I’ve been looking into awareness ribbons. Most people know that a red ribbon is a sign of HIV/AIDS awareness and pink is a sign of breast cancer awareness. Beyond that it gets confusing, there are coloured ribbons for practically anything you care to mention!
Wikipedia has a list of some of the more common ones here. Be warned, there is no standard, a teal ribbon is used for ovarian cancer, but if you are in Australia, then ovarian cancer supporters wear a silver ribbon. This website from a badge making company has a nice picture of the different ribbons.
People have even written books about awareness ribbons, there is one called Ribbon Culture, I haven’t read it, but it looks interesting, I might add it to my “To Read” list (there is a review here). Another called Pink Ribbons Inc. takes a critical look at the Breast Cancer “industry”, again it looks like an interesting read, arguing that buying pink stuff and being cheerful is not going to cure breast cancer.
Do you think awareness ribbons are a good thing? Do they help? Please feel free to leave your comments below.
If you are more impressed with the images than the text “
