The worst cervical cancer campaign ever...

[PizzazzRoxyStorma]

...well isn't this one special?

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

All they’re trying to do is decrease the stigma around having a smear test

How do you suppose this campaign does that?

Yes

Yes. Like Elaine Miller and her one woman campaign for pelvic floor health. Marvellous woman.

It’s a cliche, but it is still worth remembering that ‘just wanting ti decrease stigma’ does not mean you actually are doing so.

Or that, even if you do achieve your aim to some extent, it won’t have a range of unintended negative consequences.

Surely we should complain to the advertising standards authority.
https://www.asa.org.uk/make-a-complaint.html

At work we are fully behind Movember and men’s health. But when it comes to women, it has to be women+
It enrages me. God forbid we get anything to ourselves.

No. Just no.

I'm not sure I can muster any appropriate words for that

Many of the women (and the one my reply was directed to) are women who refuse to have smear tests.

So any form of encouragement is going to upset/annoy them because it’s designed for people like them.

The posters and letters and TV adverts aren’t helping.
They have to try and come up with new ways to encourage these women but many of these women will not want to be encouraged and be offended at anything they do as it feels like a personal attack.

My sister will not have a smear purely out of embarrassment.
If ads like this break down the stigma around female genitalia, then I’m all for it.

At the end of the day, if you don’t want to have a smear test then don’t have one.

If ads like this break down the stigma around female genitalia, then I’m all for it.

Again, how would it do that?

Men, men, men, men.

Women exist. Get over it.

Women have emotions. They are worth engaging with directly. Centre women in discussions of women's healthcare.

Stop shitting on women because you think it gets at men. It doesn't. Seeing women and women's health as acceptable collateral damage in your campaign to rebel against male attitudes to female sexuality just makes you another flavour of misogynist.

As the woman you replied to, who declines the tests, I'm just very confused.

They have to come up with new ways to encourage 'these women' but it doesn't matter if we object to the campaigns being sexualised - because we're going to be upset/annoyed anyway - because it's designed for 'people like us' - we're the target audience? I'm not following.

Surely if you want to reach women who don't have smear tests but would like to, the focus needs to be on making appointments more accessible, and on handling pain and trauma sensitively, not just 'get over yourself and do it' messaging.

I don't see who the open your legs, wink wink nudge nudge style campaigns are actually trying to reach. Not women who find it difficult to access smears for practical reasons. Not women from conservative communities who might decline for cultural reasons (or have poor English and not understand what's being offered). Women who already have smear tests and think that women who don't like this style of campaigning are prudes or something? But they already have the tests.

Yes, I feel I am missing how it does this by sexualising cervical smears. I wonder if there is this disconnect somewhere that leads people to believe that the sexual objectification of women’s bodies in this campaign is entwined with the mistaken perception that using sexually loaded phrases like this is somehow ‘reclaiming’ the language? I cannot see how this would be true but then maybe I am more analytical about communication than others.

It is like the disconnect in saying women choosing to sexually objectify themselves was empowering because it was benefitting themselves not being forced on them by men. Whereas, the reality was, it was just women sexually objectifying themselves for gain rather than the benefit mostly going to someone else. Still was sexual objectification and exploitation of women’s bodies regardless of who did it.

I cannot see empowerment at all in women telling other women to open their legs in this way.

invisible I don’t think you are the only one not understanding the logic being posted here.

From what I have read here or on twitterx, it seems rather disconnected and akin to scrabbling to find a reason for this comms message. Anything that might salvage it. But it also seems to really rely on this falsehood of trying to frame such things as ‘reclaiming’ or ‘sex positive’, all the while lacking in having empathy and sensitivity.

I don’t believe there is anything that can salvage this.

This is classic ‘sex positive feminism’.

Claim that the answer is in sexualising everything under the banner of ‘reclaiming’ and ‘destigmatising’ and position any women who objects to this idea that women must be defined by their sexuality at all times as some terrible prudish relic of the past.

Often championed by privileged and insulated women who simply don’t want to accept any argument that might cause them to acknowledge their own potential vulnerability.

Cervical cancer ONLY affects women/transmen as they are biologically female.

Also, however, a swathe of non-binaries, probably varying by age demographic. Some of the Tavistock/societal NB uptick must be ageing into the testing cohort now or soon.

The 'inclusive' language is excluding swathes of those who might benefit from the reassurance.

It's striking that it's being deemed acceptable to "annoy" the target audience. Interesting marketing choice. Annoying, patronising ads always make us get the credit card out, right?

How much money was spent on this campaign? Presumably NHS Trust budget, ultimately deriving from general taxation?

Barbie legs in high heels are hardly likely to appeal to the transmen and female NBs.

For a start, that's just what a good proportion of them are trying to escape from.

I find the idea that the reason women don’t have smear tests is because of stigma related to the test is bizarre. I’ve never heard any woman express the view that there is stigma surrounding smear tests. So addressing a non-existent stigma is a waste of everyone’s time.

i agree that the assumption that the problem is ‘stigma’ is itself problematic.

I find that the NHS is really aggressive in how it approaches smear tests. You get letters that don’t feel reassuring or supportive. Then more letters. Then your GP practice starts phoning or bringing up smear tests during consultations for other things. Receptionist ambush women trying to check in for appointments with smear test invitations. They even make appointments for you and tell you to attend.

None of it feels empowering. And it’s likely to put women off seeking any kind of medical help.

There are complex and often practical reasons why women don’t take up the NHS’s offer of smear tests. And the NHS seems to be ever more coercive about trying to force participation in the programme.

So this weird sexualised stuff just feels part of the broader fear-generating and coercive atmosphere around the entire screening programme.

Agree.
Sexualises something that women feel stressed about anyway, and then erases the actual sex of the “people” who need cervical screening.

i have vaginal atrophy which makes smears very painful

how exactly does this ludicrous advert encourage me to have a smear?

it doesn’t address my concerns in anyway.

Pg 1 has refs:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4945484-the-worst-cervical-cancer-campaign-ever?reply=130829422&utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share&utm_source=copylink

1st paper linked mentions stigma, haven't checked the others.

Reasons for poor knowledge
In one of the focus groups with women from ethnic minority backgrounds stigma and fatalism were discussed as contributing to poor knowledge about cervical cancer and screening. One woman in this group discussed a common ‘myth’ that cervical cancer was a disease people got as a result of having ‘done bad things’ and this meant it was usually not discussed,
Group 3 excerpt:

P6: “The stigma, why I think, because people don’t have much information about this problem, the most perception about cervical cancer within the community is that this disease is someone suffered from this disease having had bad lifestyle or bad things. So that’s why.”

P1: It’s a shame isn’t it?

P6: Yeah, it’s such a shame. It’s definitely a shame. So they think this problem comes because of that bad things. They don’t think that this is also a problem, er it’s a medical condition, it can happen to anyone.

I agree, the NHS's approach is characteristically very aggressive.

And yes, that's a good point- how many of these missed appointments weren't appointments booked by patients? That is, appointments randomly allocated to women who hadn't requested one at all?

If I got an unexpected letter telling me I was expected to come in for an unrequested appointment at a totally unsuitable time, I would certainly intend to cancel it. But I can't guarantee that I would get round to it in time. I don't have a job where I can ring during my work hours. In fact, I can't manage to make an appointment I actually want for any condition at the moment, because I'm already at work before the GP phone lines are open!