“Women need to not be shamed when they go looking for information on their bodies that isn’t available from our schools or our medical system.”
THIS. The birth control article from the post was a tone deaf train wreck, but perhaps the most infuriating part for me is that they discounted the actual lived experiences of women because they don’t have a degree.
No, I’m not a doctor. And, I don’t need a MD to tell *my story* of how birth control nearly ruined my mental health & my fertility.
The arrogance and condescension is just astounding, both in the medical profession and the media. Happily we have a choice in our providers and the media we support!
Great points here. I read the WP article and thought, really? One of the first practitioners they mention is a man, who’s pictured with a rainbow flag in the background and a “Facts are important” poster on the wall. Huh. What “facts” have most women been fed about our bodies by doctors?
I’m so thankful that after a miscarriage caused by a blot clot, just as I’d stopped using the birth control patch, that I stopped using hormonal BC altogether. Learning about my fertility—beginning with a book my husband bought me—was so empowering. I hope more women keep learning about their own bodies, patterns, and fertility. A plug here for NaPro fertility methods (short for natural procreative) and a re-plug for pelvic floor therapy, too. :)
So gross, that poster. Trying to make people who seek out any information for themselves outside of mainstream medicine out to be dumb conspiracy theorists.
It’s truly life-changing. Thanks for sharing a bit of your story. And I haven’t done anything w NaPro personally but know it’s amazing and always recommend a local midwife who does it!
I need pelvic floor therapy!! (Don’t we all? Shouldn’t it be standard for maternal care?)
I plug NaPro in a forthcoming piece for the European Conservative! It was a book review but I found a way to work in women’s heath because this stuff enrages me to no end. :’)
Feminism is not on the side of women. It was, for about two weeks in the late 60s/early 70s. It has been since then an ‘anti-human’ anti-baby movement. Nothing else. Side effects of BCPs? Who cares? You didn’t have a baby, right? It is anti-baby and apparently its other main concern is achieving 50% of Billionaires being female. Which might in their ‘perfect’ world affect about 200 people.
Love this!!! It super frustrates me that we solely teach girls hygiene control in relation to menstruation and not the actual biological and physiological processes. Most women think their cycle is 4-7 days of bleeding or their period. But it’s not!
Preach it louder! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 I’m in my mid 20s and unlearning so much that was wrongly enforced on me, particularly in school, social settings with peers, and the coldness of a doctor’s room. It’s empowering and enraging all at once!
I love these conversations, and so I ask us now— to the shrewd-eyed folk wanting to learn about the physiology, anatomy and power of our female bodies, where do we look to? What resources can we trust? I’m wondering this as I start to look to the wonders of birth… and find myself clueless in the chaos!
I’m sorry I didn’t reply to this sooner! There are so many great resources out there, but you do sort of have to be a rebel and go out and find them. I’m going to put it on my to-do list to create a post as this topic is a passion of mine and I’ve been self-educating for about a decade. It’s so great you’re looking toward birth👏🏼😍
The Catholics call it natural family planning (NFP) and have robust resources on it because it’s the only licit family planning method. There are a few different methods, but looking into NFP will get you going in the right direction.
Yes, yes, and yes! I was also one of the many on hormonal bc during puberty. In my late 20s after getting desperate, I started learning about tracking with fertility awareness methods. Never looked back, life changing. I guess what struck the most was that I was never offered or told about it by my medical provider! Oh, you don’t want hormones? How about a copper IUD? lol!
Yeah, I’ve learned that physicians —even OBGYNs— do not get any extensive training in women’s cycles. They get more on artificial birth control. There’s an organization founded by a physician called FACTS About Fertility seeking to fill this gap, but ooooweeee, the doctors just literally are not being taught.
Now that would be an article I’d like to read: an analysis of what OB/GYNs learn about FAM (if anything) and birth control, and how much emphasis is placed on each. That would explain a lot about women’s experiences with the medical profession.
Okay, so this is the interview. Fascinating hearing from a DOCTOR who discovered fertility awareness well into her medical career. Amazed that people can go through med school and not learn..... how the female body works in its entirety. lol
Nice; thanks for sharing! I was going to say that the founder of The Cycle Show is a doctor, German, and she created everything she's created out of a sense of shock at how much there was to know about the female body that she didn't get in medical school.
I appreciate the focus on agency here and what that actually means and can look like. I think when mainstream feminism is so focused on abortion access and contraception, they are missing the more important priorities that should be addressed first and foremost. There is too much focus on frantic debate over deeply upsetting and divisive topics and way too little focus on the sort of prophylactic foundational basics like cycle charting, physiological birth and women being able to stay home with small children (and on society actually being supportive of that necessity).
How funny that those sorts of topics are the ones we have to go rogue on when looking for information about them-because the information on the basics either just isn’t there when it comes to the medical system-or it is biased/based on flawed research/wrong.
I am so sick of the word “misinformation” too-like, it’s all just information! Leave it up to individuals to figure out the “mis” part because we clearly cannot trust the media or even certain experts to do so.
Thank you. As a doula and breastfeeding counselor, I agree wholeheartedly. Women have been sold a pack of lies for so long that they believe their power requires a pill or medical procedure rather than the autonomy that comes with deep knowledge of their own bodies and cycles etc. We have so much choice if only we’d wake up to it.
Well said!! We need more women speaking up about these realities - maybe our voices will finally be heard - if not by the minority running mainstream media, by the women who do want help understanding their bodies better.
FWIW….men have no clue about their reproductive system either. Never taught anywhere. You have to go out of your way to find out, and usually you only do this when something has gone wrong.
True. But women’s is so beautiful and rich. I can imagine a feminist world where a woman’s fertility is thought of with reverence and awe, not as a burden to be managed and suppressed at any cost (to the woman)
I don’t agree with everything you’ve written but I am *so* thankful that you are having this conversation loudly and boldly. Your points about birth & breastfeeding struck me in particular, having just been traumatised a system aimed at medical efficiency rather than holistic care and nurturing of new mums. It needs to be done better - so thank you thank you thank you.
My oldest is approaching puberty and I am slowly walking her through these issues, as one after the other of her friends start their cycles. My own mama gave me 1 (embarrassed and embarrassing) “birds and the bees” talk. The first conversations with my own daughter were a bit jittery, but as they go on, we get more and more comfortable with each of us bringing up the things we want to talk about on our own time. It’s not the “birds and the bees” I grew up with so much as unveiling a new, more grown-up topic my daughter is now invited to the conversation of.
I agree 100% with every single point you make here.
"I was prescribed birth control as a teenager for my cramps, and also to help improve my skin." -> I literally wrote a piece on the WaPo article that opened pretty much the same way. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but it's CRAZY the amount of girls who went through the same thing, given the pill because it was the default "solution" to the "problem" of our body and maintained in total ignorance. I hope the current backlash is a sign that things will be different for future generations of girls.
It's so insane. I think things will definitely be different for future generations: women are waking up in droves. But we do need to keep pushing and speaking up, IMO. The forces against us are powerful.
“Women need to not be shamed when they go looking for information on their bodies that isn’t available from our schools or our medical system.”
THIS. The birth control article from the post was a tone deaf train wreck, but perhaps the most infuriating part for me is that they discounted the actual lived experiences of women because they don’t have a degree.
No, I’m not a doctor. And, I don’t need a MD to tell *my story* of how birth control nearly ruined my mental health & my fertility.
The arrogance and condescension is just astounding, both in the medical profession and the media. Happily we have a choice in our providers and the media we support!
Also I’m sorry for what you experienced!❤️❤️
Ahh. Yes. That good old fashioned smugness that feminists just can’t seem to shake. 🤦♀️
Great points here. I read the WP article and thought, really? One of the first practitioners they mention is a man, who’s pictured with a rainbow flag in the background and a “Facts are important” poster on the wall. Huh. What “facts” have most women been fed about our bodies by doctors?
I’m so thankful that after a miscarriage caused by a blot clot, just as I’d stopped using the birth control patch, that I stopped using hormonal BC altogether. Learning about my fertility—beginning with a book my husband bought me—was so empowering. I hope more women keep learning about their own bodies, patterns, and fertility. A plug here for NaPro fertility methods (short for natural procreative) and a re-plug for pelvic floor therapy, too. :)
So gross, that poster. Trying to make people who seek out any information for themselves outside of mainstream medicine out to be dumb conspiracy theorists.
It’s truly life-changing. Thanks for sharing a bit of your story. And I haven’t done anything w NaPro personally but know it’s amazing and always recommend a local midwife who does it!
I need pelvic floor therapy!! (Don’t we all? Shouldn’t it be standard for maternal care?)
I plug NaPro in a forthcoming piece for the European Conservative! It was a book review but I found a way to work in women’s heath because this stuff enrages me to no end. :’)
Awesome! I look forward to reading this!
Feminism is not on the side of women. It was, for about two weeks in the late 60s/early 70s. It has been since then an ‘anti-human’ anti-baby movement. Nothing else. Side effects of BCPs? Who cares? You didn’t have a baby, right? It is anti-baby and apparently its other main concern is achieving 50% of Billionaires being female. Which might in their ‘perfect’ world affect about 200 people.
Love this!!! It super frustrates me that we solely teach girls hygiene control in relation to menstruation and not the actual biological and physiological processes. Most women think their cycle is 4-7 days of bleeding or their period. But it’s not!
Yeeees. This is so true.
Exactly!
Preach it louder! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 I’m in my mid 20s and unlearning so much that was wrongly enforced on me, particularly in school, social settings with peers, and the coldness of a doctor’s room. It’s empowering and enraging all at once!
I love these conversations, and so I ask us now— to the shrewd-eyed folk wanting to learn about the physiology, anatomy and power of our female bodies, where do we look to? What resources can we trust? I’m wondering this as I start to look to the wonders of birth… and find myself clueless in the chaos!
I’m sorry I didn’t reply to this sooner! There are so many great resources out there, but you do sort of have to be a rebel and go out and find them. I’m going to put it on my to-do list to create a post as this topic is a passion of mine and I’ve been self-educating for about a decade. It’s so great you’re looking toward birth👏🏼😍
Would love and look forward to this! Thanks for the reply.
Right now I find discussions and stories to be most powerful. So please keep sharing!
The Catholics call it natural family planning (NFP) and have robust resources on it because it’s the only licit family planning method. There are a few different methods, but looking into NFP will get you going in the right direction.
Re:birth try Ina May’s Guide to Midwifery -classic
Yes, yes, and yes! I was also one of the many on hormonal bc during puberty. In my late 20s after getting desperate, I started learning about tracking with fertility awareness methods. Never looked back, life changing. I guess what struck the most was that I was never offered or told about it by my medical provider! Oh, you don’t want hormones? How about a copper IUD? lol!
Yeah, unfortunately mainstream medicine is set up to offer procedures or medication. It isn’t without value, of course, but it’s lacking.
Yeah, I’ve learned that physicians —even OBGYNs— do not get any extensive training in women’s cycles. They get more on artificial birth control. There’s an organization founded by a physician called FACTS About Fertility seeking to fill this gap, but ooooweeee, the doctors just literally are not being taught.
Now that would be an article I’d like to read: an analysis of what OB/GYNs learn about FAM (if anything) and birth control, and how much emphasis is placed on each. That would explain a lot about women’s experiences with the medical profession.
Okay, so this is the interview. Fascinating hearing from a DOCTOR who discovered fertility awareness well into her medical career. Amazed that people can go through med school and not learn..... how the female body works in its entirety. lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SXppJdmpjo
Nice; thanks for sharing! I was going to say that the founder of The Cycle Show is a doctor, German, and she created everything she's created out of a sense of shock at how much there was to know about the female body that she didn't get in medical school.
This was SO GOOD! Thanks so much for sharing!
There’s a podcast I listened to a while back with the founder talking about this — I’ll try to dig it up
I appreciate the focus on agency here and what that actually means and can look like. I think when mainstream feminism is so focused on abortion access and contraception, they are missing the more important priorities that should be addressed first and foremost. There is too much focus on frantic debate over deeply upsetting and divisive topics and way too little focus on the sort of prophylactic foundational basics like cycle charting, physiological birth and women being able to stay home with small children (and on society actually being supportive of that necessity).
How funny that those sorts of topics are the ones we have to go rogue on when looking for information about them-because the information on the basics either just isn’t there when it comes to the medical system-or it is biased/based on flawed research/wrong.
I am so sick of the word “misinformation” too-like, it’s all just information! Leave it up to individuals to figure out the “mis” part because we clearly cannot trust the media or even certain experts to do so.
Thank you. As a doula and breastfeeding counselor, I agree wholeheartedly. Women have been sold a pack of lies for so long that they believe their power requires a pill or medical procedure rather than the autonomy that comes with deep knowledge of their own bodies and cycles etc. We have so much choice if only we’d wake up to it.
🙌🏼🙌🏼
Well said!! We need more women speaking up about these realities - maybe our voices will finally be heard - if not by the minority running mainstream media, by the women who do want help understanding their bodies better.
FWIW….men have no clue about their reproductive system either. Never taught anywhere. You have to go out of your way to find out, and usually you only do this when something has gone wrong.
True. But women’s is so beautiful and rich. I can imagine a feminist world where a woman’s fertility is thought of with reverence and awe, not as a burden to be managed and suppressed at any cost (to the woman)
I don’t agree with everything you’ve written but I am *so* thankful that you are having this conversation loudly and boldly. Your points about birth & breastfeeding struck me in particular, having just been traumatised a system aimed at medical efficiency rather than holistic care and nurturing of new mums. It needs to be done better - so thank you thank you thank you.
I’m sorry😭❤️ I have a very strong passion around birth and issues of early motherhood. You deserve(d) so much better!
Thank you for your words and your perspective is welcome here! I never claim to have all the answers but I am committed to sharing how I see things.
Thanks! It makes me cross/sad how many others have had a similar experience.
My oldest is approaching puberty and I am slowly walking her through these issues, as one after the other of her friends start their cycles. My own mama gave me 1 (embarrassed and embarrassing) “birds and the bees” talk. The first conversations with my own daughter were a bit jittery, but as they go on, we get more and more comfortable with each of us bringing up the things we want to talk about on our own time. It’s not the “birds and the bees” I grew up with so much as unveiling a new, more grown-up topic my daughter is now invited to the conversation of.
🙌🏼🙌🏼 love it. If we can shift things for the next generation it doesn’t have to be like this for them! I’m working right alongside you there!
Woot 💯🧡🙌
This is so good!
Nice! Thank you for bravely standing up for real women’s health!
I agree 100% with every single point you make here.
"I was prescribed birth control as a teenager for my cramps, and also to help improve my skin." -> I literally wrote a piece on the WaPo article that opened pretty much the same way. I don't know whether to laugh or cry, but it's CRAZY the amount of girls who went through the same thing, given the pill because it was the default "solution" to the "problem" of our body and maintained in total ignorance. I hope the current backlash is a sign that things will be different for future generations of girls.
It's so insane. I think things will definitely be different for future generations: women are waking up in droves. But we do need to keep pushing and speaking up, IMO. The forces against us are powerful.
Yes to all of this!
And to raising our daughters empowered, educated and proud 🌀🩸
Thanks for your comment, Stephanie! Yes! (I have three!)