Rita Smith was watching football in 2009 when she noticed — as if it were possible not to — that the players were newly outfitted in pink socks and gloves. Her heart sank. “I was pretty sure we were toast,” she says. “There was no way we were ever gonna match them.”

Smith is executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which also claims October as its awareness-raising month. The signature color is purple, not that you’ll find it on Yoplait lids or KFC buckets or Energizer batteries or, for that matter, NFL players, because October is already covered in pink. Breast cancer is, as many critics have pointed out, the perfect issue for corporate-funded cause marketing. It’s got an unambiguous villain (CANCER) and a natural constituency (women). Saving boobies is a friendly cause that everyone —even frat boys and NFL players — can get behind. A straightforward health issue.

By comparison, domestic violence is downright controversial. It touches on complicated issues like power, rape culture, victim-blaming, and gender roles, and stirs up uncomfortable emotions. While few people would claim they support abusers, many known perpetrators of domestic violence — from Roman Polanski to Chris Brown to a number of football players —remain venerated cultural figures. Is it any wonder that, even though domestic violence affects many more women and families, breast cancer is the issue we’ve all come to associate with October? Every year 232,340 women are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer; 1.3 million are assaulted by their husbands or boyfriends. One in eight women will suffer from breast cancer in her lifetime. One in four will experience domestic violence. Good luck finding that statistic on a yogurt lid this month.

The anti-domestic-violence movement staked its claim to October way back in 1981. “At that time breast cancer wasn’t on anybody’s radar screen the way it is now, so we got a lot of traction and visibility, and it worked for us for a really long time,” Smith says. “And then it didn’t.” The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation had been around since 1982, but its pink-ribbon campaign didn’t really start taking off until the late nineties. And then it became a powerhouse. In fact, after seeing even the NFL turn pink four years ago, Smith made a plea to her fellow advocates to move to a different month, but couldn’t get a strong consensus. “It’s stayed in October," she says, “and we get the visibility we can get, knowing that we’re probably not going to be seen above the pink.”

...

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/10/how-breast-cancer-won-the-battle-for-october.html