Dear friend,
The cat is out of the bag: women are dissatisfied with the birth control status quo. They want something better. Over the past year, the hashtags #naturalbirthcontrol and #gettingoffbirthcontrol have gone viral. The mainstream media can no longer ignore it, and their condescending responses to the trend are telling, as NW writer Jasmine Adams breaks down for us this week.
The themes behind this week’s three new articles speak to the burgeoning movement of young women who are daring to question the conventional wisdom pushed on their grandmothers and mothers. They’re discovering the truth that periods are not taboo, birth control is NOT the linchpin to their happiness and wholeness as women, and when it comes to their reproductive health, mainstream medicine does NOT know best.
Two stories in particular give us hope that women are more eager (and motivated) than ever before to be the change that is so desperately needed to advance authentic women’s health:
- Former Broadway actress Stacey Sumereau’s hard-learned lessons in self-advocacy during two complicated, high-stakes pregnancies,
- NW writer Kristen Curran’s realization that openness to asking questions and sharing our period experiences with one another is a key part of empowering young women to care for their uniquely female bodies. (Both of these stories are newly published on the website this week!)
Perhaps no one holds more power in this regard than mothers raising young children—and young daughters in particular. As the mother of two young daughters myself, I consider it an immense responsibility and a privilege to be part of the movement breaking the cycle of fear and shame around female bodies and female fertility—to be raising the next generation of women who will see their cycles and their ability to carry life as a beautiful feature of their female bodies, instead of the bug our culture has made it out to be.
All the best,
Grace Emily Stark
Editor
Natural Womanhood
| Social media’s reckoning with #naturalbirthcontrol Given that the predominant media narrative has historically and uncritically celebrated hormonal birth control as a necessary tool for women’s empowerment, it’s a pleasant surprise to see content realistically portraying hormonal birth control as bad for women gaining bandwidth. Click here to read the full article. |
| When you’re pregnant and your doctor won’t listen to your concerns: Lessons in self-advocacy when the stakes are high What do you do when your doctor won’t listen to your concerns that something is wrong with you or your preborn baby? What does self-advocacy during pregnancy look like when there’s a doctor-patient power differential, when the person with the medical degrees is telling you there’s nothing to worry about, but your body is telling you there is? And how does experience with charting your body’s signs of fertility through fertility awareness prepare you to self-advocate? Click here to read the full article. |
| Things my friends taught me about periods (that I wish my Mom had talked to me about first) I’m sharing the most impactful fertility- and menstrual-cycle related conversations I’ve had with my peers over the course of my life. I hope my sharing will show moms that girls at every age are hungry for this information, leading them to have conversations with their own daughters about periods! Click here to read the full article. |