Pastel Injustice: The Corporate Use of Pinkwashing for Profit

Title: Pastel Injustice: The Corporate Use of Pinkwashing for Profit

Authors: Amy Lubitow and Mia Davis

Publication: Environmental Justice

Publication Date: June 17, 2011

This article discusses the importance of recognizing pinkwashing, the practice of using the color pink and pink ribbons to indicate a company has joined the search for a breast cancer cure and to invoke breast cancer solidarity, even when the company may be using chemicals linked to cancer. This article argues that pinkwashing is a form of social injustice directed at women in the United States because the practice a) provides a vehicle for corporations to control the public experience of breast cancer, while simultaneously increasing profits and potentially contributing to the rising rate of the disease; b) obscures an environmental health discourse that recognizes the environmental causes of breast cancer; and c) co-opts or redirects women’s experiences of the disease by narrowly defining what is possible.

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