Smear tests to subordinate women

Sakura, what you're saying about cervical and breast screening is just not true.

Screening programmes have been instituted for these diseases because screening produces a net benefit, ie it saves more lives and reduces harm more than it costs lives and increases harm. This tradeoff exists for every single health intervention, because every action or lack of action has a cost for a population as a whole in terms of morbidity or mortality.

Screening programmes have not been instituted for other diseases because screening would not produce a net benefit. For mouth cancer, this is because there isn't an available screening test to spot pre-oral cancer, and the money is better spent on prevention, encouraging people to cut down on their smoking and drinking.

There is a completely legitimate argument about what additional stuff the NHS could do to prevent CC rates, eg by promoting condom use. But frankly the reason the NHS does not do more on this stuff is the same reason it doesn't do that much on obesity or other diseases with large public health / behavioural components - any social marketing efforts are pissing in the wind compared to the enormous social and commercial pressures that shape how people behave. Could government legislate? Probably, if they were sufficiently imaginative and bold. But the fact that they aren't is only partly down to misogyny; they are venal and useless across an entire range of health issues, it's not specific to women's health. Otherwise, we'd have had a ban on soft drinks & fast food outlets near schools, would have greater restrictions on tobacco use, would have decriminalised drugs, etc etc.

Honestly, this entire argument strikes me as no-win. If the NHS did not institute these programmes, it would be easy to attack it as treating breast / cervical cancer as women's diseases which weren't worthy of the effort. As your very own quote from the ACS says, male-only cancers are broadly ignored, to the detriment of men's health. If the resources were switched from screening programmes for breast and cervical cancer to testicular cancer, how would that be better for women?

Sakura -

I think healthy men and women are regularly screened for signs of mouth cancer, it is one of the things dentists look for, they just don't tell you they are doing it. Same as when you go for an eye-test - you are mainly interested in your eyeglasses prescription, but the optometrist will be checking for all kinds of other things.

The article you link to is interesting - I guess one point is that what is driving pap smears in the US is the healthcare system where women routinely see gynecologists and their is an incentive for them to do more testing, so many go every year even though they have no abnormal results. Whereas in the UK where most women never see a gynae but are treated by GPs the frequency is determined by the NHS and government (I guess by NICE)...I think it is 3 - 5 years?

As with any screening program their are pros and cons and ways to improve. I am just not convinced that the current screening regime is driven by some perverted desire to 'stick bits of metal into women' or to subjugate them.

I guess if it were made clearer that the benefits of screening are limited for women at low risk - no previous abnormalities + not having sex, or with one faithful partner it would save a lot of women the hassle of going for a smear. But it would also mean that many women who are at risk wouldn't go for testing because it wouldn't be universal and routine. So you have to weigh up the costs and benefits either way.

oh right
im not spacificlly talking about my doctor or any spaccific doctor really
im looking further than this.

Talking to OP sparky-that doctors are not demi gods-probably 50% are women anyway (they are in my surgery). Mine certainly listens (the reason he runs late with appointments) and he is a man. Change doctors if you don't like yours.

im not sure who you are talking to exoticfruits?
but my thoughts on what youve just said is-
if we re talking about a partriarchic angle[which i am]
its not much use having a conversasion in the surgery as the doctor probably wont understand what im on about as the partriarchy has given him the upper hand in the first place.

If you want to contradict the wisdom of the doctor do it face to face in the surgery-it is a two way thing-there is no need to just be a passive subject.

instead of parcticipating in a witch-hunt against someone who dares to condtradict the wisdom of the demi-gods.........]

well-i question the wisdom of the demi-gods Sakura but in a diffrent way.
as i said-i can see what youre saying and i do partly agree-however my agreement would be in more along the lines of phyciatry!
regarding eugenics-yep-i agree.
i dunno Sakura-if we re on about the partriarchy-it dont make sense from what youre saying and from what is happening in other parts of the world-
eg india[i think far more women arent tested and die from cancer]
can you see what im saying?

instead of participating in a witch-hunt against someone who dares to contradict the wisdom of the demi-Gods i.e doctors

This is my first problem, it has never occurred to me that a doctor is a 'demi-god'-they are just a person who has studied the human body and made it a career-they simply have more knowledge than me.My doctor always treats me as an equal and explains everything. He isn't always right. My doctor before was a woman-I'm not in the least fussed about the sex of the doctor. I think that any doctor who thought of themselves as a demi god would be weeded out at university stage.

As regard to OP if you read it, not knowing anything at all about separatist feminists , the only conclusion that you can come to is that it is someone who has had deep trauma and needs counselling. It is only after reading up about it that I can see that isn't the case.

What I am seeing being ignored is the hideous ableism in the OP.

No, I do not think 'mad', 'crazy' and such are acceptable insults, but I do not understand why people are handwringing at those terms being used to describe someone who uses terms like 'genetically inferior'.

Yes, feminism should have a wide range of viewpoints, but the bio-supremacy crap spouted in the OP has no place in a decent society and rather then telling others to read Greer, the OP would do well to read about eugenics.

Cote"I'm saying that the argument that the OP is insane or deluded or damaged from previous experiences because she is reframing a contemporary issue though an alternative lens is wrong."

"Alternative lenses"? WTF does that even mean?

Is it rational to claim that the point of smear tests is not to save lives but to control and subjugate women?

You're just ignoring Alice's point. It is wrong for a poster to declare that another poster's views are the result of some illness/experience just because they think they are not rational or don't agree with them. How would you like it if your views on a subject were dismissed by someone else (a stranger on a forum) as a symptom of mental illness or the result of some terrible experience? It is an attempt to marginalise and belittle someone's viewpoint because you don't agree with it.

One of the points of the feminism board is to give people the chance to discuss political issues from a feminist viewpoint. There will be diverse views. But one of the tenets of feminism is that women should be allowed to have a voice, that their voices should be heard. To say that voice is mad or effected by damaging experiences (pretty bloody presumptous) and implictly therefore not valid takes us back to the days before feminism. The madwoman in the attic who should be ignored or told you need help.

why would you choose a male gynaecologist over a female one?
I wouldn't - but I wouldn't personally discriminate against a male either. I've had no problems with either.

If I was in some scenario where there was limited availability of female gynaes I'd make it clear I really didn't mind so that there'd be more opportunity for female appt available for women who did have a preference.

Surely you have check ups on other things e.g. blood pressure? I can't see why anyone doesn't want to check on health or get fussy on which part of the body.
I don't see why it matters if the gynaecologist is male or female, the male one that I saw had the nicest manner of any doctor that I have ever seen-I was very worried at the time and he couldn't have been more sensitive to it.

HopeForTheBest - can Iask, why would you choose a male gynaecologist over a female one?

But the argument is never "why is there no funding/publicity/research for mens' cancers?"

It is always, "why is there no funding/publicity/research for mens' cancers when there is loads for womens' cancers?"

As though there is some vile feminist man-hating plot underway to save all the breasts and ovaries and bring about the downfall of men via the means of testicular cancer.

It doesn't really matter why women do all the daft running round the park in pink tutus stuff.

The point I'm making is that it is unbelievable male privilege to then get all aerated about the fact that women therefore get all the cancer goodies when they don't.

It's because women have actively made it happen and they have not. Yet that - apparently - is sooooo not faaaiiirrrr.

"I'm saying that the argument that the OP is insane or deluded or damaged from previous experiences because she is reframing a contemporary issue though an alternative lens is wrong."

"Alternative lenses"? WTF does that even mean?

Is it rational to claim that the point of smear tests is not to save lives but to control and subjugate women?

I think jetgirl's is an interesting question. I'm not thinking of it in terms of 'its not fair that women's cancers get all the goodies' just an interesting q

It may in part be that men tend to be comfortable doing hobbies like running just for the fun and the glory of it where women tend to feel able to justify time consuming hobbies if it is 'for someone else' - a good cause, charity, the PTA etc...

And there is also the argument that a lot of the popularity of pink ribbon campaigns etc.. is because they have been seen as good ways to sell more stuff to women ...think before you pink...