Women’s health groups shifted from cure to prevention by allying with EJ activists

Evidence

In the San Francisco Bay Area, the women’s organization Breast Cancer Action has shifted from focusing on a cure for breast cancer to focusing on prevention of the disease. Its members are women who have had breast cancer, and they recognize that the cure can be as devastating as the disease for many women. In a fusion that has national implications, the group is linking up with environmental justice activists to challenge the use of endocrine-disrupting chemicals by industry. Breast Cancer Action has worked with Bay Area environmental justice groups like Greenaction and Communities for a Better Environment to sponsor an annual “Cancer Industry Tour” of downtown San Francisco, including stops at Chevron (accused of dumping dioxin, a carcinogen, into San Francisco Bay), Bechtel (accused of constructing polluting nuclear reactors), and the EPA (accused of not stopping pollution). — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 720

Categorization

• XREF: Links directly to the ecofeminism thread across the polyad: women’s bodies, prevention over cure, and production-based (‘Cancer Industry Tour’) critique echo ecofeminist analyses of industrial toxics. — connects to: Breast cancer activism shifted from cure toward prevention via EJ alliances
• SEED: The ‘Cancer Industry Tour’ model — walking a visible tour of the industrial culprits, including the regulator — is a promising pedagogical device for an Eco-Justice education course and an essay on toured space as method.