The worst cervical cancer campaign ever...

[PizzazzRoxyStorma]

...well isn't this one special?

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

From following the links, a male advertising exec specialising in bold graphic design I believe.

I no longer had a cervix before I was 49 so I wouldn't have had an appointment either, doesn't mean I wasn't a woman and including all women would have distorted the stats as I'm not the only woman without a cervix.

Isn't the font and, on the last board, the colours very similar to the ones used by Sainsbury. Rushing through a train station I'd have glanced at that and assumed Sainsbugs were flogging tights, then paid it no further mind. Which, at least, would have spared me realising how bad it was for all the other reasons posted here.

I keep coming back to this thread!

I agree completely that the ad misses two important demographics - those people who simply don't understand very much about what a cervix is or why they might need cervical screening, and those who are frightened of cervical screening because of previous trauma or painful experiences - but I think it fails for everyone else too.

That's because having a cervical smear is not like having your blood pressure taken. It's having someone poking around in the most sensitive part of your body - naturally there's a fear that it's going to hurt.

And it's a part of your body that is never touched by another person except during sexual encounters. You're asking women to consent to a level of intimacy with a stranger that in the normal course of events they would only ever experience with a regular sexual partner. Of course it's offputting. We have taboos around showing our genitals to other people - let alone allowing other people to touch them - for a reason. This ad is pretending that our completely normal and reasonable fear of breaching a universal social taboo is somehow irrational and silly.

I suspect that the women who don't find this imagery problematic and aren't offended by the campaign go for their smear tests anyway.

Surely a campaign aimed at increasing uptake of smear tests should be designed to resonate with the groups of women who are least likely to have a smear test, and that's where I think this campaign most likely goes wrong.

I can't imagine that this is the best way to speak to, for example, women who avoid smear tests due to a history of rape or sexual assault.

I think this is a good article on the sort of approach that would make smear tests more possible for many women. It talks about autonomy and control being an important part of the experience and how to facilitate that.

It should be the standard not the exception so that it's offered, rather than being an out of the ordinary request from the woman..

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/diy-pap-smear

Having said that I just don't see an argument for putting a woman through it in the first place when only a fraction of full smears would be required if self testing was an option.

The effect to the last group may affect their health beyond the risk of cervical cancer.

It's been demonstrated that there are people who stop engaging AT ALL with health services if doctors are too aggressive about issues other than the wants they want to engage with. For example constantly asking someone overweight about trying to lose weight when they've engaged for say an ingrowing toenail or a broken arm can cause a breakdown in the relationship between doctor and patient because it breaks trust and leads to these people being reluctant to engage at all with health services for absolutely anything because of the level of harassment.

There were women who started to be threatened with deregistration from their GP a few years back because they wouldn't have a smear. It caused a big deal and it's now not supposed to happen, but it highlights the level of pressure some surgeries put on women.

It absolutely is a trust and respect issue. It can lead to harms to health elsewhere if a woman won't go to the doctor about a mole because they don't want to be harassed about smears.

There needs to be a better and easier way to disengage with screening and to stop this without a multitude of hoops to jump through by consent.

The DM 👋 has been reading MN again

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12769993/cervical-cancer-awareness-advertisement-airbrushes-women-out.html

Those quotes. Even after being told. They're so indoctrinated they cannot bring themselves to use the word 'woman'.

And queer theory is intrinsically misogynist and lesbophobic.

I haven't had a smear for years, mainly because when I did go for them the nurses nearly always gave up because it was hurting me so much. I only had 2 where they actually managed it, I think. This was at a range of different surgeries so it was very much me not them.

The nurse who tried last time suggested that since I was single, lesbian & had no genetic red flags, it wasn't worth the stress for me and I'm in the upper age range for them now anyway.

I know perfectly well that I have a cervix and I could make the time for an appointment. If I was going to be persuaded it would be by an ad explaining that the woman doing my smear would be understanding and skilled and go at my pace. This crossed legs crap would just confirm to me that I'm right to stay away.

And some of the smutty comments that have been posted in response demonstrate perfectly exactly the type that women will overhear in the station

Our campaign was designed by women, led by a woman and it is their legs that feature in the photographs supporting the work

Their not her?

So, somewhere, there are three women designers, working for the same firm, with identical legs to each other, but different skin tones, elegantly slim, long, and uncankled?

Or do they mean that one woman had her perfect legs copied into different skin tones, as some kind of vanity project?

How much did that cost then out of the donations of good people? I really would like to know.

A spokesperson for North West Cancer Research said: 'One in three of the people in the North West who would benefit from a cervical cancer test are not coming forward. The evidence shows that, even with the very best intentions, the existing NHS testing campaigns are not achieving their aims in our region

Neither is this campaign.

Much better ideas on this thread from women who have given this great thought, and for free!

Our campaign was designed by women, led by a woman and it is their legs that feature in the photographs supporting the work

It’s almost as if they haven’t in any way recognised that the women who designed and led this campaign may not represent all women. And that a lack of awareness about this might be a very big problem.

Let’s face it, the group of women who are quite happy to have their legs photographed and displayed in a sexualised nudge nudge, wink wink advertising campaign under the slogan ‘don’t keep them shut’ represents a pretty small subset of women in the UK who are eligible for the cervical screening programme. Which would be fine if those women showed any awareness that others may feel very differently to them and those different feelings will translate into very different outcomes for the campaign.

queer theory is intrinsically misogynist and lesbophobic.

Ain't it just.

And racist, ableist and ageist.

And Colonialist. And snobbish.

Hence the 'well I'M fine with it' comments. Which imply that anyone not like the speaker isn't worth including or protecting from cervical cancer anyway. Not like lesser beings matter.

Whenever women say that the queer theory approach doesn't work for them, you can bet some woman will immediately say 'well it works for me, so I don't see the problem'.

And there, right there, is the problem.

By "their legs" they mean women's legs.

So "Look, look, wr're centring women".

Though not in their actual messaging, where they still can't use the word 'women' to refer to those who might suffer from cervical cancer.

Oh, I didn't read the comments. Tra la la! <skips off to look>

That’s basically a summary of choice feminism. It works for me; how dare you even suggest that I might consider the effects that my choices might have.

Why are these people in their jobs? How is it more relevant to the ad agency that women at the ad agency liked the campaign they were doing than whether the target audience found it encouraging?

Just so you know, the tweet and the webpage have been deleted.

https://nwcr.org/dontkeepemcrossed/

So those legs are supposedly representative of everyday women then? I thought they were generic manikin legs.

Just so you know, the tweet and the webpage have been deleted.

I noticed the tweet had been taken down.

Clearly NWCR aren’t feeling that all publicity is good publicity. Being compared to benny hill in the DM probably hasn’t gone down brilliantly with their trustees.

Clarification about the legs. If you go to the North West CR webpage that was taken down, the text is broken up with photos of women's legs sticking up in the air.

It's those pictures that are meant. I'm trying to archive an old version of the page now, so you can have a look.

Had a look at the comments. It's unmoderated 😳

https://archive.li/qcufN

Thanks for letting us know that the page and the tweets have gone. I would expect that the negative responses outweighed the positive responses, and perhaps the CEO or the board chair has decided that this was certainly not a successful start to a major campaign and decided to go into damage control.

If there was no merit in what people were feeding back, the page and the tweets would have remained. However, this was very clearly a failure even just in the polarised responses. A successful campaign from a charity trying to convince potentially vulnerable women to attend an incredibly sensitive appointment was never going to be polarising in dismissing women’s needs and feelings.

These legs.

It’s still the case that women who are happy to be leg models for a ‘don’t keep them closed’ campaign are probably outliers in the population of women as a whole.

If anyone asked me to get my legs out to be photographed for work purposes, I would not be saying yes!

Good to know that the director of the firm that created the campaign thinks the strapline is 'perfect'. Despite snowballing evidence to the contrary.

Lovely work from the DM reporter (now there's a line I don't type very often!) with that choice of first quote directly heading off "but they're all anti trans" objections.