The worst cervical cancer campaign ever...

Would be an excellent idea.

It will immediately launch a flood of the righteous performatively scolding that men have FEELINGS, they are SHY ABOUT THIS, that humiliation and fear play a huge part, that sensitivity is needed, that men have all kinds of NEEDS....

and none of them will realise their own hypocrisy and sexism in that they only thing that matters for people born male.

(They will also tell you they don't think sex is binary while they do this binary sex based activity.)

I was just thinking the exact same thing.

Come on people, show us your arse.

And yes, The ridiculousness of claiming X number of people have prostate cancer, would be instantly identified.

Well done to mn feminism for getting it in press

Keep it in mind when posters tell us repeatedly no one cares and we can’t change anything

Superb post.

I think there have been some nice ideas on here about changing campaigns for the better, in theory. However, reassurance and telling women they will encounter lovely, understanding HCPs who will listen to them respectfully, work together with them to make it a more tolerable experience etc. will only work if it reflects reality. Too often, as exemplified by other threads, women have awful experiences and are cajoled and sometimes even harassed into screening after having it brought up at unrelated appointments. That’s certainly been my experience and it doesn’t leave you motivated to go back, that’s for sure. Especially if you are a woman/trans man facing barriers.

To me, funds would be better spent on educating HCPs on informed consent and trauma-informed care. Then, women can be presented with factual information about the risks and benefits of screening, in order to give informed consent, and supported to access it if there are barriers and if they want it. Preferably, they should be supported in a way that means they don’t have to disclose things like past trauma if they don’t want to. Accommodations should be built into the system.

Any future campaigns need to be free from the usual tactics of scaremongering, shaming, infantilisation, minimising concerns, and sexualising an invasive medical procedure. And, ideally, should promote kinder conversations on the topic. The way women speak to each other about screening is just awful.

Finally, I really think the way forward is a self-testing option. It’s available in a number of countries already.

We learned a lot about reaching hard to reach communities during covid. Going to them, using other members of the community to spead the message, having vaccination centres in accessible places, ideally drop in etc.

Who are the hard to reach targets for smears? (The less literate or non English speakers? Younger women? Those from socially conservative communities? I don't know, but the NHS should.) I bet many will find this campaign off-putting. And once the figures are crunched, reaching transmen and NBs will not prove the most pressing priority. (Cos they are likely to be body and health aware.)

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I actually think I'd find marketing budgets on some crowdfunding platform to make plastic male arses, stick them on giant billboards and run your campaign.

Don't be square stick it up there
Finger up the bum etc..

And just wait for the backlash, we can say only 60% of "people" get their prostrate checked etc and call it awarness.

Who's in.

”If the number of women in the target group who are alienated is even slightly higher it's running the risk of being a disaster. Why do it?”

Apparently because some people have a very low bar of ‘if this saves even just a few women’s lives it is a great campaign and building awareness’. So, women should accept being denigrated by having their need for sensitivity and empathy dismissed in this way for the sake of that low bar. Instead of having a strong and clear message that is not polarising and reaches and convinces as many as possible through different methods of communication targeted to each community’s needs.

The 3D station installation uses generic mannequin legs. They are indeed identical apart from the paint, but are not the ones being referred to as 'their legs' in the quote. The quote is about the photos of legs in other parts of the campaign - which belong to a selection of women who created the ad.

So yes - legs A (photo) are being used to justify legs B (3D model), and indeed the campaign as a whole. But use of 'they' rather than 'she' is correct for legs A.

@Rightsraptor that is a very good point. I've not read all the pages either

What a shitshow.

No apologies needed. It was touched on very briefly, but it's not had the thread inches it deserves as a topic.

That strapline was doubtless used as the inspiration for sexual harassment, in the guise of 'banter'.

And elsewhere:

British Transport Police report that one in three women are sexually harassed on trains.

And these clowns think a rail station is the very place to instruct women to 'open your legs'.

(Apologies if this has already been raised, I haven't read all 16 pages).

I think some legs appear twice, so this campaign is allegedly fully endorsed by the grand total of seven women that worked on it.

So that obviously totally outweighs all of us. Dunno why we thought our opinions could possibly matter.

The sculpture is definitely the same pair of legs in different colourways.

The ad agency is using some totally different sets of legs and their owners as a flimsy excuse to justify its sexually coercive campaign.

These are the legs: archive.li/qcufN

Looks like the same pair of legs to me, just produced in three colours.

Can't imagine many workplaces have 3 six foot model-calibre female staff members in exactly the same size and the same shape. And in three convenient colourways, too.

If the number of women in the target group who are alienated is even slightly higher it's running the risk of being a disaster. Why do it?

And the potential is that they're making the target group larger by alienating women who really struggle to go as it is.

Let's run a statistical point here.

There's 7.5million people in the NW. That's roughly 3.25million females.

Let's say about a third or 1million are in the eligible age range for the sake of argument by the time you take out children and over 50s.
One third don't go to an appointment for screening. Ok.
That's 333,333 women they are trying to target.

The 2021 census suggests that 0.09% of the NW population in the UK are transmen.
So that's 7,500 transmen according to those numbers (which is total bollocks and vastly overly stating it - cos we know the census was badly flawed, but we'll go with it anyway).

That means that 7500 transmen (a sizeable percentage of whom ARE going for screening and will be too young for screening anyway) are being put before the 325,833 women.

If you get just 2% of those women failing to understand the language due to the omission of the word woman, or 2% of those women who are alienated due to 'using inclusive language', that's nearly the same as the entire population of transmen in the NW. It you alienate half the transmen out there and decrease uptake in that population but manage more than a 1% increase in the non-participating women you will be into net benefit.

If the campaign is all about trying to save as many lives as possible it makes utterly no sense to use that language. Statistically it is just stupid.

Not only that, but if you have a fixation with your body - which being a transman essentially is, I'd say you probably have more of an idea that you are a woman and have a cervix than most. You just are funny about it anyway. And you possibly would simply prefer a discrete service just for transmen - and that would do more to increase uptake than stupid language.

Inclusive language isn't going to deal with trauma though anyway.

I absolutely do not know how inclusive language is beneficial here. It isn't benefiting females. It's benefitting trans ideology - but it's not benefitting females. It's effectively a male benefit.

Now my figures might be way out. But I don't think wildly. I do think it's illustrative enough of how just alienating a small percentage of women in the name of benefitting transmen is utterly crazy though.

WHY is anyone who is supposedly being responsible doing this?

If the number of women in the target group who are alienated is even slightly higher it's running the risk of being a disaster. Why do it?

I'm glad the DM has done the story. This sort of erasure of women needs the widest possible audience so we can stop it before any more harm is done.

Spot on.

The use of 'their' suggests to me that this is another case where the legs used may not have been those of somebody who would also be in need of cervical screening.

The picture is of more than 1 person's legs, so 'their' is perfectly appropriate.

My young teen dd hates shop mannequins finding them creepy, I bet lots of young girls will feel intimidated by this ad. It's ultimately telling women "SPREAD YOUR LEGS"

As is already known, male subjects are frequently used for modelling tights and the like because of their longer, arguably aesthetically pleasing legs.

The use of 'their' suggests to me that this is another case where the legs used may not have been those of somebody who would also be in need of cervical screening.

Thank you for the link.

What the photos of North West Cancer Research tell me is that I will need to be young, no older than say 39, and have well formed, slim and hairless legs to attend a cervical smear test. Maybe the female team wanted to show off their legs🤔? Were they coerced? Peer pressured into having their well shaved and creamed legs photographed?

The actual installation is a disgrace. It objectifies women but not just that we are instructed on a large billboard at a busy train station to not "keep'em crossed" in other words, open our legs. For screening (go on!!) and as an innuendo for opening our legs for sex.

It's humiliating and degrading, we are all used to female body parts being used in advertising to sell goodness what but this is a health promotion campaign to encourage us to look after our healthy and prevent us from dying from cancer. Female audiences that have no choice but engage with this installation in a public space are being humiliated and patronised all in public under the male gaze. This will cause more damage than good and women will probably suffer and die as a consequence of this campaign because it will increase the barriers not decrease. The barriers being that it feels quite unpleasant lying on your back, spreading your legs and having painful equipment inserted into your vagina. The procedure naturally makes women feel vulnerable in the moment and we don't want to think of it in the context of sexual innuendo.

The best thing this charity and their agency can do is to apologise. To put their hands up and say sorry we got this completely wrong but we will listen to you. I'm not going to go into the language and erasure of women in the copy even without all that shite, this campaign is outrageous and undermines women's rights and human rights. I am mentioning human rights as health is a human right.

The WHO Constitution (1946) envisages “…the highest attainable standard of health as a fundamental right of every human being.”

Shame on this charity and their campaign. They can still correct this by taking it down now and run a research campaign to understand how to develop campaigns to reduce the barriers women have to accessing cervical cancer screening not embarrass degrade and patronise us. 😡

My young teen dd hates shop mannequins finding them creepy, I bet lots of young girls will feel intimidated by this ad. It's ultimately telling women "OPEN YOUR LEGS" 😬