It’s not uncommon for celebrities to realize that their stage can also serve as a platform for the causes most important to them. We’ve talked before about Halsey’s openness about her experience with endometriosis, but singer Olivia Rodrigo is taking a different stance in promoting “reproductive health freedom.”
Rodrigo is donating a portion of her North American concert proceeds to the National Network of Abortion Funds, and one of the groups in this network provided St. Louis concert-goers with free Plan B emergency contraception and condoms this past spring (note: different sections of her tour have different charitable causes). And while I’m sure Olivia Rodrigo sang her hit “Driver’s License” at her St. Louis concert, I’m betting she didn’t explain to her young fans how Plan B works or what they should consider before taking it. Aside from placing young Disney Channel fans in the moral predicament of indirectly funding abortions by their ticket purchase, the distribution of Plan B at her concert also drives home the dismissive nature of mainstream women’s health.
Rodrigo’s approach mirrors conventional medicine’s hands-off approach to women’s health
Handing out a high dose of levonorgestrel to someone walking around downtown St. Louis at night feels more like a weird drug deal than promoting women’s health. However, the “here’s your pill, good luck” approach represents a lot of women’s experiences with health care.
For example, Opill is now available without a prescription, so women no longer need to be seen by a physician before starting that form of hormonal birth control. Other times, birth control is prescribed as a go-to fix for issues like acne, painful or irregular periods, or PMS–without first looking for a root cause. And, as of 2020, even the abortion pill no longer needs to be dispensed in-person. There is little interaction with medical professionals, little or no follow-up, and women are ultimately left to deal with their problems on their own.
So, what’s the alternative?
Teaching a woman how to chart her cycle means being a part of her story. It involves lots of education, lots of follow-up, and being with her in the most vulnerable, difficult, or even heart-breaking moments of her life. Ultimately, authentic women’s health comes down to relationships. In the realm of women’s health, there are many factors to consider. Her hormone levels, her cycle patterns, her lifestyle, her personal and family history, symptoms in other body systems are all parts of the puzzle in understanding reproductive health. Furthermore, tracking fertility or treating a medical condition should also take into account a woman’s stage in life, reproductive hopes, and lifestyle; in other words, it involves actually getting to know her.
What would it look like for celebrities to really promote women’s health?
Ah, the real question. If I don’t like the Plan B tabling outside of Olivia Rodrigo’s concert, what would I want to see instead? I just outlined how really investing in a woman’s health involves getting to know her, something far more difficult, expensive, and time-consuming than handing out pills. I think if a celebrity were interested in promoting women’s health, since she can’t realistically inquire about the health of each woman at her concert, it might involve 1) personally learning fertility awareness and finding capable providers who can serve her in her health concerns and 2) having the courage and vulnerability to let fans see that part of her life.
It might involve being open about charting and other practices that support a woman as a whole person, like having a doula when giving birth. It might involve sharing the difficulties and benefits of her fertility awareness journey, and how it’s served her better than birth control. In those ways, she could let her fans know that they, too, can ask for more than a pill when it comes to their whole-body health.
Perhaps this feels like a lot to ask from celebrities, who may be under considerable pressure to not let their bodies “get in the way” of their busy schedules. So, rather than waiting for a FAM enthusiast American Idol to come along, you can promote women’s health in your own community, college campus, or through your continued support of Natural Womanhood to support the relationships and education that empower and equip women to live healthy lives.
Additional Reading:
Celebrities with endometriosis: What we wish they knew
Why do so many doctors prefer birth control to fertility awareness methods?
