Why are women being guilt tripped into looking after mens testicles?

[QuentinWinters]

Just saw this advert. I am quite irked. Women are constantly getting pressure for smears, mammograms, and we should check our boob regularly or we will DIE and it will be our own fault.

Why are are we now also getting guilt tripped into taking responsibility for mens testicles?

Surely most men play with their wangs enough to spot changes. How about they grow up and go to the doctor themselves, without needing mummy to sort it for them?

I doubt very much there are ads in mens loos asking them to check their partners boobs and nag them to go to the doctor if something changes.

And let's not even mention that the poster is pink.

Seriously. Just

Oh look, more shit work for women to do.

I thought that this would be about Yaniv.

But yes, you don't see adverts urging men to take responsibility for their female partner's health.

Wonder if they have a similar poster aimed at the male partners of gay men. Presumably also in pink.

Well thats just ridiculous

Dh is perfectly capable of checking his own

I agree 100%. This idiotic poster goes WAY beyond being educational. It is absolutely implying that as a woman, YOU are responsible for checking his balls and sending him to the gp.

"Check them monthly." Oh do fuck off! As if we done already have enough to do! If a man can't manage his own healthcare, then he needs to ring his mummy .

Gah how depressing.

Is there any male problem, of any kind, that in some way isn't regarded as up to women to manage for them?

Can you graffiti "I'm not his mum or his GP" over the top in Sharpie?

Men are perfectly capable of checking their own (regularly ) but they seem incapable of plucking up the courage to make an appointment if they find anything.

Checking balls is like checking boobs - completely different to a mammogram or a smear as it's not a free service offered to men on the NHS.

I don't understand the harm in encouraging women to look out for changes. I think the reasoning behind it is that men are much less likely to
A) notice a change. They can't see their football boots when they're right in front of their faces so why would they notice a lump in their testicles?
B) visit a GP if they do notice a change. Men tend to be much prouder about that kind of thing than women do. Part of that sign is basically about nagging him to get checked if there is something different down there.

There's a lot more publicity surrounding women's health than men's in general - I think this sign can only be a positive thing, but it's not putting the responsibility onto women IMO, and definitely isn't encouraging you to do anything you wouldn't normally do anyway.

I honestly thought this would be an update about Jonathan Yaniv...

But I agree, I'd be very surprised to see this infantilising "send him to a GP" bollocks (I am so sorry) with regard to women's breasts, cervices, etc. Because the crisis in men's health is a) women's problem and b) the core MRA argument against the necessity of feminism, i.e. women's problem and c) probably your fault.

It's pretty pathetic but it's probably coming from the angle that most men won't take the responsibility of self checking, or then actually make an appointment if they do find something.
It's not right to be putting the onus on women. You wouldn't see a poster the other way round.

Agreed 100%. And it's not just this ad -- it's implicit subtext to so many adverts/public awareness campaigns for men's health, which presuppose some woman bustling about in a pinnie and managing things.

wtf? No, I won’t be checking my husbands balls, he’s had them a lot longer than he’s had me he’s an adult who is accountable for his own health. i wouldn’t hand him a speculum and ask him to check my cervix! this is infantilising for men. If men aren’t accessing the healthcare they need, them that needs to be taken up with men, not women.

There are posters from a prostrate health charity at my local supermarket. Guess whose responsibility that is? Yep, women's.

'Is your husband going to the loo more often?'

Adults should be responsible for their own health. And finding their football boots

The "send him to his GP immediately" thing rankles.

The passivity and whole lack of agency attributed to the man himself is quite telling.

Contrast that with the direct language ordering women to act.

"They can't see their football boots when they're right in front of their faces so why would they notice a lump in their testicles?"

Sorry that you married a toddler. My husband is a grown up, capable of finding both boots and lumps.

So we can check 'his' balls but can't often refer to 'her' period/smear because its, you know, phobic. Hmmm...

I can see where you are coming from about it being his tackle and his responsibility. But to be honest you also have a vested interest when you have a partner. If they do die, you feel the guilt about maybe you could have done more. In my case my DH had asymptomatic lung cancer which spread to his brain - again no symptoms of the brain tumours until it was too late. I beat myself up all the time about were there signs I missed. I know rationally that's not the case, but it would have brought me so much peace of mind if there had been a way of checking him for cancer. The principle of it being his health and his problem doesn't really work when the worst happens. I would support a campaign that looks at encouraging men to check their wives' breasts for lumps rather than getting rid of campaigns encouraging women to check their DHs.

At the bottom it says "Supporting men with testicular cancer..."

HOW EXCLUSIONARY! Don't they know it's not just men who get testicular cancer? It should say "sperm dispensers" surely?

Men's health campaigns always stress the word men. Their Twitter is full of references to men.

Not a hint of "people with testicles".

The bar is really set very low for men, isn't it? Enabling this 'silly billy' nonsense really grinds my gears.
Do men's toilets have a corresponding poster about encouraging mammograms?

As an aside, I recently had surgery, so I couldn't do the school run for a few weeks and man alive, you'd think my husband had split the atom. 🤦‍♀️

TBF I've seen plenty of breast cancer advice suggesting you get your partner help you feel for changes. Anything to increase awareness and get people doing the monthly checks I guess.

I noticed that too, Pop...the double standard is breath taking.

Derelict, aimed specifically and exclusively at men, the way this is at women?

I know DH hates adverts that assume that as a man he won’t seek medical advice when he needs to – he thinks it’s infantizing men.

I'm sure there was some research that hit media ages ago that showed once you accounted for pg and menstruation things directly relating to female biological sex that men and women were just as likely to go to GP – I can’t find it with a quick search. Though I know women pain is often dismissed and I could see it could take few trips to GP to get anywhere.

I would have thought posters in mens would be better idea.

Their testicles their problem
Ditto football boots and anything else that they conveniently pretend they can't do for themselves 🙄