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“Cook for the Cure”: Marketing Domesticity for Breast Cancer Research

On a recent shopping trip to Bed, Bath and Beyond, I noticed, featured in a prominent display at the front of the store, KitchenAid’s newest line of cookware.  Baby pink bowls, mixers, toasters, blenders, and food processors sat beneath a banner hanging from the ceiling that read “Cook for the Cure.”  According to KitchenAid’s website, the company donates a certain proportion of the profit from each item to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. 

The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation has revolutionized the way American culture diagnoses and treats breast cancer.  According to the website, Nancy Goodman Brinker started the foundation after her sister’s death in 1980.  Susan Komen, Nancy’s sister, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1978, “when little was known about the disease and it was rarely discussed in public.”  The Komen Foundation responded by forcing breast cancer into the public eye, instituting programs like Race for the Cure and naming October “breast cancer awareness month.”  In 1989 only 54 percent of women had mammograms.  By 1999, more than 71 percent had them, and the Komen Foundation can certainly take partial credit for this increase.

KitchenAid’s “Cook for the Cure” follows the example of several other domestic product companies in donating their profits to the Komen Foundation.  The Oreck Corporation has launched a “Clean for the Cure” campaign, complete with its own line of bubble-gum pink vacuum cleaners. Similarly, Lean Cuisine donates ten cents of every frozen dinner, while Better Homes and Gardens’ “Pink Plaid Limited Edition Cookbook” promises the Komen Foundation up to $500,000 from its sales.

While I applaud companies for donating profits to cancer research, I find the marketing scheme behind this line of products particularly troubling.  “Cook for the Cure” and similar campaigns proclaim a specific message that links middle-class white women with domesticity, a message that marketers and advertising agencies gleefully pound into women’s heads, from grandmothers to mothers down to this generation.
 
It is important to note that the issue and ideal of domesticity in American society has traditionally been marketed toward middle-class white women.  The “Cook for the Cure” campaign is no exception – certainly working-class women or women living below the poverty line, who are predominantly African-American, have neither the time nor the money for KitchenAid’s line.  However, while KitchenAid and Oreck target white, middle-class women with their products, according to the Komen Foundation, African-American women under the age of 35 “have a higher incidence of breast cancer than white women.  They are also more likely to be diagnosed with large tumors than white women.”  Additionally, African-American women “are less likely than white women to survive for five years after being diagnosed with breast cancer.”  While my purpose here is to examine the issue of “selling” domesticity for breast cancer research, I also want to highlight the issue of those who are not included in the construct, and to show that the people who are excluded are the breast cancer patients who need the benefits of Komen’s research and publicity the most.

Despite the barrage of books, articles, and other forms of popular entertainment that proclaim “Feminism accomplished!”, the image of the middle-class, white domestic woman is ever-present today, from Martha Stewart to Sex and the City’s Charlotte, to the Food Network’s Nigella Lawson, author of How to be a Domestic Goddess. ¹  According to a 2005 study by the University of Michigan, women are still the primary caretakers and housecleaners in their families.  Economist Paula Malone states, “Despite a slight reallocation of housework activities from wives to husbands…most of the housework as well as the care of children within the home are still primarily the responsibility of the woman.”  Malone’s study portrays the ever-present link between middle-class women and domestic duties, a coupling from which companies like KitchenAid and Oreck hope to profit.

Through an appeal to the age-old pop culture ideal that white, middle-class women belong in the kitchen – baking goodies with her KitchenAid mixer that her Lean Cuisine-figure won’t allow her to eat – these companies resituate the issue of breast cancer in the private sphere, working directly against Nancy Goodman Brinker’s original intentions behind the Susan G. Komen Foundation.
 
In establishing the foundation, Brinker challenged popular notions concerning the dissemination of breast cancer information.  She states that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the disease was “rarely discussed in public.”  The appearance of “pink ribbon products,” the naming of October as “Breast Cancer Awareness Month,” and the onslaught of celebrities proclaiming their support for research proves how the disease has become infused into popular culture.

Yet, “Cook [or “Clean” or “Eat Lean Cuisine”] for the Cure” proves how information on breast cancer has again become privatized.  Domesticity relegates middle-class women to their place within the home, in the private sphere, cooking and cleaning and caring for children.  Brinker’s original goal in establishing the Foundation was to bring the issue of breast cancer out of the private sphere and into the public eye, promoting self-exams and urging doctors to talk to their patients about mammograms.  Products from KitchenAid and Lean Cuisine provide money for research, but does the packaging show how to perform a breast self-exam?  Does each Lean Cuisine frozen dinner come with calendar stickers that remind women to schedule their mammograms? 

Forcing breast cancer into the public sphere would entail forcing breasts into the public sphere.  In an article titled “Double Life: Everyone Wants to See Your Breasts – Until Your Baby Needs Them,” Bitch magazine’s Lisa Moricoli Latham discusses the paradox of breasts in public. ²   Latham writes, “American culture declares that while breasts are a signifier of available sexuality should be flaunted, breasts doing the job nature assigned to them are taboo.”  She continues, stating, “Because we are so used to thinking of breasts as sexual, we are unable to conceive of anything breast-related as truly free from sexual overtones.”  Latham pinpoints an issue central to American culture: unless they’re displayed for sexually pleasing purposes, no one wants to see breasts in public. It’s no wonder women can’t find breast self-exams on the back of their “Creamy Basil Chicken” boxes. 

Though the Susan G. Komen Foundation originally succeeded in bringing breast cancer into the public sphere, their corporate sponsors seem to have reversed the trend.  By reasserting the connection of women, breast cancer and domesticity, companies like KitchenAid restrict women (and their breasts) to the private sphere of the kitchen, proudly using their domestic skills to “Cook for the Cure.”