Piece on breast cancer in Boots magazine

[ItsRainingProstateOwners]

They are trying to be inclusive, but I think some bits work and others don’t. I’d be interested in others thoughts -

When to check.
Now. While over 80% of breast cancers occur in women over 50, younger people - and men, or those assigned male at birth - can get it. ...

“Everyone has breast tissue - guys, gals and non-binary pals - so we all should be self-checking”. (I think this is clear)

Then in a separate bit -

BRCA breakthrough
It’s the gene mutation that leaves people up to 72% more likely to develop breast cancer.

(This is annoying because the 72% refers to women, not people.)

There is a separate piece on a man telling you about pronouns 🙄

But also a good feature on neurodivergent women so not all bad.

The 'when to check' bit sounds fine.

Not sure about the rest without reading it in context.

Men get breast cancer - so whatever language is used as long as EVERYONE knows their own personal risk if breast cancer- does it really matter?

(To qualify this I'm a brca2 carrier through the Male side, although female, we have a long line of male breast cancers)

First bit is fine.
The 72% increase in risk - it matters if you're talking about women or 'the average person' i.e. both men and women. Stats and risk are already very poorly understood so I think they need to provide the necessary context that they're referring to women - as the resulting risk will be far higher.

Would be interesting to know if the statistic is correct or they've just replaced women with people so completely misrepresented the percentage.

Also you don't get assigned a sex when you're born. It's observed or recorded. So saying "assigned male at birth" is a nonsense.

I'm still grumpy about the feature they did for International Women's Day highlighting five "fierce females". The very first one was very much NOT female...

DHs uncle is having treatment for breast cancer atm so I don't necessarily think including men is a bad thing in this case.

The increased risk to 'people' may be correct, the presence of the BRCA gene does significantly increase the risk of breast cancer in men. It however shows that when you start messing with language the message gets lost.

Men with that gene do have an increased risk of breast cancer (although their biggest risk from that gene is prostate cancer), but I’ve no idea on the actual increase or if it’s in line with the increased risk to women. But if it isn’t, then yes, they shouldn’t use “people” when talking about a specific group they just don’t want to say.

"While over 80% of breast cancers occur in women over 50, younger people - and men, or those assigned male at birth - can get it."
The phrasing of this also slightly odd, because it says 'younger people and men' as if these two categories are mutually exclusive. But younger people obviously includes men. I don't think they intended to create a contrast between young people and men, but between men and women. What would have made more sense would be to say "while over 80% of breast cancers occur in women over 50, younger women, - and men or those assigned male at birth- can get it."

Men do get breast cancer and it's not commonly known so good to raise awareness.

What I don't understand is-

Breastfeeding has had various terms pushed to replace the word breast.

I haven't seen that for breast cancer yet.

Why the inconsistency?

And while alternatives like that haven't been suggested afaik.

Why isn't it people with breasts? As per people with vaginas etc?

To be clear I have no problem with men being included, I’m happy with non-binary and trans men/women being included so long as women aren’t missed out.

Google says men with BRCA have an 8% increase of breast cancer so I don’t think people is right in that case.

Feh - boots did a bit a while back on... was it women’s day or something? Definitely women of which 2 of the 5 hadn’t always been so. And who was in the #1 slot? It was supposed to be ‘inspirational’ - so maybe a woman who had run iron man? Saved a baby from a burning building? Joined the fire brigade and worked her way up the greasy pole (haha)? Well from memory 2 of the women had done ‘inspirational’ things, one was whinging about being non binary and two...

Bloody boots. You’d expect better from a pharmacy!