Macmillian Still Erasing Women

[WomanNotAVagina]

Macmillan erasing women has been discussed on here before. (They are a Stonewall Champion)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4304811-macmillan-cancer-support

They’d removed mention of woman, women and female from their cervical cancer pages. There was feedback from women and they updated their pages however since then they have been quietly erasing the words women and female from their new web site ‘to be inclusive’ whilst not erasing men and male to the same extent.

These searches are on their old main site
www.macmillan.org.uk
Women 663
Woman 151
Female 293
Men 587
Man 860
Male 313

These searches are on their new site
Women 45
Woman 19
Female 7
Men 1031
Man 369
Male 14

Obviously this is a crude (but striking) comparison. Some of the search results will be spurious but you’d expect that to even up. And it feels like they are gaslighting when they say it’s to be inclusive. Women will die unnecessarily with their mangling of language around female specific cancers. It’s confusing, offensive and discriminatory srh.bmj.com/content/41/4/248

I know its probably pointless raising this again as all we can do is redirect our money to other charities that are not afraid to call us women but they used to be such a good charity its just sad

Blimey. That's pretty stark.

I wonder who organises and does most of the work for their fundraising coffee mornings?

@ErrolTheDragon

Blimey. That's pretty stark.

I wonder who organises and does most of the work for their fundraising coffee mornings?

Is it bodies with vaginas?

They lost my (sizeable) monthly donation ages ago. Can't really trust any charities nowadays.

Just seeing the difference in the numbers for women/woman compared to men/man is shocking.

How can people be so fucking stupid?

Not sure how this is done, can this be repeated for other cancer charities?

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Unacceptable!

@JustcameoutGC

Not sure how this is done, can this be repeated for other cancer charities?

It was just using their website search tool.

When you go onto the Macmillan site there’s a search bar at the top right. When it returns the results it says these are from their new site and gives you the option of searching the old site. On the old site I selected main site to ensure the comparison was as similar as possible.

Wow. I just checked and got the same result.

I'm 99% sure this is because of using "inclusive" language to replace the word woman [person] ... but would there be any other reason? Given the comparison to the old site I suspect not.

@WomaninBoots

Wow. I just checked and got the same result.

I'm 99% sure this is because of using "inclusive" language to replace the word woman [person] ... but would there be any other reason? Given the comparison to the old site I suspect not.

They say inclusion but ignore the request to explain the discrepancy. If there’s a very reasonable explanation for the difference they could answer the question.

If you try a similar exercise on Cancer Research site results are evenly spread not skewed like the Macmillan site

I think it's pretty clear that there is a difference in the way male and female cancers are discussed on that website.

What is fallopian tube cancer? The fallopian tubes are two fine tubes that link the ovaries to either side of the womb. It can affect women, trans men and people assigned female at birth.

What is prostate cancer? Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK.

What is womb cancer? The womb (uterus) is a pear-shaped organ where a baby is carried during pregnancy....Womb cancer can affect anyone who has a womb. This includes women, trans men and people assigned female at birth.

What is penile cancer? Penile cancer (cancer of the penis) is rare......The penis is the male sex organ.

They aren't the only ones. I had something on a newsfeed the other day re the charity 'coppafeel' (fgs who names a charity that anyway) so I checked out their website.

Lots of words about how 'when we say breasts' we actually mean all the tissue from your rib cage to your boobs, pecs, chest or breasts or something else (!). They go out of their way to not use the word 'woman' or 'women' instead they say people of all genders have breast tissue but helpfully have a section on 'Breast cancer in men' for whom incidentally accorinding to Macmillan is incredably rare. However rest assured the men have their very own section.

They have a section on hormonal contraception and talk about all the 'people' that take hormonal contraception and how many get breast cancer. In fairness the word 'woman' does appear on this page. Someone must have missed that when editing.

They've clearly put a lot of work into not using 'woman', shame on them.

This makes me utterly furious.

Is there any point in writing to MacMillan and demanding a response? Assuming this has been tried, and failed??

This includes women, trans men and people assigned female at birth

Funny that they don't use 'this includes men, trans women and people assigned male at birth' for men's cancers isn't it.

Our words removed to pander to the demands of a few penis havers

@headintheproverbial

This makes me utterly furious.

Is there any point in writing to MacMillan and demanding a response? Assuming this has been tried, and failed??

It’s worth as many women as possible writing to them about this. They will not listen to just one or two they need to hear it from many women

This is the link for their head office www.macmillan.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/email-head-office.html Contacting them this way does not tie up any cancer specialists responding to requests for support.

@donquixotedelamancha

I think it's pretty clear that there is a difference in the way male and female cancers are discussed on that website.

What is fallopian tube cancer? The fallopian tubes are two fine tubes that link the ovaries to either side of the womb. It can affect women, trans men and people assigned female at birth.

What is prostate cancer? Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men in the UK.

What is womb cancer? The womb (uterus) is a pear-shaped organ where a baby is carried during pregnancy....Womb cancer can affect anyone who has a womb. This includes women, trans men and people assigned female at birth.

What is penile cancer? Penile cancer (cancer of the penis) is rare......The penis is the male sex organ.

This is becoming so normal. Men are men while women are not women

Infuriating

Bravo OP. Data and objective facts are still powerful. Seeing this simple analysis really drives the point home.

We need more of this. I wish journalists were as productive as you are. This should be in newspapers.

@2021Vision

They aren't the only ones. I had something on a newsfeed the other day re the charity 'coppafeel' (fgs who names a charity that anyway) so I checked out their website.

Lots of words about how 'when we say breasts' we actually mean all the tissue from your rib cage to your boobs, pecs, chest or breasts or something else (!). They go out of their way to not use the word 'woman' or 'women' instead they say people of all genders have breast tissue but helpfully have a section on 'Breast cancer in men' for whom incidentally accorinding to Macmillan is incredably rare. However rest assured the men have their very own section.

They have a section on hormonal contraception and talk about all the 'people' that take hormonal contraception and how many get breast cancer. In fairness the word 'woman' does appear on this page. Someone must have missed that when editing.

They've clearly put a lot of work into not using 'woman', shame on them.

Coppafeel was set up by a young woman with BC to support other young women, a late colleague had a lot of support from them. They long went down this road though, and are far from they were when first set up.

Just saw photos from a local Macmillan coffee morning held to raise funds and not a single prostate owner present

Fucking hell. That is sooooo bad.

This is beyond belief, thanks OP for taking the time for this research.

I'd already decided to stop doing the coffee morning after checking on the Charity Commission website and finding that this organisation employs 24 people who are paid over £90k per year, with 2 being paid £150-200k.
Erasing women pays well

OP - I share your fury with Macmillan - I complained to them re female erasure on their Cervical Cancer information booklet. On top of the Lancet today - I have already had a full moan to DH.

I have had a quick look on their info re the different sex specific cancers - and apart for 'breast cancer' and 'breast cancer for men' where the words men/women are used fully and appropriately, men and women are minimally used. 'People with a prostate' is now included - although my quick glance suggests that the word 'men' has been removed somewhat, the word 'women' is still more erased.

They now seem to shy from any sex based language except at the beginning, so none of the later sections, if you read them separately, which many will do as it is online, make any sense.

Read this pile of crock for testicular cancer for example-

"The testicles develop inside the tummy (abdomen) of an unborn baby. Usually, they drop down (descend) into the scrotum at birth, or within the first year. Sometimes this doesn’t happen so the child has surgery to bring the testicle into the scrotum"

Well - we all know that's not true and this wordjelly now makes no factual sense. How many unborn babies not differentiated here from the other kind need this surgery?

I wonder if the numbers in the search of 'men' include words such as treatMENts woMEN etc? Such words were included when I used the 'find' function on my browser and I can't think of any other reason why the word 'men' would be so frequent compared to previously.

I wonder if the numbers in the search of ‘men’ include words such as treatMENts woMEN etc?

Putting “men” in quotes which should eliminate the cases where it’s included in another word gets similar numbers on the new site. If thats what is happening to push the numbers up on “men” it would mean they’ve implemented the worlds shittiest web site search mechanism instead of using their previous one as well as erasing women.

Also including instances of “women” in the “men” total isn’t really going to increase the numbers much but yes other words might. And if that’s what’s happening they could have answered the question but they didn’t

Fully agree re the disparity in men and women as search terms - which is outrageous - but I’m not sure what’s wrong with this:

the testicles develop inside the tummy (abdomen) of an unborn baby. Usually, they drop down (descend) into the scrotum at birth, or within the first year. Sometimes this doesn’t happen so the child has surgery to bring the testicle into the scrotum"

Am I missing something?

@Catabogus

Fully agree re the disparity in men and women as search terms - which is outrageous - but I’m not sure what’s wrong with this:

the testicles develop inside the tummy (abdomen) of an unborn baby. Usually, they drop down (descend) into the scrotum at birth, or within the first year. Sometimes this doesn’t happen so the child has surgery to bring the testicle into the scrotum"

Am I missing something?

I think the issue is that it isn't ALL unborn babies that have testicles