The worst cervical cancer campaign ever...

[PizzazzRoxyStorma]

...well isn't this one special?

https://x.com/northwestcancer/status/1724378139059503400?s=46&t=FvzNePXGikWIJeOA86F8cg

You're one of those people who tells women to feel empowered by wolf-whistles, aren't you.

Oh dear.
felix, is that you?

Women are talking about how repulsive this is. This is no way makes me want to leap up and book a smear test.

You know who doesn't feel 'empowered' by buying shoes or losing 5lbs?

People with actual power.

Nope absolutely not.

I just feel that women who choose to be parents or end up working in Asda instead of having high flying careers, shouldn’t feel less empowered than women that do.

You don’t like women very much do you?
Are you a man or a woman?

Yeah, exactly. The stat is that 1/3 WOMEN don't attend, but they've just clumsily changed it to be "PC" when in actual fact it's just alienating actual women.

I feel empowered by telling misogynistic health campaigns to go to hell.

Especially if I use

large letters to do it.

The intention and messaging for the sign is completely lacking. I asked early on what the actual purpose of the message on the sign was trying to convey and got nothing. The objectives of the campaign seem to be very unclear as is most of the comms associated with the campaign. It seems very bizarre to celebrate this advertising effort and I suspect there is a distinct lack of clear ROI here.

And just as bizarrely, the posts from professionals who work with women to do or organise their swabs have all said that for the supposed stated purpose of getting as many women to come
to appointments as possible this would fail, have been twisted to focus instead on the very minor points that this will appeal to very few women. Like getting some very few women to act is to be celebrated as if it were an achievement of high acclaim.

A fucking low bar seems to have been set for such celebrations. It is madness.

And once again, a sign installation such as this in a train station is a huge budget for a smaller charity. This budget would indeed be better spent as I and others have suggested in high quality outreach programs aimed directly at the communities with such low uptake.

North West Cancer Research isn't that small.

In 2021/22 its total gross income was £4.9 million.
https://register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/charity-search/-/charity-details/519357

The guilty relevant marketing communications agency is Influential, per release from NWCR
https://www.prolificnorth.co.uk/news/new-cervical-cancer-campaign-urges-north-west-women-dont-keep-em-crossed/#:~:text=Influential%20is%20helping%20North%20West,than%20the%20rest%20of%20England.

https://www.thisisinfluential.com/

You're engaging with even less of the content of the thread than I thought.

I have already told you, you are only talking to women on this thread. The male posters on MN are not participating on this thread. I should have used big letters for all of that post, then.

This may help.

I recently had an investigative breast ultrasound and it was carried out by a man, I didn't expect that and didn't want to make a fuss to ask for a woman sonographer.
It wasn't as 'hands-on' as a mammogram but nevertheless discomforting for me.

This was in a hospital, my previous investigations at the specialist breast clinic were all carried out by female staff.

I've emailed the charity to complain. I too am one of the women they should be targeting and this definitely puts me off.

Great way to avoid the question 😁 of course men will come on these threads. MN does not ask for sex when you sign up and men aren’t banned from these threads.

How am I not engaging with the thread?

I’ve literally taken up half of it 🤣

I will back off because I don’t want to take up any more space.

Please don’t carry on dismissing women’s views and opinions though.

They have just as much right to an opinion as you do.

It seems that you’re allowed to dismiss women’s opinions and experiences though. Why is that?

And anyway, your opinion on this advert is not really important because it’s not aimed at you. It’s aimed at women who do not, for various reasons, take up the offer of smear tests. There are many of those women on this thread - and many, many, more on the X thread - that find this not only not persuasive, but offensive, and in some cases frightening.

Is this satire?

Sorry, but YOU are dismissing and being quite rude to women voicing their opinions.

Women are not a hive mind and we all have different experiences which shape our view of the world. Many posters have expressed their view that this campaign is badly thought out and I agree. I find it offensive.

Please stop shaming women.

I fucking hate the term empowerment.

and the way patriarchal bullshit is sold to women as ‘empowerment’.

Got an answer for me @Night409 about how I as a woman with vaginal atrophy (like many menopausal women) am meant to feel empowered & informed by this ridiculous campaign & encouraged to book my smear?

You don't engage, because you do not demonstrate any comprehension of the posts you respond to.

This post of yours I am quoting now is a sterling example. You have accused me of dodging the question, when I have clearly answered it. Of course I'm a woman. Why did you ask that, when I had previously already said we were all female? You either ignored what I'd said, or you didn't understand what I was saying. Either way, you were not engaging with the content of posts, so your engagement was scarcely higher than making repeated posts of "dhaljfsliidf snorflewhop".

I'll try this again, using very short words. I recognise most of the usernames on this thread. They are either female, or they have been keeping up a cover of being female for a very long time. However, none of the male regulars on this board have posted on this thread at all.

You seem to be convinced that the only people who could object to this campaign must be men. You have explicitly tried to change the subject to what men might think of the installation multiple times, and you have repeatedly tried to insinuate that women disagreeing with you are male. You're trying it on me now, and you did it to UnremarkableBeasts as well with that sly "s/he".

No it is not ‘small’, but it is ‘smaller’ when compared to national organisations and they budget they have. it is doubtful they would have the spend to have put this campaign to robust qualitative research focus groups covering the major groups that needed to reach.

They have limited budget but have chosen this. I don’t believe this is effective use of its budget at all.

When I was in my 20s I had my smear test by my male GP with a female chaperone. I didn’t know I had a choice. I visited the same male GP a couple of weeks later about a shoulder injury and he made a comment about my lovely legs, making me feel embarrassed and ( in hindsight) violated. I still didn’t know I could do anything about this. Shortly after this he was struck off for inappropriate relations with a vulnerable patient. I felt my smear had not just been a medical examination to him and it put me off smears for several years.

The next time I had a smear took me ages to pluck up the courage, and it was bleeding after sex that made me go. The female GP I saw made several comments about my weird shaped cervix making it hard for her which again made me embarrassed. She didn’t say we’re all different shapes or make any attempt to relax me.

The next time I went he nurse couldn’t manage and went to get a GP, leaving me undressed for over 5 mins, then the GP couldn’t do it either, probably because I was incapable of relaxing by this point. I was there 45 mins before I said I had to go. They booked me another appt but I cancelled it and haven’t been since.

The billboard in this advert made me feel sick. It took me straight back to my 22yr old self when that male GP said what lovely legs I had.

I would be one of the people this advert is aimed at. What it has achieved is cementing the fact I will never ever go for another smear.

I've just been through this thread all over again, looking for an example of comments from women working in this area that have said that some would find this empowering and would help to break down the stigma surrounding smear tests - you do not get to say that these women are wrong.

Could you have meant this post from NImumconfused? I reproduce her post below so we can remind ourselves of what she actually said.

You also said if you think you have a better campaign idea, then please go ahead and contact them and let them know and I would fully support it.

Readers, please note that NImumconfused's post did contain suggestions of better campaign ideas, which seem to have been ignored.

NImumconfused

I do some work in the area of screening, including cervical. You could possibly argue that there are some women who will be influenced by campaigns aimed at reducing stigma/embarrassment, perhaps those in the age group where you're going for your first one? So for example our social media stuff which tends to be aimed at younger women will be about not being embarrassed, that the sample takers do this every day, nothing to worry about etc.

Beyond that, non-engagement is much more likely to be related to trauma/pain or cultural issues, and jokey campaigns will get you nowhere. For trauma or pain you need specialist clinics with well trained staff who can take time to talk to individual women and work out how to make them more comfortable - sadly these are few and far between.

Cultural barriers - we work with community groups to run small peer led events, where women can get information and ask questions in a comfortable environment for them.

Both of these approaches work, but they're not quick or cheap. This campaign is the exact opposite of what works with those demographics.

Plus mashing in gender identity issues in the middle of it all just confuses everyone whose literacy or English isn't perfect. Again, we target that group by working with their support organisations to create resources just for them, rather than making our general resources into word salad

I'm not in England but it surprises me how pushy it all sounds there - we've been told to avoid any sense of "should" or "must" because screening has risks as well as benefits.

Somanyquestionstoaskaboutthis

for you. The ad is just sexual harassment from a charity, and we're supposed to appreciate it. It's revolting.

I agree. Well they can go fuck off. I have complained to ASA.

There’s no point @NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision . None of us are going to get a straight answer.

We’ll just be accused of being men, called misogynists, told to calm down, while also being accused of hurling ‘vile insults’. 🤷🏻‍♀️