the Female Body GOVERNING

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6. The 1999 Komen Race for the Cure series was “presented nationally” by
J. C. Penney and “sponsored nationally” by American Airlines, Ford Motor
Company, Johnson & Johnson, the National Football League, New Balance
Athletic Shoes, Pier 1 Imports, and Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice.
7. The Race for the Cure is a carefully orchestrated and centrally managed affair.
Although organizers of individual races are permitted to inject a hint of local
fl avor into their events, the foundation, headquarters in Dallas, determines
the general format so that one gathering is remarkably similar to the next:
each event has a pre- and postrace rally, a survivor recognition ceremony, a
“wellness” area, and a spot where corporate sponsors promote their wares.
Race T-shirts, signage, and other publicity materials are all embossed with
the foundation’s logo, and there is a template for the signs—imprinted with
the names of loved ones who have survived or died from breast cancer—
that participants pin to their backs. Much of the music that blasts from the
loudspeakers during the events is the same across the nation and certain
of the spoken passages from the pre- and postrace rallies are identical. So
although the main focus of this chapter is on fi eld research conducted at one
race and while the analysis is concerned in part with the specifi cities of this
particular event, my research at Races for the Cure in other locations suggests
that any Race for the Cure in any town or city across the United States will
look very much the same.
8. For evidence of the silence of the Komen Foundation on the relation between
environmental factors and breast cancer incidence, see its Web site (www.
komen.org); Nancy Brinker’s book (1995), The Race Is One Step at a Time;
and the foundation’s three times a year newsletter, Frontline (recent issues
are available on the Web site). The Komen Foundation’s primary agenda is
to encourage women to undertake early detection (via mammography, selfexam,
and regular checkups) and, more recently, risk evaluation.
9. Throughout the year the foundation’s corporate partners stage an array of
special fund-raising events: American Airlines holds an annual Celebrity Golf
Weekend; BMW organizes a series of sponsored test-drives; Bally’s Total Fitness
offers self-defense classes; Chili’s restaurant chain stages an annual 10K run;
Danskin holds a women-only triathlon series; Golf for Women magazine sponsors
Rally for the Cure in which women pay to play in golf tournaments at country
clubs across the United States; Jazzercize, in conjunction with the Atlanta
Falcons, organizes Dance for the Cure; Johnson & Johnson coordinates the
Virtual Runner Program, which allows supporters across the United States who
cannot actively participate in the Race for the Cure to take part in a “virtual
run” via the Internet; and Self magazine organizes a series of events called
Workout in the Park in which participants give a donation in exchange for the
opportunity to try out various fi tness classes. Other corporations—including
J. C. Penney, Titleist, Pinnacle, and Tomichi Studio—hold promotions in
which they donate a percentage of the sale price of “breast cancer awareness
products” to the Komen Foundation. Perhaps the most high-profi le of this
category of events is the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer campaign, in which
Saks Fifth Avenue stores across the country hold “shopping events” to raise
money for Komen and other national and local breast cancer charities.
10. The Susan G. Komen Foundation, one of the largest private funders of breast
cancer research in the United States, was founded by Nancy Brinker in 1982
in memory of her sister who died of the disease. The foundation is most wellknown
for its national network of 5K runs, the Race for the Cure.
11. The NFL is perhaps more accurately described as a cartel rather than a
corporation; it is an organization of independent fi rms (the teams) that
restricts infl uence on the production and sale of its commodity and controls