The worst cervical cancer campaign ever...

[PizzazzRoxyStorma]

...well isn't this one special?

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

Raising the awareness of what though?

The fact that people don’t turn up to their appointments? Ok. Great! Job done. We now know that almost 33% of appointments made don’t turn up.

Almost 1 in 3 people aged 25-49 in the North West don’t attend their cervical screening.

What does that statistic mean? Why are people not turning up? Fear? Embarrassment? Language barriers? Illness? Cultural aspects not identified? Work? Lack of transport? Why?

Seriously, of those posters who feel this sign is an effective communication can you please explain why?

Because I cannot see this as an effective campaign for its stated purpose. It might serve as a reminder for women already knowledgeable about cervical cancer, and who know about smear tests, but are you are the target audience according to the limited text used on the sign?

And to be clear, missed appointments are only part of the issue contributing to this next statement on that sign:

Yet our cervical cancer rates are 19% higher than the rest of England.

Why? Why are rates so high there? Is it because there is a large community who don’t have the knowledge they need to even know they should be making those appointments in the first place?

I am interested in how people believe this has been effective in convincing those who have missed their appointments to come. Or for those who don’t know they should be making appointments to know they should even start.

It makes me feel vulnerable and at risk just thinking about it.

Being asked in public to spread your legs by guilt as if you are some sort of prude.

Yep crossing my legs at the thought of it.

They have not engaged at all with the target for this campaign - this is a market idiot who hasn't asked the right questions to the right women. And it reeks of male.

Which is off putting in its own right.

As a woman who doesn't have smear tests, for several reasons I won't derail this thread with, I can tell you that having another woman ordering me to 'open my legs' via an ad campaign is only slightly less off-putting than having a man do it. Not 'empowering' in the slightest. Quite the opposite. Likewise with calling women who decline 'divas' who care too much about their 'beavers' and all the other gross, quasi-sexualised messaging I've seen over the years on this subject.

No thank you.

If English as an additional language is an issue in that area, wouldn't it be worth while having signs that are phrased in clear language with translations in the additional languages used in that area?

In what I assume is a press release on the web site, there is one use of the word ‘woman’. Just one.

And there is then the repeated use of the word cervix.

Unless you know you (general you, by the way) have a cervix, you don’t immediately understand this is information for you. And the detachment of the word cervix from being a female only body part by introducing the term ‘people with cervixes’, is going to be counterproductive if you don’t know you have or may have had a cervix (if you have not understood a surgical procedure you have had).

This is the harm being dressed up as inclusive. It excludes large groups of women.

The way that page on the website read, a cervix could be something that women have, or if you don’t understand it is a female body part, it reads as something you could ‘get’ even (ie. A cervix could be a growth rather than an integral part of a female body, and only on a female body). It could be something that a male person has or gets.

That is the danger of using the depersonalised language they have chosen to.

They are not clear enough that a cervix is a female body part or what it is. Even if they kept repeating the phrase ‘women, transman and nonbinary female people’ it is far better than removing the necessary context to make it so depersonalised.

The sign is even more depersonalised and uninformative.

This ad would be more likely to put me off having a smear.

Personally, I think this one is awful too. And I say that as someone who doesn’t attend, partly due to past trauma. I think it’s really infantilising and gives a “don’t be so silly, it’s no big deal message”, when it is a big deal to women who have experienced past abuse, trauma or who find the test intolerably painful due to issues like vaginismus, to name but a few issues. The “they’ve seen it all before” message misses the mark for many women for a lot of reasons, but mainly because it centres the feelings of the provider, rather than the patient, whose feelings are valid given the invasiveness of the test. It also relies on scare tactics about women dying, which is a really unkind thing to do to people who struggle with barriers to attending.

I don’t think all the nuances can be adequately captured on a billboard or poster, so personally I think it’s best just to keep it factual. Make clear it’s on offer and then have a section in the leaflet addressing barriers sensitively and compassionately. Support GPs and nurses to understand the barriers themselves and to have supportive, kind and non-coercive conversations. Plus, make the conversations women have amongst themselves kind, supportive, non-shaming and respectful of people’s choices. You only have to open up a thread on the topic of people struggling with test, and you see multiple “better to have the test than die of cancer”, “don’t be so stupid/precious/irresponsible” comments emerge. No one was ever helped by being made to feel silly/shamed/minimised or any of the things most of the adverts and conversations on the topic do.

Oh, and roll on self testing! Won’t solve all of the issues but will certainly help for those who face barriers and wish to access the test.

Remember what David Lammy said, a supposedly intelligent politician coming out with utterly embarrassing nonsense:

“It’s probably the case that transwomen don't have ovaries, but a cervix, I understand, is something that you can have following various procedures, hormones and all the rest of it.”

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1443125834626260993

Things that I value.

Not being treated like a lump of meat in a conveyor belt (a line of legs in a row is truly awful imagery)
Having my concerns and issues listened to and understood not minimised or framed as somehow 'silly'
Not being treated as an idiot.
Understanding of being a woman and how this makes us vulnerable - by using the word woman rather than being reduced to my bits.

This campaign shits all over those important issues. And I would put money on those concerns being some of the top reasons for non-engagement with services.

I loath how screening is marketed in such a demeaning way. It's sexist. No health campaign is pitched at men this way. And don't get me started on the use of peer pressure to try and coerce.

It's vile.

Sell health messages on the basis of their merit. Not this shit.

@CorruptedCauldron Wow I missed that! That’s so ridiculous. Obviously the people not wanting to use “women” are wanting to include transmen but even the supporters like Lammy don’t get it. Shows how much they pay attention and understand. It’s interesting that gender critical feminists get called ignorant when often I understand the point trying to be made more.

No one is ordering you to have a smear test.
If you don’t want to have one, that’s completely your choice.

But for years women have been taught that anything to do with their genitalia is dirty and wrong.
Periods were seen as dirty, sex was only for the man’s pleasure, having a ONS was fine for a man but wrong for a woman and we were always taught to be ashamed of our genitalia.

One of the biggest insults used by men is that women should keep their legs closed.

I’m sure many men will have an issue with the wording but that’s probably part of the shock factor of it, which helps to spread the message.

If this promotion encourages some women to have a smear test and ultimately reduce their risk of getting cancer, then it’s done a fantastic job.

All they’re trying to do is decrease the stigma around having a smear test and reduce the number of women dying from cancer.
You can’t really judge them for that.

Yes Thomasina - the ignorance of some of these BeKind allies is astonishing. That’s why we need really clear messaging around women’s health. If educated politicians don’t get it, then someone who is not well-educated, or who has limited English language skills, is really going to struggle to understand. It’s time to call a spade a spade and stop pussyfooting around the hard, cold facts about biology. Mother Nature couldn’t care less how anybody “identifies” inside.

“You can’t really judge them for that.”

Yes. We can. We can criticise how this charity spends its funding when they produce a counter productive campaign. We don’t need to accept poor service in the name of gaining a few more women getting screened when the money could be better spent in better messaging and a better more far reaching campaign.

And the women on here who are telling you it’s tone deaf are… what? Silly? Unimportant? The wrong sort of women?

I am judging an organisation who decided qokenpoints were important that's women's health.

All they’re trying to do is decrease the stigma around having a smear test and reduce the number of women dying from cancer.

Women? Women?

You mean people, surely.

There's no.mention of women on the ad

Can we stop pretending that ‘women open your legs’ is some sort of wonderful, empowering thing.

And pretending that men do not tell women to open their legs (and then all of society blames the woman for having done so).

and pretending that this kind of weird ‘sex positive’ approach is in any way helpful when we are talking about cervical screening. (Even more so when the HPV connection all too easily associates cervical cancer as a consequence of ‘opening your legs’).

Why does everything have to be ‘sexy’? No one insists men’s health is framed in sexualised ways. Or tries to present that as the way to ‘empower’ men.

especially when combined with the ridiculous confusion created around who might or might not have a cervix.

It doesn’t help that a woman created this. It’s still utter patriarchal bullshit. Women are just as conditioned by this crap as men.

From what I have gathered from this thread so far is that women who already know about cervical cancer and attend appointments seem to accept, or like to be spoken to this way. Women who know about cervical cancer and who don’t make appointments find it counter productive and offensive.

Who is the campaign aimed at again? Who are the women that need to be convinced?

I think we have a small sample right here of why this campaign is a fail. And we haven’t even scraped the surface of the communities that are highest in not attending appointments / not making appointments / even having the knowledge about the issue.

Yep.

It is the very sexualised nature of the campaign that contributes to be counter productive to the audience that needs to pay attention.

It reminded me of this ‘campaign’…

A large pair of legs have appeared on the gates of a Glasgow park where a serious sexual assault took place in a bid to draw attention to women's safety.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/spread-legs-artwork-glasgow-park-24768696?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

I don’t go because I was assaulted by a male dr when i was a teenager. This advert makes me feel angry and sick, as do the posters baiting the other women who have said that they don’t go and don’t like the advert.

This.

People?

People?

😡

And this.

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