Did you know?
How to raise awareness of ovarian cancer? Hmmm, let’s see…I know! Tell everyone men can get it provided they have ovaries!
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How to raise awareness of ovarian cancer? Hmmm, let’s see…I know! Tell everyone men can get it provided they have ovaries!
Could be just in the nick of time.
The answer to “can men get ovarian cancer?” is lying by omission, presumably to placate the TRAs.
The answer, of course, is no; only female people with ovaries and Fallopian tubes (there’s emerging evidence to suggest that ovarian cancer is related to endometrial cells migrating through the Fallopian tubes and becoming cancerous either on the way, or after settling on the ovaries), regardless of what they perceive their ‘gender identity’ to be, can get ovarian cancer. Both sexes can carry the BRCA gene fault or Lynch syndrome, meaning that their female children are at higher risk of ovarian cancer and other cancers of the female reproductive system (of course, both sexes are at risk of bowel cancer and other cancers with Lynch Syndrome).
Whilst deploring the confusing language used in this particular example, I’m fully in favour of informing the public of inherited genetic disorders. I inherited a genetic disposition to ovarian cancer from my father. Fortunately, I also got a de novo mutation in my genes for the connective tissue in my body, leading to the tumours on my ovaries being symptomatic whilst still at the pre-cancerous stage. Unlike my paternal aunt and great aunt, who died from ovarian cancer, I was able to have a total hysterectomy in my mid-thirties and so I’m still here thirty years later.
There is a big problem with stating it this way. I learned while I was teaching that a lot of people actually don’t know which sex has the ovaries. This was true even among my students who were planning on entering a medical field (most of them were freshmen) and among my students considered particularly gifted.
By writing it in that deliberately obfuscatory way, they could be misleading a lot of people, which could lead to confusion and problems with men trying to persuade their doctor they need to have their ovaries checked for cancer. I presume that would be mostly a tying up of the system as the doctor tried to explain; I don’t imagine any male would die from not getting his ovaries checked.
iknklast,
Right, and more specifically, the only “males” who might die from not having their ovaries checked would be trans men. I find it hard to imagine that any trans men are really under the impression that they have become immune to ovarian cancer because of how they identify, so whose “awareness” is being raised here?
Wait, really? A lot of people are confused about what ovaries are? No wonder we’re fucked.
As an aside I really would be interested in knowing if testosterone therapy (whatever its intended use) has any significant effects on the prospects for ovarian cancer; that is certainly going to be something no one ever studies.
BKiSA,
I don’t see how a lot of people not knowing what ovaries are means “we’re fucked.”
First, I guarantee you there was not some golden age in the past where everyone knew what ovaries were, so at a minimum we’re no more fucked than we’ve ever been. (For most of human history, roughly zero percent of humanity knew what an ovary was.)
Second, pretty much all of us have large gaps in our knowledge for things that aren’t terrible useful to us, and even some things that might be useful but we can function fine without. It’s pretty important to know that sex can lead to pregnancy, but not really of practical use to know the name, shape, or location of the internal organs that produce gametes. I know what ovaries are, but I have no idea what a carburetor is (other than “something cars have that is important to making them go vroom vroom”), and I couldn’t point to where the one in my car is. I’m not even sure if electric vehicles have them or not. No doubt there are a lot of people who would roll their eyes at that, deplore the terrible shape of modern masculinity, and say “this is why we’re fucked.”
I learnt about internal organs at school, because biology was a compulsory subject up to ‘O’ Level; along with English Language, English Literature, Mathematics, and French. We could elect our own additional four subjects from a restricted list; I took Spanish, Latin, Chemistry and Physics. Non-exam subjects such as sports, cooking, sewing, drama and such were compulsory too.
I have no idea what was taught in schools other than selective schools. It might well be that schools like mine – grammar schools taking the top five or ten percent of pupils – could teach a lot more detail than others. I know, for example that my husband – who went to a technical high school, and got more ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level passes than I did – has what I consider to be a woefully inadequate knowledge of biology.
The people who really, REALLY need to have an understanding of the symptoms of ovarian cancer are GPs, as they are the people that we first see with our odd symptoms. They’re also the people who should ask questions about family history, and send women for regular ultrasound scans; especially if there’s a known risk, but I strongly feel that they should be as routine as other tests like mammograms and cervical smear tests.
Screechy – Hmmm.
How about if it’s reworded to: “A lot of people who generally have basic knowledge are confused about what ovaries are? No wonder we’re fucked.”?
Schools do teach basic biology after all, and it is the kind of thing adults are expected to know unless they’re from disadvantaged groups who missed out on education.
Maybe you expect people to know it, but I don’t. I’ve forgotten lots of things I was taught in high school. I did very well in math, but if you asked me to solve some differential equations for you right now, I doubt I could do it without a refresher. Hell, I’ve forgotten lots of things I had to learn for the bar exam, because I don’t practice in those areas and have no occasion to use them.
I’m not really sure that knowing all human organs is “basic knowledge.” If so, then I suspect a lot of people, even educated ones, lack “basic knowledge.” Do I remember what exactly the gall bladder and duodenum do, or where they’re located? No, other than “something to do with digestion?’ and “uh, somewhere in the gut.” It’s just not relevant to me.
And again, I’ll return to my first point, which is — even if you think that we’re “fucked” if significant numbers of people don’t know what ovaries are, then we’ve been “fucked” since the dawn of time, and sure seem to be having an ok run of it.
Screechy, in my classes, people studying MEDICAL fields didn’t know what ovaries were AFTER having been taught. They did not retain the information long enough to get to the lab (which is what I taught). Kids in pre-med on the pig dissection test correctly identified the pig’s testicles, then identified the pig as female.
I have to agree with BKiSA on that – we are fucked. (This was not some small community college; it was a large research institution. These were the gifted students who were in a special, accelerated, advanced program.)
Well maybe I just think everyone knows what ovaries are because of years of absent-mindedly staring at the Tampax diagram.
Just googled “tampax diagram.” First item under “People also ask”:
“Which of the 3 holes does the tampon go in?”
Now I can’t stop laughing. Good night all.
If they are not sure, they could insert one into all three. What could possibly go wrong?
WARNING: Males who want to pretend they are females have a choice of only 2, not 3 of the said holes. They should proceed carefully, and with an emergency crew on standby.
Well it’s not like that time I stated to a group that the Renault FT-17 was the Devonian fish of tanks and was met with hostile silence (they didn’t know what an FT-17 or the Devonian fish were).
Is it any wonder people are pretending they don’t know what sex mammals are? Maybe they genuinely don’t know.