by The MotherMind Doctor
Is it any wonder there is a shroud of mystery around women and women’s health?
It’s a common theme to vilify female figures. Afterall, the witch is a popular repository for abuse, dating back as far as the 1400s in the Hammer of Witches, the best known treatise about witchcraft, outlining how to hunt and persecute them because “When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil.”
When I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s, household female figures were also the ideological focus as nasty mother-in-laws and evil stepmothers. My sister and I played into this when we felt unfairly treated by allocating each respective one with a title such as the Step-Monster (in homage to St Elmo’s Fire). The last one was known as the Step Witch but then she used to joke that she was a witch, while literally cackling, wearing black and shaking her shock of white unruly hair.
Australia’s first female prime minister was disparaged as a witch and a bitch as recently as 2011. The whole country allowed this to be perpetuated. Thankfully, Julia Gillard responded in a famous speech in the Australian parliament about the opposition’s misogyny.
Even the female hormone cycle was incorporated into denigration. The idea of variable emotions in relation to your menstral cycle was seen as weakness so open season has long been declared and jokes abounded: “Have you got your rags?” was a popular taunt in schools. No-one thought to question it and if anyone suffered from it, it was quickly hidden in shame.
Women’s health needs were considered low priority when women were underrepresented in science and medicine. The women’s movement of the 70’s helped to change that but was quickly dampened by the thalidomide disaster in many countries after the sedative resulted in birth defects. Again, women’s studies excluded any women of childbearing potential (even if they used the oral contraceptive pill). In the mid 80’s there was an attempt of sorts to address this but only when the first female NIH director (National Institute of Health USA) was appointed in 1991, was a study of 15,000 postmenopausal women conducted specifically about treatments for that demographic. Then in 1993 a law was passed to include women in clinical trials research. Only 30 years ago!
In the book, Feminine Forever, Dr Robert Wilson claimed that “menopause is a hormone deficiency disease, curable and totally preventable, just take estrogen”.
Unfortunately support for women’s treatments has been variable, particularly when discovery of risks such as breast cancer were widely publicised and misinterpreted. Since then, the positive effects of hormone replacement to help a multitude of symptoms as well as prevent chronic disease has largely been overlooked. Afterall, it’s not sensational enough for a headline. Dr Louise Newson's book on the subject helps to dispel those myths and is worth reading.
Now there is a generation of women who are advocating loudly with movements such as #MeToo regarding poor behaviour against women. Advancements in the law such as the new psychological safety requirements at work provide an avenue to seek recompense when needed.
But we still have a long way to go to recognise the malignment of women, as reflected in our appalling statistics of domestic violence or IPV (intimate partner violence). A quarter of women (and 1 in 14 men) have experienced physical or sexual abuse by a partner, almost as many (23%) have experienced emotional abuse and 16%, financial abuse.
I remember sage advice given to me as a teen if I were to be confronted with an attacker was ‘to not resist’ in order to survive such an event. I have to admit I was appalled that submission was the suggested option. It implies acceptance of the situation which seems contrary to our social construct.
Now that sisters are doing it for themselves in this time of the fourth wave of feminism, more women feel empowered to be able to advocate for their freedom, health and safety.
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