the Female Body GOVERNING

Pink Ribbons Inc. 107
his lead by engaging in what the New York Times called the “battle of
the breast” as they vied for the “breast vote” (Kolata, 1996, p. IV5).
More recently, breast cancer became a key issue in the race for the
2000 Republican presidential nomination. When George W. Bush made
television commercials featuring Republican Party activist and breast
cancer survivor Geri Ravish criticizing McCain’s record on fi nancing
breast cancer “issues,” McCain responded with publicity countering
Ravish’s claims and highlighting Bush’s own failures to support spending
on certain breast cancer programs (Purnick, 2000, p. B1).
Of course, it is not inevitable that a disease that is seen as a threat to
the strength of the nuclear family to reproduce itself be viewed as safe
and uncontroversial. We have only to think about discourse on AIDS
for a vivid counterexample. Whereas AIDS was from the beginning
associated with—and made visible through—the “abnormal” identities
and “deviant” lifestyles of gay men, Haitians, sex workers, and injecting
drug users, however, breast cancer has been made visible through
straight, White, married, young to middle-aged women. Thus, since its
emergence in the 1980s as a key political issue it has been regarded as
“safer” than AIDS and thus more attractive both to politicians seeking
to attract women voters and corporations seeking to attract women
consumers. In Amy Langer’s words, “because AIDS was so public and
so on the margin, breast cancer was by comparison relatively easy to
square with corporate values” (Davidson, 1997, p. 36). John Davidson
makes the distinction between AIDS and breast cancer more explicit.
Drawing on the narrative of blame that is so common in discourse
on AIDS, Davidson suggests that AIDS, unlike breast cancer, can be
attributed to “amoral” acts:
Unlike AIDS, breast cancer can’t be attributed to questionable
behavior. Breasts may be a sexual part of the anatomy, but they are also
symbolic of motherhood and nurturing. Moreover, the 180,000 women
stricken by breast cancer each year and the women who surround
them—mothers, daughters, sisters, friends—represent a large and
important group of consumers. (p. 36)
While there is a discourse in circulation that locates risk factors for
breast cancer in individual behaviors that are associated with unhealthy
or improper lifestyles—poor diet, lack of exercise, late or no childbearing,
and failure to get regular mammograms—this discourse
operates more to detract attention away from external variables that
might be implicated in high incidence rates (industrial pollution, for
instance), rather than to demonize women with breast cancer. And,