The worst cervical cancer campaign ever...

Remember what David Lammy said, a supposedly intelligent politician coming out with utterly embarrassing nonsense:

“It’s probably the case that transwomen don't have ovaries, but a cervix, I understand, is something that you can have following various procedures, hormones and all the rest of it.”

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1443125834626260993

Personally, I think this one is awful too. And I say that as someone who doesn’t attend, partly due to past trauma. I think it’s really infantilising and gives a “don’t be so silly, it’s no big deal message”, when it is a big deal to women who have experienced past abuse, trauma or who find the test intolerably painful due to issues like vaginismus, to name but a few issues. The “they’ve seen it all before” message misses the mark for many women for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it centres the feelings of the provider, rather than the patient, whose feelings are valid given the invasiveness of the test. It also relies on scare tactics about women dying, which is a really unkind thing to do to people who struggle with barriers to attending.

I don’t think all the nuances can be adequately captured on a billboard or poster, so personally I think it’s best just to keep it factual. Make clear it’s on offer and then have a section in the leaflet addressing barriers sensitively and compassionately. Support GPs and nurses to understand the barriers themselves and to have supportive, kind and non-coercive conversations. Plus, make the conversations women have amongst themselves kind, supportive, non-shaming and respectful of people’s choices. You only have to open up a thread on the topic of people struggling with test, and you see multiple “better to have the test than die of cancer”, “don’t be so stupid/precious/irresponsible” comments emerge. No one was ever helped by being made to feel silly/shamed/minimised or any of the things most of the adverts and conversations on the topic do.

Oh, and roll on self testing! Won’t solve all of the issues but will certainly help for those who face barriers and wish to access the test.

This ad would be more likely to put me off having a smear.

In what I assume is a press release on the web site, there is one use of the word ‘woman’. Just one.

And there is then the repeated use of the word cervix.

Unless you know you (general you, by the way) have a cervix, you don’t immediately understand this is information for you. And the detachment of the word cervix from being a female only body part by introducing the term ‘people with cervixes’, is going to be counterproductive if you don’t know you have or may have had a cervix (if you have not understood a surgical procedure you have had).

This is the harm being dressed up as inclusive. It excludes large groups of women.

The way that page on the website read, a cervix could be something that women have, or if you don’t understand it is a female body part, it reads as something you could ‘get’ even (ie. A cervix could be a growth rather than an integral part of a female body, and only on a female body). It could be something that a male person has or gets.

That is the danger of using the depersonalised language they have chosen to.

They are not clear enough that a cervix is a female body part or what it is. Even if they kept repeating the phrase ‘women, transman and nonbinary female people’ it is far better than removing the necessary context to make it so depersonalised.

The sign is even more depersonalised and uninformative.

If English as an additional language is an issue in that area, wouldn't it be worth while having signs that are phrased in clear language with translations in the additional languages used in that area?

As a woman who doesn't have smear tests, for several reasons I won't derail this thread with, I can tell you that having another woman ordering me to 'open my legs' via an ad campaign is only slightly less off-putting than having a man do it. Not 'empowering' in the slightest. Quite the opposite. Likewise with calling women who decline 'divas' who care too much about their 'beavers' and all the other gross, quasi-sexualised messaging I've seen over the years on this subject.

No thank you.

It makes me feel vulnerable and at risk just thinking about it.

Being asked in public to spread your legs by guilt as if you are some sort of prude.

Yep crossing my legs at the thought of it.

They have not engaged at all with the target for this campaign - this is a market idiot who hasn't asked the right questions to the right women. And it reeks of male.

Which is off putting in its own right.

Raising the awareness of what though?

The fact that people don’t turn up to their appointments? Ok. Great! Job done. We now know that almost 33% of appointments made don’t turn up.

Almost 1 in 3 people aged 25-49 in the North West don’t attend their cervical screening.

What does that statistic mean? Why are people not turning up? Fear? Embarrassment? Language barriers? Illness? Cultural aspects not identified? Work? Lack of transport? Why?

Seriously, of those posters who feel this sign is an effective communication can you please explain why?

Because I cannot see this as an effective campaign for its stated purpose. It might serve as a reminder for women already knowledgeable about cervical cancer, and who know about smear tests, but are you are the target audience according to the limited text used on the sign?

And to be clear, missed appointments are only part of the issue contributing to this next statement on that sign:

Yet our cervical cancer rates are 19% higher than the rest of England.

Why? Why are rates so high there? Is it because there is a large community who don’t have the knowledge they need to even know they should be making those appointments in the first place?

I am interested in how people believe this has been effective in convincing those who have missed their appointments to come. Or for those who don’t know they should be making appointments to know they should even start.

'Getting people talking' and 'raising awareness' in this way isn't the same as winning over your targeted audience and allaying their fears to the degree that they actually have a smear test. Reassuring traumatised women, women who have found the test painful or getting the message to women who have English as an additional language is the key here.

This campaign just has completely the wrong feeling and presentation. It isn't reassuring! It doesn't have clear language!

That the terrible, unclear wording muddies the waters and confuses people.

It’s not obvious that the mostly appears to an age range. The primary reason for that is the insertion of ‘and people with a cervix’ in the middle of it.

The word women should just be able to refer to female adults. Because everything else is less clear and that’s far more dangerous than the hurt feelings of a small group of people upset by biology.

Inclusive means many things. In this case, pandering to the TRA agenda excludes orders of magnitude more people than it includes.

Wonder who came up with this

It’s very bad

Raising awareness is not the same as reassurance. I know people get cervical cancer, I'm not thick. This advert should calmly explain that it won't hurt. Even though it fucking does for me..

Well i haven't been for a smear test for 4 years as I find it painful, and this absolutely doesn't not reassure me. I am the target audience.

Agreed with this.

The grammar is absolutely awful! Who wrote this? Who signed it off? Not even the printer noticed?!!!! Should be a comma before 'yet'. There's also a full stop missing.

Add to that the word woman has been removed...and the crass message that women should open their legs..

It is absolutely the worst thing I have seen for a long time. And I sat through the new Sex and the City remake...

1 in 3 people? Well, presumably no men do so that buggers the stats doesn't it!

It’s OK, if the reason for non attendance is embarrassment. Which it often isn’t.

Dinobun1 from North West, England, replied on the Twitter/X thread
“Here’s a poster from just 2021. You could learn a lot.”

Much better. (Click on the pictures to see the whole thing)

I wonder if Dinobun1 is on MN?

Well done, Public Health South Tees.

And if it shocks and upsets women who find it sexually coercive? How is it that on a thread full of women explaining why they find this advert upsetting, you thought it was appropriate to make a comment about men being upset? Are you so blind to women's existence that you can't see them posting? The world is 50% female. Focus on what women are saying about their experiences occasionally.

I'm also not sure why you have this idea that men only tell women not to have sex, to the point that you read instructions to open one's legs as an instruction issued by a woman. In my experience of sexual harassment since puberty, misogynistic men and boys pressure women to have sex with them. Starting from 13-14, I was being asked if I was "frigid" for turning boys' sexual demands down.

Sure, misogynistic men shame women for having sex with other men, but that's not because misogynists don't have sexual expectations of women.

‘Mostly affects women and people with cervixes’…

How would people who don’t have cervixes get cervical cancer? The wording is ludicrous

Yes, the wording is ludicrous - not because it refers to women and people with cervixes (although women/female should be sufficient) BUT because it says “mostly”.

Cervical cancer ONLY affects women/transmen as they are biologically female.

they still dont seem to get the message that its painful for some of us
Yes, think that needs to be addressed, it's getting those voices on board that needs to happen

No it doesn't. Separating "women" and "people with cervixes" implies those care separate groups and not, in fact, one and the same. Consequently, "women" in this sentence doesn't mean actual women but people - of whatever sex - with ladyfeels. Thus excluding gender non-conforming women and including a number of males. It's garbage language. Truly inclusive language would speak of women as a sex, with a footnote or asterix saying "rhe word 'woman' as used here includes a, b, c."

they still dont seem to get the message that its painful for some of us. Or maybe they are wilfully ignoring this fact and insisting its embarrassment because then they would have to do something about it.

Here’s an update (June 2023) from the UK National Screening committee about self sampling. The studies haven’t quite yet finished, rather than it not being rolled out.
https://nationalscreening.blog.gov.uk/2023/06/21/hpvalidate-cervical-screening-self-sampling-study-nears-completion/

This is what it reminds me of'...

www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/42cae8ac-5ca6-4672-93b3-d3235f0f384a