The worst cervical cancer campaign ever...

I'm not sure I can muster any appropriate words for that

No. Just no.

At work we are fully behind Movember and men’s health. But when it comes to women, it has to be women+
It enrages me. God forbid we get anything to ourselves.

Surely we should complain to the advertising standards authority.
https://www.asa.org.uk/make-a-complaint.html

It’s a cliche, but it is still worth remembering that ‘just wanting ti decrease stigma’ does not mean you actually are doing so.

Or that, even if you do achieve your aim to some extent, it won’t have a range of unintended negative consequences.

Yes. Like Elaine Miller and her one woman campaign for pelvic floor health. Marvellous woman.

Yes

All they’re trying to do is decrease the stigma around having a smear test

How do you suppose this campaign does that?

100%

And this.

People?

People?

😡

This.

I don’t go because I was assaulted by a male dr when i was a teenager. This advert makes me feel angry and sick, as do the posters baiting the other women who have said that they don’t go and don’t like the advert.

It reminded me of this ‘campaign’…

A large pair of legs have appeared on the gates of a Glasgow park where a serious sexual assault took place in a bid to draw attention to women's safety.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/spread-legs-artwork-glasgow-park-24768696?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

Yep.

It is the very sexualised nature of the campaign that contributes to be counter productive to the audience that needs to pay attention.

From what I have gathered from this thread so far is that women who already know about cervical cancer and attend appointments seem to accept, or like to be spoken to this way. Women who know about cervical cancer and who don’t make appointments find it counter productive and offensive.

Who is the campaign aimed at again? Who are the women that need to be convinced?

I think we have a small sample right here of why this campaign is a fail. And we haven’t even scraped the surface of the communities that are highest in not attending appointments / not making appointments / even having the knowledge about the issue.

Can we stop pretending that ‘women open your legs’ is some sort of wonderful, empowering thing.

And pretending that men do not tell women to open their legs (and then all of society blames the woman for having done so).

and pretending that this kind of weird ‘sex positive’ approach is in any way helpful when we are talking about cervical screening. (Even more so when the HPV connection all too easily associates cervical cancer as a consequence of ‘opening your legs’).

Why does everything have to be ‘sexy’? No one insists men’s health is framed in sexualised ways. Or tries to present that as the way to ‘empower’ men.

especially when combined with the ridiculous confusion created around who might or might not have a cervix.

It doesn’t help that a woman created this. It’s still utter patriarchal bullshit. Women are just as conditioned by this crap as men.

All they’re trying to do is decrease the stigma around having a smear test and reduce the number of women dying from cancer.

Women? Women?

You mean people, surely.

There's no.mention of women on the ad

I am judging an organisation who decided qokenpoints were important that's women's health.

And the women on here who are telling you it’s tone deaf are… what? Silly? Unimportant? The wrong sort of women?

“You can’t really judge them for that.”

Yes. We can. We can criticise how this charity spends its funding when they produce a counter productive campaign. We don’t need to accept poor service in the name of gaining a few more women getting screened when the money could be better spent in better messaging and a better more far reaching campaign.

Yes Thomasina - the ignorance of some of these BeKind allies is astonishing. That’s why we need really clear messaging around women’s health. If educated politicians don’t get it, then someone who is not well-educated, or who has limited English language skills, is really going to struggle to understand. It’s time to call a spade a spade and stop pussyfooting around the hard, cold facts about biology. Mother Nature couldn’t care less how anybody “identifies” inside.

No one is ordering you to have a smear test.
If you don’t want to have one, that’s completely your choice.

But for years women have been taught that anything to do with their genitalia is dirty and wrong.
Periods were seen as dirty, sex was only for the man’s pleasure, having a ONS was fine for a man but wrong for a woman and we were always taught to be ashamed of our genitalia.

One of the biggest insults used by men is that women should keep their legs closed.

I’m sure many men will have an issue with the wording but that’s probably part of the shock factor of it, which helps to spread the message.

If this promotion encourages some women to have a smear test and ultimately reduce their risk of getting cancer, then it’s done a fantastic job.

All they’re trying to do is decrease the stigma around having a smear test and reduce the number of women dying from cancer.
You can’t really judge them for that.

@CorruptedCauldron Wow I missed that! That’s so ridiculous. Obviously the people not wanting to use “women” are wanting to include transmen but even the supporters like Lammy don’t get it. Shows how much they pay attention and understand. It’s interesting that gender critical feminists get called ignorant when often I understand the point trying to be made more.

Things that I value.

Not being treated like a lump of meat in a conveyor belt (a line of legs in a row is truly awful imagery)
Having my concerns and issues listened to and understood not minimised or framed as somehow 'silly'
Not being treated as an idiot.
Understanding of being a woman and how this makes us vulnerable - by using the word woman rather than being reduced to my bits.

This campaign shits all over those important issues. And I would put money on those concerns being some of the top reasons for non-engagement with services.

I loath how screening is marketed in such a demeaning way. It's sexist. No health campaign is pitched at men this way. And don't get me started on the use of peer pressure to try and coerce.

It's vile.

Sell health messages on the basis of their merit. Not this shit.