Pink Awareness Ribbon: Meaning and Importance the Campaign

Awareness ribbons are used globally to raise awareness about a certain condition or cause. These ribbons show support and solidarity with those fighting that condition or cause. Pink Awareness Ribbon perhaps is the most commonly used and seen awareness ribbon. You might already know that the pink awareness ribbon symbolizes breast cancer awareness. But, that’s not all about the pink awareness ribbon. Let us take you on an awakening journey about this cute-looking pink loop of ribbon.

In this article, we will be sharing the meaning and importance of the pink awareness ribbon.

Pink Awareness Ribbon for Breast Cancer

Pink Ribbon has been accepted globally as a symbol of breast cancer awareness. It is used for spreading awareness about breast cancer as well as for expressing moral support to women with breast cancer. It is also widely used for supporting fundraising for the research, treatment, and support of breast cancer survivors.

Different Shades of Pink for Different Cancers related to Women

Breast cancer can be caused by differing reasons. There are a few variations of the pink ribbon that are used to signify different types of breast cancers.

Hot Pink Awareness Ribbon represents Inflammatory Breast Cancer

Pink + Teal Awareness Ribbon represents Hereditary Breast Cancer and Breast Cancer along with Gynecological Cancers

Peach Awareness Ribbon represents Endometrial Cancer, Uterine Cancer, and Vaginal Cancer

History of the Pink Awareness Ribbon

Though the pink awareness ribbon is globally accepted today as the symbol of awareness for breast cancer, its journey began with the peach color.

Charlotte Haley, a cancer survivor, was the creator of the first cancer awareness ribbon that was peach and not pink. She put efforts to raise awareness about breast cancer on a personal level. Ms Haley handmade peach ribbons in her dining hall. She would write postcards and attach them to a box of 5 peach ribbons for the receiver of the postcard. The message on the postcard read “The National Cancer Institute’s annual budget is 1.8 billion US dollars, and only 5 percent goes to cancer prevention. Help us wake up our legislators and America by wearing this ribbon”. She distributed thousands of such postcards in the local supermarket and wrote letters to every prominent woman at that time.

A lady named Alexandra Penney found the idea to be very interesting and fruitful for raising awareness about cancer. She happened to be the editor-in-chief of the ‘Self Magazine’. Ms. Penney was working on the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month edition of the magazine. She contacted Haley and wanted to work with her on the idea of a peach awareness ribbon. Haley found her offer as ‘too commercial’ and rejected to join hands. Alexandra could not go with the peach ribbon without Haley’s permission due to legal issues. So, she found a way around and launched the campaign with a ‘pink’ ribbon replacing Haley’s ‘peach’ ribbon.

Alexandra Penney, together with a breast cancer survivor and VP of a cosmetic company Evelyn Lauder, founded Breast Cancer Research Foundation and used the pink ribbon as its symbol.

Though the observance of breast cancer awareness month began in October 1986, the pink ribbon became the symbol in 1991. Every major organization started adopting the pink awareness ribbon and gradually it became the globally accepted symbol for breast cancer awareness.

Other Meanings of Pink Awareness Ribbon and Related Colors

Pink Ribbon

• Women’s Health
• Birth Parents
• Nursing Mothers
• Respecting Birth Parents & Nursing Parents
• Breast Reconstruction Awareness
• Eosinophilic Diseases
• Fight Like a Girl
• Gendercide
• Paget’s Disease

Hot Pink Ribbon

• Cleft Palate
• Eosinophilic Disease
• Eosinophilic Esophagitis
• Stop Gendercide

Peach Ribbon

• Invisible Illness

How to Make Pink Awareness Ribbon in Computer

Unicode Consortium has assigned U+1F397 code for the reminder ribbon character. So, you can use this code to type an awareness ribbon in your web page, email or any other Unicode supporting application.

So that was the history, meaning and importance of the pink awareness ribbon. Please let us know your comments on this topic.