The intention and messaging for the sign is completely lacking. I asked early on what the actual purpose of the message on the sign was trying to convey and got nothing. The objectives of the campaign seem to be very unclear as is most of the comms associated with the campaign. It seems very bizarre to celebrate this advertising effort and I suspect there is a distinct lack of clear ROI here.

And just as bizarrely, the posts from professionals who work with women to do or organise their swabs have all said that for the supposed stated purpose of getting as many women to come
to appointments as possible this would fail, have been twisted to focus instead on the very minor points that this will appeal to very few women. Like getting some very few women to act is to be celebrated as if it were an achievement of high acclaim.

A fucking low bar seems to have been set for such celebrations. It is madness.

And once again, a sign installation such as this in a train station is a huge budget for a smaller charity. This budget would indeed be better spent as I and others have suggested in high quality outreach programs aimed directly at the communities with such low uptake.

I feel empowered by telling misogynistic health campaigns to go to hell.

Especially if I use

large letters to do it.

Yeah, exactly. The stat is that 1/3 WOMEN don't attend, but they've just clumsily changed it to be "PC" when in actual fact it's just alienating actual women.

Nope absolutely not.

I just feel that women who choose to be parents or end up working in Asda instead of having high flying careers, shouldn’t feel less empowered than women that do.

You don’t like women very much do you?
Are you a man or a woman?

You know who doesn't feel 'empowered' by buying shoes or losing 5lbs?

People with actual power.

Women are talking about how repulsive this is. This is no way makes me want to leap up and book a smear test.

Oh dear.
felix, is that you?

You're one of those people who tells women to feel empowered by wolf-whistles, aren't you.

YY @MrsTerryPratchett the stress of even trying to get an appointment is just too much.

Which is why these campaigns are a bit gaslighty It looks like they are trying to gloss over the fact that there are barriers to accessing healthcare which are nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the inaccessibility from the NHS end

Yes it was written by someone and posted by someone who hates women but they made a good point.

Yes it used to be that women only felt empowered when working a male dominated career but now they feel empowered when they lose weight, become SAHP or dress a certain way, as the article says - how is that a bad thing?

Why shouldn’t we feel empowered by these things.

The times are changing and we don’t need to have a career in a male dominated environment just to feel empowered.

An excellent point

Did you actually read the article @Night409

It was satire.

Why should women not feel proud and empowered by being a SAHM or by getting a degree or loosing weight?

Why should women only feel empowered by working in a male dominated career?

Women who choose not to work shouldn’t have to feel less empowered just because they don’t have s high flying career in a male dominated environment.

So many women hate other women.

I don't know which is the satire? The article or this response?

I doubt that a charity such as this has the budget for qualitative focus groups. Many organisations don’t even get qual focus groups done.

And asking around the office isn’t anything like a random qualitative focus group.

This thread seems to have some very bizarre expectations of charity budgets. Including having money to waste on a large ad installation that appeals to only a small number of women when they are supposedly needing to make the budget stretch as far as possible and to convince the majority of those not getting screened to get screened.

I love this! ✊

I love that so many women are now proud to be women.

Exactly, the work shouldn't always fall to women

What kind of double speak is this? 1 in 3 people miss their appointment isn't clear at all. Whose appointment are we talking about here, who is the sample that the 1 in 3 is coming from?

If you receive a letter saying you should make an appointment but don't then book an appointment, the you can't miss the appointment you didn't make.

Are they saying 1 in 3 people who book an appointment for screening then fail to show up?

In that case really we should just be teaching people about how to correctly make cancellations and the importance of courtesy calls when you're going to miss something.

The women who have designed this would have got opinions from other women who liked it.

That's not how market research works, well outside of The Apprentice.

Absolutely. I mean, look:

Women Now Empowered By Everything A Woman Does (theonion.com)

I have no reason to lie.

The women who have designed this would have got opinions from other women who liked it.

If you don’t like it then that’s your opinion.

I dread the breast scan. The letter always specifies that all staff will be female which really reassures me.

An invitation to an appointment saying ‘this usually takes 5 mins. If you need a extra time to get comfortable with the female staff and explore ways to make it easier for you, please ask.’

Yes of course your sister said 'haha yes' after seeing this campaign and acted empowered. Of course she did 😉

I would be quite shocked if women who regularly get smears, now stop getting them because of this campaign.

The muddying of the waters WRT the word 'woman' can stop women getting smears. It's becoming increasingly difficult to get an appointment with anyone, let alone a guaranteed, card-carrying cervix haver. I won't go if there is the chance a man will be performing it. And I don't want to risk having to go in and find out when I'm in the room. And refuse and deal with the inevitable accusations of some phobia. Easier to swerve it.

If there was a campaign as mentioned above, with he actual women who do the smears, reassuring us, that would help. Advising women how to request female staff, let them know about trauma, book a double appointment if they struggle, tell them how to eat a support/interpreter/chaperone. And so on. Make it seem warm, kind, female and supportive. Not 'empowering'.