In the UK, we are facing a critical shortage of mammographers — the very professionals tasked with performing potentially life-saving breast screenings. The Society of Radiographers warns that vacancy rates are reaching crisis levels: 17.5% for screening mammographers, and a staggering 20% for those specialising in symptomatic cases. These aren’t mere numbers — they represent longer waits and later diagnoses for women like me, who carry a family history of breast cancer.
So, when I hear politicians like Kemi Badenoch cast aspersions on the idea of male mammographers, describing the process as “intrusive” and declaring she “would not want a man doing that,” I feel not just irritated, but enraged. This is not the time for Victorian prudery dressed up as policy. We are talking about medical professionals trained to detect a disease that kills 11,000 women in the UK each year. What’s in their trousers shouldn’t matter one jot.
Currently, only women are trained as mammographers in the NHS. It’s a rigorous four-year training programme, and if men are willing to undertake that demanding path, then let them. We need all hands — and genders — on deck. My own mother survived breast cancer, but not before it evaded detection on standard mammography due to “dense breasts.” I’ll need an MRI when I turn 40, and the idea that I should care whether the person operating the machine is male or female is, frankly, laughable.
This isn’t theoretical. I’ve had male doctors conduct smear tests, perform biopsies, and insert contraceptive devices. I’ve met my cervix on a monitor — courtesy of a colposcopy performed by a kind, respectful male doctor. At no point did I feel uncomfortable or vulnerable. On the contrary, I felt safe, seen, and cared for. The suggestion that their professionalism is somehow undermined by their gender is offensive to them and dangerous to us.
Let’s not forget that many of the country’s top breast cancer surgeons are men. Are we to demand a woman-only mammogram, then recoil at the idea of a male surgeon performing our life-saving mastectomy or reconstruction? Shall we insist that only women can be present during childbirth, like royal consorts entering medieval confinement?
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This pearl-clutching feeds into a far more sinister narrative — one that seeks to sexualise women’s bodies even in clinical settings and police who can and cannot be in proximity to them. It’s transphobia dressed in the cloak of “concern.” It’s the same logic that wants to see trans women banned from public loos and hospital wards. If we start down this path, what’s next? Demanding sexual orientation disclosures from lesbian or bisexual nurses performing breast exams?
Badenoch’s rhetoric is not only anti-science and anti-feminist, it is dangerous. It risks frightening women away from crucial screenings — all in the name of some imagined threat from male professionals. There’s no time for moral panic when our lives are at stake.
The truth is simple: medical procedures sometimes involve nudity and physical contact. That is not shameful. It is necessary. And it is, most of all, lifesaving.
If we want to preserve women’s health, we must prioritise competence over chromosomes. If that means more men stepping into mammography roles, then hand them the training manuals and let’s get on with it.
Because these breasts aren’t going to X-ray themselves.
