Macmillan Cancer Support

[SeggsMatters]

I have to say as someone who has fundraised for Macmillan lots, including running Marathons. I am utterly disappointed they are using 'Gender Neutral' language when talking about Cervical Cancer.

But still only Men that need to worry about Prostate Cancer.

twitter.com/macmillancancer/status/1417771087232897026?s=21

The was to EmbarrassingAdmissions

True, though you have to be old for that one!

May I ask what you're classing as old? Different healthcare systems have different thresholds of age and there's a push to reduce the age of screening in some systems and to use more elaborate imaging technology by default.

Complaining about the absence of “people with prostates” is only going to lead to its presence. The real issue is the use of circumlocution for women and men as sex-based biology terms.

Complaining about the absence of “people with prostates” is only going to lead to its presence.

I wouldn't be sure about this not solving the problem. Most men will be really pissed off if they are referred to as the above , or their golf club regs were changed to say" only people with penises in the bar etc."

@EmbarrassingAdmissions

I wonder if the push to gender-neutral terms, coinciding with the expansion of the HPV vaccination, is what is causing some of the confusion around who might develop cervical cancer?

This may relate to the fact that cervical cancer is the only one which has a screening programme. Likely the screening program which, for obvious reasons, targets women, is seen as a point of contention.

I'm conflicted on this. The evidence is unclear as to the value of some (previously proposed and currently active) screening programmes. There is a strong scientific debate about the value in various countries - but it's all grounded in the evidence and the published trials and follow-up data etc.

If there are people who want to abolish sex class screening programmes then they would be better advised to do it that way. And, in fact, they'd be doing healthcare systems everywhere a favour if an inefficient screening programme were axed and the money repurposed to, for example, research to identify indicators that somebody has an active and rapidly progressive or so-called 'indolent' cancer.

I knew a woman who died because a mistake was made when she was screened and it wasn’t picked up, she had a young child left motherless.

I’ve other friends who have had precancerous cells detected and were able to be successfully treated

Anecdotal reports I know but before people start campaigning to remove a screening programme that benefits women away I’d want to see very very solid evidence for it’s inefficiency

I had a "dodgy" smear resullt, some years ago and had to have a colposcopy. The only time the doctor took any notice of my concerns, was when I was accompanied by my husband. I didn't have to have any treatment, but the whole thing scared the living daylights out of me.

@334bu

*Complaining about the absence of “people with prostates” is only going to lead to its presence.*

I wouldn't be sure about this not solving the problem. Most men will be really pissed off if they are referred to as the above , or their golf club regs were changed to say" only people with penises in the bar etc."

It’s an inconsistent picture: while Prostate Cancer UK’s landing page bears the simple, encouraging message “Men, we are with you”, further in there are repeated references to “people with prostates”. e.g. prostatecanceruk.org/prostate-information/about-prostate-cancer answers the question Who has a prostate? with “men, trans women, non-binary people who were assigned male at birth*, some intersex people”.

There is of course no screening programme for PCa, so most men who look at these pages are likely to have more pressing concerns. But shifting this language would definitely be on the agenda, given the huge overrepresentation of ‘people with prostates’ among TRAs. I imagine Pink News would be as outraged as they were by the “disgustingly transphobic lie that 'only females get cervical cancer”.

Cancer Research erased women from their cervical cancer material and very publicly on twitter in 2018. I don’t know if it impacted donations but I know I haven’t donated to them since. CR have since quietly changed their wording to talk about the female reproductive system and women but I’d still prefer to donate to other causes due to how they treated women raising concerns about the wording at the time.
I’ll be looking to see how MacMillian respond to my email to decide whether last week was my last ever donation to them

Just as an aside to people wanting to redirect donations to charities other than Macmillan, if you have a M&S Sparks card who is your nominated charity? When we got ours years ago there were few charities to choose from and we chose Macmillan. They seem to get the bulk of donations, so today my husband and I have changed our nominated charity to the Lifeboats who get a very meagre sum. There are now loads of charities to choose from.

M&S is on the s*list so I don’t have a card! I just donate monthly to charities that ‘do good’. I also make sure that I interact with them on social media etc - so even when I gave ds’s old bike to a colleague and she wanted to pay is for it, I just said ‘please give a wee donation to XXX if you like’.

Thanks - just changed my M&S charity to PDSA (felt it safe that they can't possibly be stonewalled although Dreamies cat treats packs are all Pride Year ones)

Hardly shop in M&S anyway but had forgotten about the charity part so at least it will be going to a charity that hopefully knows what male & female animals are

This is promising!

The Glinner Update has just highlighted the change from people to women too (along with some other very interesting items in general)

grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/how-to-challenge-institutional-buffoonery?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email&utm_source=copy

Wonder if SNP are taking note

Well done MacMillan maybe all the emails worked ?

Great to see the change, suspect there’s still a huge imbalance between how often they use the word women compared to men

Did anyone get a reply from MacMillan? I haven’t

I suspect different teams manage different aspects of the online media. The social media accounts do rent to be thrown at those who play to the gallery for some reason.

@TrainedByCats

Great to see the change, suspect there’s still a huge imbalance between how often they use the word women compared to men

Did anyone get a reply from MacMillan? I haven’t

I got a reply to an email i sent to them asking about their links to Stonewall which i posted on this thread - its a couple of pages back i think

“ Macmillan is a member of Stonewall’s Diversity Champions Programme” and can’t rule out using gendered intelligence in the future....

Nice to know where your donations are going!

No reply yet.

MacMillan has released a statement

medium.com/macmillan-press-releases-and-statements/the-language-we-use-62db331c11c1

"They are on a journey", bless.

So is it women with cervical cancer or people? Men with prostate cancer or people?

Because of its men and women, they will displease their stonewall overseers...

we weren’t able to update all our information as quickly as we would have liked and so we had already made changes in some areas, like the pages on cervical cancer, but not yet in others

... and most likely we wouldn't have bothered at all if it weren't for those pesky women pointing out the hypocrisy of using the word 'men' multiple times

That whole thing reads like a twisty word salad sprinkled with apology pander.

Look. I have just updated a whole sodding website and online store. Some terminology and all the prices had changed. It took me... 3 hours max (and that included collating all the data).

Do I need to go over there and show them how to do their job??

I don't find that statement by Macmillan reassuring. Yes be inclusive but please don't erase the word woman because that is the very opposite of inclusive.