PHE to call women "women" in a bid to reduce no-shows for cervical cancer screening

[ShotsFired]

Well, would you look at that...

Public Health England seem to think the very best way to reach more women for cervical cancer screening is to launch a high-profile campaign around the 10 year anniversary of the death of Jade Goody (a woman) using the term...women.

Groundbreaking stuff

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/20/cervical-cancer-testing-drive-will-aim-to-tackle-huge-surge-in-no-shows

Excellent that some people are realising not every woman is privileged enough to know they have a cervix. (I would count all of DH's family in that group.)

Good. This is the issue that really got to me. Initially it was because of the language barrier having spent time living in various non-English-speaking countries - even with a good level of those languages it was hard to understand medical terms. It's an interesting thought experiment to put "people with a cervix" into Google translate in a language you're passingly familiar with (school level French or German, say), and see whether you could figure it out. Guarantee you could read "woman", though.

But recently I was involved with some GCSE Childcare exams and observed that some girls couldn't answer "how long is a menstrual cycle?". If you can't apply the word "menstrual" to yourself at 16 and understand what the question is asking (answers were anywhere between 3-40 days with none of them getting "average 28")...you haven't got much chance of knowing or remembering that you have a cervix, really.

Attention! Toutes les personnes atteintes d'un col de l'utérus doivent être examinées afin de déceler tout signe de cancer du col de l'utérus.

Attention! Toutes les femmes doivent être examinées afin de déceler tout signe de cancer du col de l'utérus.

If I walked into a doctors' surgery in France, I would understand "Toutes les femmes" as including me. "Personnes attientes un col de l'utérus", not so much. I went to college with a second-generation Iranian immigrant who told me his mother spoke Farsi but no English. How is she and her family meant to understand that "cervix-haver" means her? A girl at my primary school, her mother was so illiterate that she couldn't understand "nit" letters sent home from school and didn't treat her kids for lice. How was she meant to know that "cervix haver" meant her?

So if you want women to attend health screenings specifically aimed at women it might help to say that the screenings are for women? Wow, if only someone had thought of this sooner.

@Materialist The truly salient point is that it would seem women are being listened to, after the uproar over not using the word "women" in the previous communiques.

Well this is PHE, and the other time was Cancer Research(1) but hopefully the message will be better heard this time, which is the biggest goal.

(1) CRUK still think their way is better. Although strangely don't define men as "prostate havers" for their material about male-specific cancers...

The reason for non attendance at the clinics, especially amongst younger women is being put down to most of this group having got the vaccination. I can understand that.

I am however reminded that when I had my third child in a different area from my first two I was not believed when I said I had Rubella as a child. They insisted I was tested for it and also HIV - even though I had already been tested for these during my first pregnancy - obviously not the second.

I suppose the default is not to believe that all were vaccinated and a catch all approach.

To be fair PHE are very evidence based. I have followed the way they have brought in HPV testing (and as a result other screening processes, or decided not to do them) and are very carefully researched and reviewed and decisions are very careful and open.

CR don't seem to have given much evidence for their position.

It doesn't say anywhere in that article that they will specifically be using 'women' rather than 'people with a cervix' or any other silly term?

I haz cervix.

PHE are staffed by epidemiologists/doctors/scientists/subject matter experts.

I’d be interested to see the qualifications and experience of CRUKs office. I suspect it’s not staffed by working scientists, or epidemiologists with years of policy experience.

This isn't going to work. Make a non invasive test and watch the uptake soar.

I agree Cook If non invasive tests can be produced for bowel cancer, then it can also be produced for cervical cancer.

Also, I might add, getting a vaccination means explaining to the person getting the vaccination, or their carers, an understanding as to why they are getting that vaccination. Obviously, one would hope, biology would be included into why the HPV vaccination is needed.

TRAs accuse gender critical feminists of reducing women to their biology.

Now, thanks to TRAs, major charities are referring to women as cervix owners.

It's trans ideology that is reducing us to our biology.

"Do you have to crow bar trans rights into everything?"

"This is valuable campaign. Jade Goody's death was very sad and it left 2 very young children without a mother buy hey ho let's make it yet another trans thread."

It's not crowbarring in trans rights and it's not a trans thread.

It's Women's rights and a Women's thread.

Because calling women women and not 'cervix owners' is something we actually have to insist upon now.