King, Samantha 1970-

PERSONAL:

Born October 13, 1970.

CAREER:

Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, associate professor of physical and health education and women's studies.

MEMBER:

North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (former board of directors member).

WRITINGS:

Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, University of Minnesota Press (Minneapolis, MN), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Sociology of Sport Journal, and Social Text. Editorial board member, Sociology of Sport Journal and Journal of Sport and Social Issues.

SIDELIGHTS:

Samantha King's first book, Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, is a controversial look at American fundraising efforts for breast cancer. She protests the use of pink ribbon campaigns by corporations, who benefit from fund-raising for the cause with positive public relations and even monetary profits, as well as against foundations that neglect preventative research. King notes that all of this fund-raising has not found a cure and, indeed, treatments have changed very little since the 1970s. Furthermore, the beneficiaries tend to more often be middle- and upper-class white women, while poorer minorities cannot afford the treatments produced by researchers. As an alternative to the status quo, King emphasizes the promotion of breast cancer prevention, especially to benefit the poor who suffer from this disease.

King maintains that breast cancer has become a particularly popular cause for fund- raisers because it has less stigma attached to it, while diseases such as AIDS and cervical cancer, because of their association with sexual behavior, and lung cancer, because of its association with smoking, do. "Activists in the breast cancer movement saw the potential for shifting how people think about breast cancer, and it's a dream cause for corporations," the author told interviewer Kate Fillion on Macleans.ca. "And subsequently, marketers have really transformed how we think about breast cancer, by disassociating it from death and associating it with survivorship and the idea of a cure."

Companies too often take advantage of the disease as a self-promotional opportunity, states King. She provided an example to Fillion concerning a 2005 campaign: "Yoplait ran a sixty-nine-day campaign where consumers could purchase specially produced yogurt cartons, and for every lid mailed back to Yoplait, the corporation would donate ten cents to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. The consumer would have to buy and eat three cartons of yogurt a day just to raise twenty dollars and seventy cents! Even if consumers were diligently doing that, and cleaning the lids and mailing them in, the fine print said that the amount Yoplait would give was capped at 80,000 dollars. And that's one of the major criticisms I have of these campaigns: a lot of them have caps, and once the maximum is reached, any more money consumers spend on the special products stays with the corporations."

The title of Pink Ribbons, Inc. refers to the symbol many people wear in support of breast cancer research. These ribbons—and other merchandise, not to mention meals at fund-raising events or other such profitable items—largely benefit the sellers. King admits that such marketing for charities is hard to measure because it is so diverse, but she is confident that more funds go to companies and nonprofits than to actual research. In a review for Herizons, critic Abby Lippman further explained that breast cancer philanthropy "is a business opportunity, whether a company (or its foundations) makes outright donations to a breast cancer organization (thereby earning tax credits) or sells some pink ribbon/breast cancer-associated product (thereby making straightforward profits)."

King predicts that, as long as fund-raising is controlled by large companies, many of which have a direct interest in the medical industry, breast cancer rates will not be reduced. In an interview on the University of Minnesota Press Web site, she asserted: "It is unlikely that the battle against breast cancer will be won so long as it is approached as a single-issue problem that is unrelated to other health conditions or to broader social issues. Large, corporate-funded, single-issue foundations have come to dominate health advocacy and, as a result, questions related to universal healthcare, discrimination, or the impact of the environment on disease have been pushed to the margins." She added: "Instead what we see is intense lobbying for greater funding for each individual disease and a focus on inspiring individuals to take responsibility for their health. Research shows us that factors such as education, employment and working conditions, food security, health services, housing, income, and racial nondiscrimination are the key determinants of health in the United States and these are issues that are best approached by more expansive movements."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, October 15, 2006, Vanessa Bush, review of Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, p. 8.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, March, 2007, D.R. Shanklin, review of Pink Ribbons, Inc., p. 1201.

Chronicle of Philanthropy, October 12, 2006, "Book Examines Giving to Breast-Cancer Causes."

Herizons, spring, 2007, Abby Lippman, review of Pink Ribbons, Inc.

Maclean's, October 9, 2006, "Queen's University Professor Samantha King Talks to Kate Fillion about Her Controversial New Book, ‘Pink Ribbons, Inc.,’" p. 16.

Ms., fall, 2006, "Consume for the Cure."

SciTech Book News, December, 2006, review of Pink Ribbons, Inc.

ONLINE

Macleans.ca,http://www.macleans.ca/ (October 3, 2006), Kate Fillion, "Interview with Queen's University Professor Samantha King on Her Controversial New Book, Pink Ribbons, Inc."

Queen's University Department of Women's Studies Web site,http://www.queensu.ca/ (March 13, 2008), profile of Samantha King.

University of Minnesota Press Web site,http://www.upress.umn.edu/ (March 13, 2008), "Q and A with Samantha King."