Check your chest breast cancer awareness/charity.

[LostMyPantsAtGatwickAirport]

I keep hearing adverts from a charity (Coppafeel) about checking your chest - not breasts - and it amazes me how happy women are to see off our language and anatomy and allow inclusion to basically write us out of an issue that mainly affects us.

I know men can also get breast cancer, but it’s in breast tissue, so using breast is entirely clear and anatomically correct.

On the same radio station I’ve heard adverts aimed at men to have their prostate checked - not once is this information muddied at all by falling over backwards to be inclusive to a small minority.

I thought we were heading out of this abysmal wasteland, but apparently not.

I have complained, but blah blah blah inclusion, kindness etc.

Oh for goodness sake, they are just trying to keep everyone safe.

The difference is, prostate checks arent called "bum checks" that "people" should be doing regularly. Or testicular checks as "groin checks" again for "people".

It's always womens issues that are co-opted by the weird language.

Just like cervical cancer awareness was aimed at “cervix owners” despite research showing that around 40% of women in the UK didn’t know they had a cervix?

Information to keep anyone healthy should at the very least be clear.
I have breasts, not a chest, and unless I was clued up on this inclusive wank I would assume it was aimed at men.

I haven't encountered this, but if health messaging tells me to check my chest, sans context, I'd think they meant my respiratory health. It can't be that outlandish to do so, given the term chest infection. There was public health messaging on the radio not long back reminding people that if a cough persists for more than three weeks, you should book an appointment with a GP, as part of a campaign to identify serious respiratory issues earlier.

i turn it down as soon as I hear it

My best guess is that they don't want trans men to die of breast cancer.

This gets you wound up? Well, you do you.

Trans men make up a tiny number of women (who are more likely to have breast cancer).

I get wound up that a very important campaign is lost on people because clarity of language around women and women’s issues is seen as somehow bigoted.

@Holdonforsummer and @AStonedRose does it give you any pause for thought that this "inclusivity and concern" only ever goes one way?

The campaign is fine. I am female. I don’t have any breasts - double mastectomy due to cancer, twice. I now have a chest. That chest also got breast cancer in it. I found the cancer by examining and feeling my chest. I am having treatment to my chest.

It's all over Global Player, Classic FM, Heart etc, it's very annoying. In the beginning it says it's a breast cancer awareness charity then goes on to avoid using the word breast. Boobs, chest and pecs, how much awareness does it thinks it's generating with that smorgasbord of words. I wonder where it gets it's funding from. 🤔

Yes but you have already admitted in your first post that men can get breast cancer too. I really despair at the vitriol spouted in the name of feminism on MN.

Women you mean? You’re being utterly ridiculous. So sick of this trans nonsense. These people didn’t even exist twenty years ago.

Next thing we know it’ll be renamed as chest cancer.

God help us all.

I’ve heard the Coppafeel adverts for some time now and I don’t think they leave you in any doubt that they are a breast cancer charity. They have been doing valuable work to raise awareness of the importance of checking your breasts, armpits, and chest for many years and I really don’t think it matters if they use words such as boobs and chest. Of course men get breast cancer too, and one of the women I became friendly with when I was having breast cancer treatment had been found to have a tumour in her chest wall, not just in her breast.

Clarity of language for all involved is vitriol?
Jesus wept, the hyperbole 🙄

Women denying the reality of their biology but their biology not listening to them. There's a lesson there.

I agree. Even David Lammy doesn't know what a cervix is, lots of people don't. There'll be women with English as a second language, and you won't find "cervix" on Duolingo. But everyone knows if they're biologically a woman or not (even if they identify as something else)

Yes but women don't have a prostate or testicles! The area we call breast is called chest for men. The other way round, I wouldn't want any term but ovaries (as in female specific) being used. Obviously men don't get ovarian cancer and we can't get testicular cancer.
And too many men don't realise they can get breast cancer, and most women don't want our sons/partners/friends at any more risk. There's already awful treatment towards men with it-one was asked to leave a breast cancerwaiting area because the NHS staff member didn't realise men could get it!

With Coppafeel rather than, say, Breast Cancer Now or TNBC UK (Triple Negative Breast Cancer UK) I get the impression they're trying to reach those who are in denial of having breasts and so are putting themselves at risk, as well as young women who assume its their mum's or grandmother's generations that will be affected.

I have TNBC and feel well supported by Breast Cancer Now - fantastic leaflets, website, phone lines on all aspects from being diagnosed, jargon and myth clarification, treatment options, in plain English; along with Cancer Research & Macmillan resources.

The Coppafeel adverts aren't speaking to me but to younger people (women and girls mostly), presumably in language they are more comfortable with hearing and using.

It seems a good thing to aim a campaign at them. Does it irritate me with its patronising tone? Well yes, but it's not meant for me, and when I found a lump, years of adverts came to mind and I knew what to do - hopefully the ads will serve the same purpose for another woman.

I agree. Chest as in chest infection.

I couldn't get worked up by this, I've heard the ad and it also uses the words breast. There's so many more important issues to focus on than complaining to or about a charity that is providing some really helpful resources for people with cancer, and their website and checking your breast guide allows you even to select terms of your preference.

I haven't come across 'chest' being used in this context. I agree that it would not just unnecessary but wrong: I know two women who died of cancer that was in their chest cavity - not in their lungs, not in their breasts, so 'chest cancer' is a thing, and 'breast cancer' is a different thing.

Are you seriously suggesting, AStonedRose, that transmen are so stupid that they think they can't get 'breast cancer' , unless the name isn't changed?
Or that they think smear tests don't apply to them if they are not directed at 'people with a cervix'?

Anybody who puts themselves through a physical transition to present as the opposite sex, but who doesn't understand that they haven't actually changed their sex and are still vulnerable to the sex-specific medical conditions that affect their biological sex, hasn't got much of a grasp on human biology.

It makes you wonder if they thought they were actually 'changing sex' when they transitioned. * *I think it would be more beneficial to keep the sex-specific language, and devote more time and energy into reminding transwomen that when it comes to health issues they are still men, and transmen that they are still women.

Making sure that transmen are aware that they are still women might be a more effective way of preventing them from dying of breast cancer, AStonedRose, than playing around with words.

Have a look at their video on their website ( https://coppafeel.org ). They are clearly encouraging actual men, not transmen.

I checked the incidence of breast cancers in the UK.
For men, it's 1.3 per 100,000.
For women, it's 165 per 100,000.

So yes, men should be aware - but that video implies men are at far more risk than they actually are - in other words, it's misleading. Why would they do that?

They'd have been far better making the point that everyone has breast tissue, even men. Using the word 'chest' just bypasses that fact.

That sounds like an “educate NHS staff” issue rather than a “remove female language” issue.

Of course men can get breast cancer, but it’s still in their breast tissue, so clarity is still important.

Breast cancer (and associated campaigning) isn’t remotely the same as prostate or cervical cancer, which can only affect biological males and females respectively. Chest is the gender neutral term, and as someone who’s had a double mastectomy due to breast cancer (and BRCA2 mutation), and whose uncle actually died from breast cancer, I can confirm that what I have is a chest, not breasts, and don’t see why anyone would find the term problematic if it encourages more people to check themselves.