Pinkwashing Turns on Itself with Breast Cancer Awareness Gun

Submitted by Anne Landman on

Smith & Wesson Breast Cancer Awareness PistolOctober 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.

Main Source: 
GunBroker.com, November 3, 2009
Topics: 
Corporate Campaigns
Ethics
Health

Comments

JRivera replied on

S&W is not selling a murderer or a rapist dressed in pink. They are selling a pistol; a tool of self defense. Did you also pulled statistics for women killed or injured at knife point the first time you saw a set of pink kitchen knives? The numbers on violence against women would me much lower if more women carried a good revolver instead of relying on a 911 call IF they have the chance.

Excuse me, but I think it is you who missed the point.

Anne Landman replied on

...A Susan G. Komen [http://www.metrokitchen.com/product/KJ-FK-140-SE breast cancer awareness knife]!

Anne Landman

Anonymous replied on

You miss the POINT! It isn't the gun that kills people it is the criminal that utilizes the gun, knife, car, club or whatever. As a shooter I have never seen a gun jump up off a table and shoot someone on its own. Don't turn this into an anti-gun discussion when the article is showing that a company that fully supports enabling women, such as Smith and Wesson, is trying to do something for women.

Sean Sorrentino replied on

No, you missed the point that a world class athlete, Julie Goloski, is offering for sale a copy of the exact piece of sports equipment she wins with in international competition. and a portion of the sales will be donated to Breast Cancer research. This should be about as controversial as Lance Armstrong raffling off his Tour de France bike for cancer research.

more facts

Total # of women who die from Breast cancer in 2005
41,116
http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/breast/statistics/

Total gunshot deaths in women, all causes, including suicide (2006)
4,050 this includes 2,149 firearm suicides and 1,901 firearm homicides.
http://tinyurl.com/yjxft6e

so basically, guns are involved in less than one tenth the number of annual deaths of women than breast cancer.

for some sort of comparison as to rarity of death by violence of all types,
http://tinyurl.com/yzyydzx

this shows how homicide deaths OF ALL CAUSES in women are ranked 15th, after heart disease, chronic respiratory disease, unintentional injury, diabetes, suicide, hypertension, and even Parkinson's Disease.

so basically, this whole thing can break down to PR Watch shrieking "EEEK a GUN!!!111eleventy!!

Anonymous replied on

Yes, she's an athlete.
Julie G. is a top female competitor in the shooting sports, particularly the USPSA.
If you're not familiar, this sport requires physical skill to negotiate an obstacle course, while shooting, and your score is a reflection of accuracy and speed.

"competitor" "sport" "physical skill" "score" ...all clues that yes, she's an athlete.
In fact, she was the US Army Athlete of the Year awhile back.

Does writing a biased opinion on the web make someone a journalist?

Anonymous replied on

You say not an athlete, but a sportsman. Don't take my word for it. I believe if you thought that comment through it might have occured to you that there are shooting sports in both summer and winter olympics. The NCAA (National Collegiate ATHLETIC Association) sanctions shooting sports at the collegiate level and many high schools across the country have competitive shooting teams . I think that is a pretty authoritative body of work indicating individuals shooting a gun in a sport does indeed qualify them as athletes. Your arguments now are getting really pathetic.

Hazcat replied on

In your world a woman beaten and raped or murdered is morally superior to a woman that chose to defend herself with a gun. That is a very scary world!

Anonymous replied on

actually to the contrary firearms do not make the list of CDC top ten things that kill women. firearms have probably saved more women's lives then you realize.

http://www.cdc.gov/Women/lcod.htm

I commend S&W for donating to breast cancer and providing firearms that have saved countless lives.

Disgusted by yo... replied on

According to (http://www.vpc.org/studies/wmmw2008.pdf) in 2006, 1,836 women were victims murdered by males in a single victim setting. 1.29 of 100,000 women were killed by an intimate male or husband. And only 54% were killed with a firearm.

Have you looked up any other common causes of women death?
>13 in 100,000 die from childbirth
1 in 40 die from breast cancer! or 2500 in 100,000!!!!

You have 10 times more of a chance of dying during childbirth than being murdered with a firearm. And a whole 1937 times more of a chance of dying from breast cancer than being murdered with a firearm.

Get your facts straight and go after guns. I wish I could find the number of women that use firearms in self defense and saved their lives. Or probably even greater would be the number of men using firearms to save their girlfriend, wife, etc.

Remember one thing. If guns were illegal, the only people that would have them would be cops, and criminals. Criminals will always be able to get guns. Then if you happen to be in a bank with a hostage situation, you're gonna wish there was a normal citizen with a gun when it takes on US average 22 minutes for cops to arrive.

Statements like your makes me sick.

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