Barbara Brenner was a renowned American breast cancer activist and leader of the Breast Cancer Action organisation.
Brenner’s activism started at a young age when her mother took her to a Civil Rights march when she was 10 where she heard Martin Luther King, Jr speak. While at Smith College she was active in the anti-vietnam war movement and amongst others, took part in a protest that shut down the campus in 1970. After graduating from Smith College she attended law school at Georgetown but left after a year due to a belief that law had little to do with justice. She enrolled in graduate school at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton where she came out as a lesbian. She met Suzanne Lampert at Princeton and the two began a romantic relationship.
Brenner and Lampert moved to Los Angeles where she began working with the women’s rights project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Southern California where she realised that the law could have a positive effect. She resumed her law studies and graduated from the UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law (now Berkeley Law School) while interning at the ACLU of Northern California in San Francisco. After graduation she clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, a distinguished jurist who had been the first African-American to work for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Justice Department. Brenner later became a partner at Remcho, Johansen & Purcell, a California law firm specialising in public policy and constitutional issues. Brenner also formed her own firm with Donna Hitchens where she working primarily on women’s rights, civil rights and employment discrimination.
In 1993, at 41 years old Brenner was first diagnosed with breast cancer. After learning how little was known about breast cancer, and how ill informed the general public were about the disease she joined the board of San Francisco-based Breast Cancer Action (BCA). In 1995 she became he became Breast Cancer Action’s first executive director, a year later she ad a local recurrence of breast cancer, which resulted in a mastectomy.
Brenner led the BCA to create the highly successful but controversial “Think Before You Pink” campaign in 2002. It exposed the fact that pink ribbon marketing did not help fund prevention or find a cure for breast cancer, it was simply “pinkwashing” to boost sales for companies who covered up their own record of selling cosmetics, foods and other products that harmed women’s health. Brenner’s sharp critique was highlighted in the 2012 film, “Pink Ribbons, Inc.”. Brenner also fought against the over-promotion of mammograms, stating that they are only life-saving if they find a cancer that is treatable and if treatment is given quickly. One of the known causes of breast cancer is ionising radiation from medical X-rays and the science about the potential harm of over use of mammography was being discounted or ignored. The FDA later revised its recommendations concerning the frequency of screening mammograms for healthy women. Brenner was active on the lecture circuit, giving talks around the U.S. on the politics of breast cancer, she was able to change the way women thought about breast cancer, and moved people from awareness to activism. She was able to simplify medical issues and environmental science so that they were easily understandable to grassroots activists and breast cancer support groups.
Brenner was able to use her expertise in civil liberties and breast cancer advocacy when the ACLU challenged human gene patents, specifically those genes that indicate a predisposition for breast cancer in the U.S. Supreme Court. Brenner understood the effect this would have on the lives of millions of women and their families and BCA was the only breast cancer organisation to stand up as a plaintiff in the case. The patents were overturned in court, it was an example of Barbara’s intrepid vision and strength.
Although Brenner was involved with health policy on a national level, and later ALS which had debilitating effects on her she still found time to provide compassionate advice to countless women who contacted her when they received a breast cancer diagnosis. Brenner’s leadership among breast cancer activists and the wider women’s health movement is legendary and inspired others to work towards their social justice goals. She was awarded numerous honors, including a Jefferson Award for Public Service in 2007. In 2012, Brenner was honoured by her alma mater with the Smith College Medal and by the ACLU of Northern California with the Lola Hanzel Courageous Advocacy Award.
Brenner died from complications of ALS in 2013 at the age of 61. She wanted it to be known that she died after a long battle with the breast cancer industry.