firearm is used as a tool is the person pulling the trigger. This is the same as choosing to smoke. The person responsible for the repercussions of smoking is the person who, knowing the possible consequences, lights up. Smith and Wesson is a great company that makes a great product, that is used for good every day. Many women (and men) have used their products to fend off attackers, and to preserve their life and the lives of their loved ones. Many law enforcement officers use their products to preserve the peace and protect the good people of this country. It is strange, you only see the product being used to hurt women, but where are your percentages describing the number of women who are going out and purchasing (and using when necessary) their product to defend their right to life and liberty? I say, by giving women the ability (with proper training) to defend themselves from any attacker, and to choose not to be a victim, the products Smith and Wesson provides actually empowers women. I (might) feel bad for anybody who decides to accost Julie in a dark ally (or anywhere else). I commend S&W and Julie for donating their hard earned money to a cause as worthy as the fight against breast cancer. So should you.
still missing the point
What the conversation is really about isn't whether guns are used for harm or benefit. They are used for both.
It's about companies misusing the Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign to promote sales.
I mean, come on guys, do they need to manufacture a pink handled gun, and advertise that they support Breast Cancer Awareness? Aren't thousands of entities already promoting awareness of this disease?
No one is saying that company owners of all varieties of products shouldn't support and donate to good causes, they're questioning the ethics of trying to boost company sales by ear marking products with the tell-tale pink color, and by making mention of it in their PR campaigns.
THAT is the true nature of this argument. The debate about firearms will go on for eternity.
So why do you want to give
So why do you want to give guns to irresponsible people?
That's what's so irrational about this argument you've taken to be yours. Yes---we know guns don't fire themselves. We know irresponsible people do. But why do you want to give them guns?
No, you miss the point
You blame an inanimate object on the criminal acts of a tiny minority of the population and assume that the company that manufactures the object that you so despise is trying to "cloak" the complicity that you assign them.
Missing from your evaluation of the relative value of guns is any consideration for how many women's lives are SAVED each year by having a gun available and knowing how to use it...like, say, this one:
" A Mobile, Alabama woman fatally shot a violent ex-boyfriend who broke in to her home, hid in her bedroom closet, and attacked her when she returned home."
You are allowing your own bigotry and irrational fear of an inanimate object interfere with the ability of a lawful, robust industry to help with a cause that you yourself support.
Sounds to me like you are placing your own personal feelings over the lives of the breast cancer sufferers that the money raised by the firearms industry might help.
Gun lover or not...
Consider that guns may be perceived as wholly inappropriate products to use to promote cancer awareness at all. What is the connection between guns and cancer other than the fact that both kill people?
What if D-Con made a special, pink box of breast cancer awareness rat poison? Or a chemical company promoted a special breast cancer awareness pesticide? What would you think of that? It would be over the line. It would be absurd. So it is with the gun.
Rodent poison may have a useful purpose, but it would simply be inappropriate to put forth this bizarre type of promotion.
So it is with a breast cancer awareness gun.
Guns kill. Breast cancer kills.
Inappropriate.
Anne Landman