The worst cervical cancer campaign ever...

[PizzazzRoxyStorma]

...well isn't this one special?

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

I actually think I'd find marketing budgets on some crowdfunding platform to make plastic male arses, stick them on giant billboards and run your campaign.

Don't be square stick it up there
Finger up the bum etc..

And just wait for the backlash, we can say only 60% of "people" get their prostrate checked etc and call it awarness.

Who's in.

.

We learned a lot about reaching hard to reach communities during covid. Going to them, using other members of the community to spead the message, having vaccination centres in accessible places, ideally drop in etc.

Who are the hard to reach targets for smears? (The less literate or non English speakers? Younger women? Those from socially conservative communities? I don't know, but the NHS should.) I bet many will find this campaign off-putting. And once the figures are crunched, reaching transmen and NBs will not prove the most pressing priority. (Cos they are likely to be body and health aware.)

I think there have been some nice ideas on here about changing campaigns for the better, in theory. However, reassurance and telling women they will encounter lovely, understanding HCPs who will listen to them respectfully, work together with them to make it a more tolerable experience etc. will only work if it reflects reality. Too often, as exemplified by other threads, women have awful experiences and are cajoled and sometimes even harassed into screening after having it brought up at unrelated appointments. That’s certainly been my experience and it doesn’t leave you motivated to go back, that’s for sure. Especially if you are a woman/trans man facing barriers.

To me, funds would be better spent on educating HCPs on informed consent and trauma-informed care. Then, women can be presented with factual information about the risks and benefits of screening, in order to give informed consent, and supported to access it if there are barriers and if they want it. Preferably, they should be supported in a way that means they don’t have to disclose things like past trauma if they don’t want to. Accommodations should be built into the system.

Any future campaigns need to be free from the usual tactics of scaremongering, shaming, infantilisation, minimising concerns, and sexualising an invasive medical procedure. And, ideally, should promote kinder conversations on the topic. The way women speak to each other about screening is just awful.

Finally, I really think the way forward is a self-testing option. It’s available in a number of countries already.

Superb post.

Well done to mn feminism for getting it in press

Keep it in mind when posters tell us repeatedly no one cares and we can’t change anything

I was just thinking the exact same thing.

Come on people, show us your arse.

And yes, The ridiculousness of claiming X number of people have prostate cancer, would be instantly identified.

Would be an excellent idea.

It will immediately launch a flood of the righteous performatively scolding that men have FEELINGS, they are SHY ABOUT THIS, that humiliation and fear play a huge part, that sensitivity is needed, that men have all kinds of NEEDS....

and none of them will realise their own hypocrisy and sexism in that they only thing that matters for people born male.

(They will also tell you they don't think sex is binary while they do this binary sex based activity.)