High Society

Being in the right social circles enabled … the movement in general to increase … exposure, leverage, and access to financial resources. Nancy Brinker’s first Komen fund-raising event, for example, was held at a polo club, and (thanks to a call from a Texas real-estate magnate who was a friend of her husband’s) former First Lady Betty Ford, who had had a mastectomy in 1974, was the guest of honor at the first annual Komen luncheon and a regular attendee thereafter.

The legacy of high society and social influence unites with aesthetic norms to produce a social movement focused on image. The breast cancer luncheons, teas, galas, fashion shows, tennis and golf tournaments, and other elegant affairs grant social status to the movement while grounding it solidly in traditional femininity.

– excerpted from p 40, Pink Ribbon Blues: How Breast Cancer Culture Undermines Women’s Health by Gayle Sulik (2011)