Pink Ribbon Art

This lens is a gallery of pink ribbon art created by myself and others. The pink ribbon has become both a powerful marketing symbol and a way to show support for breast cancer victims. I think it could easily become a symbol for supporting women's health overall, which includes taking control of your own health and not letting others play god with your body.

I started drawing pink ribbons because I had one friend who had breast cancer. Since then I have learned, via reconnecting with friends on Facebook, that many women my age (around 50) have already survived breast cancer. I am going to go out on a limb and say that they have survived the medical system, too, which seems determined to use fear in order to get people to spend more and more money in the health care system. And nothing's more scary than the C word.

How did I come to this conclusion? I worked for 13 years doing medical transcription for a radiation oncology clinic. I spent seven hours a day, five days a week, typing about cancer. Since I retired from that in 2001 (not soon enough) I have seen increasingly more women (including myself) undergo a barrage of tests and procedures because the pap smears are too sensitive, or the mammogram showed something that might be something, meanwhile leaving the terrifying specter of Cancer hanging over their heads for months. In the end most of it shows up benign.

I'm not saying that early detection is wrong in itself, but the way the medical powers-that-be go about it is inhumane. Do you know that when you are given a diagnosis that MIGHT be cancer you go through the stages of grief as though you were actually dying? I experienced it myself and wondered what the heck was going on with me. Then I found something online that told me that was what was happening.

I have heard many stories from friends (and myself) whose doctors tell them that it's nothing to worry about, but they're at high risk, but it's nothing to worry about, but they're at high risk...back and forth. All designed to confuse and scare you enough to make sure you come back and get thousands of dollars worth of "care".

So yes, this is a lens about pink ribbon art. But I would like to start a new campaign to make the pink ribbon be about taking back, as women, our dignity from the medical system. Never, ever, forget that medicine is big business.