(warning: this article will contain spoilers.)

What was once a profitable marketing ploy may be falling out of trend, thanks to new author Caro Claire Burke’s bestselling novel Yesteryear.

Though the novel came out earlier this spring, its relevance may be just now peaking as we are beginning to see the actual cultural shifts and implications of this type of media being popularized (and, allegedly, a soon to be a movie starring Anne Hathaway.)

Yesteryear is a fiction work which revolves around hardly-likeable self-proclaimed ‘tradwife influencer’ Natalie Heller Mills. Natalie is an excruciatingly obvious parody of Hannah Neeleman of Ballerina Farms, to the point where if I were Hannah maybe I’d call Hathaway and just offer to star in it myself.

Hannah first went viral, in the general internet space outside of the homesteading conservative niche, when her husband, Daniel Neeleman, gifted her an apron with egg-sized pockets (for the chicken coop, I guess) for her birthday rather than the trip to Italy she asked for. Though the video itself warranted a pitiful response from viewers, it intensified tenfold when the audience then discovered she had dropped out of Julliard and given up a promising career as a professional Ballerina to be a tradwife. The blame often gets placed on Daniel (who, admittedly, did very pervy things to get her to marry him, such as sequester his father (owner of JetBlue) to arrange to have the same flight home as her after she rejected him), but Hannah insists she made these decisions on her own accord.

(also, it doesn’t help that Hannah actually commented on Yesteryear and gave probably the most Natalie Heller Mills response she could have possibly given.)

The ‘tradwife’ gimmick made great money for several years, and Hannah is far from the first woman to capitalize off of it. But recently, they’ve begun to change their tune; rather than leaning into the facade, now that the hypocrisy has been laid out clearly by many essayists and critics, women like Hannah are claiming they’ve never owned the ‘Tradwife’ title.

Nara Smith did this most recently, even going as far as to claim she ‘didn’t even know the definition of tradwife’ which I wrote about here:

In Yesteryear, Natalie refers to her audience as one of two things: stupid, or angry.

For the most part, I think this element probably rings true. The stupidity (or naivety) of viewers is the assumption that a woman who earns big doing full-time content creation can even be an honest-to-God Tradwife. They take what they see at face value; a woman cooking in an old-timey kitchen, from scratch. These are the people they aim to fool by laughing in interviews at the ridiculous accusation of Trad-wivery (because obviously, they are actually business women).

The other half, the ‘Angry Women’, as Natalie calls them, drive virality far more than the genuine followers. Engagement comes in many forms online, all of which drive viewership and thus may qualify creators for monetization. For example, the young woman below went stammeringly viral last week with this video:

(It took her less than two weeks to make a statement walking it back after rolling out more inflammatory content, claiming she ‘saw an opportunity and seized it.’)

In Yesteryear, Burke tries to speak to the two-way street of judgement and assumptions that come from both the ‘trad women’ and ‘feminists’. Natalie judges and shames women unlike her, while the ‘Angry Women’ do the same, both taking up an unhealthy amount of each other’s brain space. Simultaneously, Natalie is deeply dissatisfied and her feelings of resentment come from a place of projection and jealousy.

And while I understand the sentiment, I think this is lacking a critical social element: class. I’m not sure you could convince me someone with access to exuberant wealth (and therefore, help) would be at all jealous of an average career woman. Natalie feels the tension of her position acutely because she and Caleb don’t have their own net worth, rather they are funded by Caleb’s rich politician father. Though it’s unclear how Doug made his money to begin with.

Do I think the ‘19 year old SAHM’ rage-bait content by middle-class teenagers is some amount of cope and projection? Absolutely. Do I think that applies to millionaires like Hannah Neeleman? I’m not sure. I doubt Hannah would be left with nothing to her name, in the instance she were to be abandoned by her husband. I interpret this commentary from Burke as more so pertaining to women who are not influencers, but extremists within their lifestyle, in which this obsessive comparison seems a lot more tangible.

When it comes to Natalie’s character development throughout the novel, I have complex feelings. I think the foundation that was laid for her character (born and raised in a fundamentalist-adjacent church) doesn’t exactly match the influencer version. Though it may be possible she doesn’t actually beleive the religious doctrine she grew up with, given her submitting to a performance of womanhood and religiosity as a coping mechanism for her circumstances.

Though Burke does a great job satirizing influencing with ‘Online Natalie’, by pulling from Ballerina Farm and Ruby Franke as cultural references, she completely misses the mark with general ‘MAGA’ culture, which is what Caleb and his family are presumed to represent. Caleb is presented as a sweet and loving, yet incredibly ignorant and gullible character; his introduction to conspiracy and the ‘manosphere’ tracks. However, the Shannon of it all seems very ill-fitting.

As much as I wish a few good-faith conversations refuting MAGA talking points with facts could actually change their opinion, this is not how propaganda works. The key proponent of Trumpism is an unwavering loyalty, hence, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters". (If there was a line to be crossed that would eliminate Trump from the public sphere, we are now a light year past that.)

Presumably, Caleb being part of the manosphere would mean he probably wouldn’t even entertain a conversation with an alternative liberal woman like Shannon, much less change his entire belief system. The affair itself is not unbelievable, but the notion that he would abandon his ranch for this liberal city woman is far-fetched and to me, feels like lazy writing. I get that we wanted Natalie to finally be served what she had been dishing out to other women and her own sister, but I don’t think doing it this way made sense nor is it saying anything genuine about American politics.

Caleb’s unveiling in the 1800’s storyline, however, I found very poignant. In the present, he is portrayed as somewhat harmless; but ‘Old Caleb’ is a wife-beater. In the end, he ultimately gets everything he wanted - to be praised as a great farmer by his family while not actually doing anything. His life really doesn’t change much in the transition from modern to pioneer living, given that he can sneak off and enjoy modern comforts during the day and is being continually serviced by his wife and eldest daughter. While as a reader, we probably would’ve been satisfied in him ultimately suffering in the conclusion, he gets off easy (as they usually do), while Natalie is serving prison time.

Though it seems Burke herself advertized the novel as satirizing influencer culture and tradwives, there is actually very little said in the story’s messaging. The tradwife ‘influencer hypocrisy’ (selling an image of perfection that doesn’t exist) was already obvious to most people who were going to read this book.

Instead, Yesteryear tells a story I think is actually about the performance of womanhood (in a religious context) and how it creates a personal hell for women like Natalie. The art of performing (femininity, happiness, motherhood etc) is one that is intrinsically relatable to many women and in all regards, being socialized under patriarchy we fall victim to the ‘ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole’, as Margaret Atwood puts it, in various ways.

While I still think this is an important and interesting point to bring up, and one that probably resonates with the intended audience, I can understand why people felt slighted by the advertising of the novel. It didn’t deliver solid criticism or commentary of tradwivery in it of itself in our current political atmosphere.

Many people have mixed feelings regarding the novel’s ending, and to be honest, I have to agree with the criticism. Though demonstrating Natalie’s descent into madness through the 1800’s plotline is conceptually very interesting, the ‘big reveal’ didn’t feel fully fleshed out to me. As a writer, it comes across as a rushed ending in a mad dash to publish this book while the concept would still be relevant. This is also obvious by the editing (or apparent lack thereof?).

Overall, I actually did finish the book rather fast and found it to be an entertaining and at points, relatable read. However, I don’t think it is some big whistleblowing tell-all about tradwivery, influencers, or politics, nor do I think it threatens the niche from continuing to exist online.

It’s definitely interesting that figures like Hannah Neeleman and Nara Smith are backing off the tradwife title. But I think it’s highly unlikely their kids will turn out anything like previous child-influencers-turned-activist (as Clementine and Mary did). They will be wealthy trust fund kids just like the other nepo babies of our generation.

anyways, if you read the book, let me know your thoughts! thanks for reading.

You might be sick of hearing about ‘trad wives’ and quite frankly, I am too. The plethora of discourse, which tends to devolve into circular conversations about choice feminism, has been relentless for months.

And while the discourse has become more lucrative, the expert internet grifters (…trad wives?) have to try even harder to shock us for views and revenue, even if they inadvertently end up making a mockery of themselves:

I’ve written about Nara Smith’s influence before (in this piece), particularly her impact on women’s wellness. One might say her brand is about cooking and ‘clean’ recipes (which ties her to the wellness influencer category), but I disagree. I think her niche is simply wealth, which she portrays expertly by dressing in outrageously expensive, runway-esque getups while filming her cooking videos.

While doing this, she creates a very interesting dilemma for herself and her audience: ‘doing a bit’, versus selling a genuine cooking and recipe based brand, via her cookbook of ‘from scratch’ recipes.

Obviously, nobody believes that she actually cooks like this every day in these outfits outside of filming. She doesn’t even actually eat everything ‘from scratch’, as she often states in these videos; she’s posted herself eating takeout and various fast food items many times. The absurdity and strangeness of her appearance is part of her marketing strategy.

And yet, even if the cooking content doesn’t try to be earnest and most people understand this, she will probably still get decent sales on her cookbook. People will try her recipes, and people will take her cooking advice at face value. Even if she tries to make it obvious her over content is meant to be funny or satirical, the marketing ultimately works and she has cultivated a brand with this imagery.

But, there’s another layer at play here. She isn’t just a figurehead for cooking content, wealth and luxury; she also carries the ‘trad-wife’ title. This assumption and projection of traditional conservatism onto her, however untrue it may be to her actual life, is another calculated theme in her branding.

It isn’t presumptuous of her audience to assume she has these values, based on her presentation. She is a woman who films almost exclusively in the kitchen, and starts her cooking videos by disclaiming that her meal is by request of her husband or children. But, more importantly, she is a very young mother and wife, having been married at just 18 and given birth for the first time a year later. She now has four children at 24 years old, and has multiple videos discussing her decision to skip education to start a family as a teenager.

(She also gives her children extremely outlandish names, such as Rumble and Slim, which is only funny because this is happening at the same time this article by Washington Post Opinion section is going viral for claiming the propensity for liberals to choose classic names over unique ones is an example of ‘luxury values’.)

Her husband, Lucky Blue Smith, comes from a family of wealth and mormonism. The book of mormon appears many times throughout her content and in her ‘day-in-the-life’ videos (though she claims to not be an active member of the LDS church).

Each video she makes is voice-overed with a tone I can only describe as akin to the ‘fundie voice’: extremely soft, almost whisper-like. (This term comes from the Netflix documentary on fundamentalist LDS culture, Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey.)

This week, Nara appeared on influencer Alex Cooper’s podcast 'Call Her Daddy’. While CHD is anything but quality journalism (and I find the way Alex interviews her guests to be exceptionally bad) she did make some interesting claims during this interview, which is titled ‘The internet has its version of Nara Smith, this is hers.’

The title in it of itself suggests that we, the internet, have completely misread her somehow. In this interview, Nara suggests that we have gotten it all wrong: she isn’t a trad wife, after all! In reality, Nara has a full time job (or several, if you include modeling and brand deals outside of filming content) which by nature excludes her from the stay-at-home traditional wife title. Her husband even helps her with household duties! (revolutionary.)

My genuine reaction upon hearing this has do be: does she think her audience is stupid?

It takes about 5 seconds of critical thinking, and scrolling down her page to realize that, yes, she does other things amongst her content creation (and the observation of content creation being a job itself.)

But, the truth is, you don’t need to actually be a ‘traditional wife’ in the literal, true sense of the term to obtain this title. Many Christian (or Mormon, in her case) influencers make a livelihood off of this hypocrisy:

They think women shouldn’t teach scripture or lead communities, and yet they have prolific social medias and sell e-books.

They say a woman’s most important role is in the home, yet they run million dollar businesses off of their content.

There are countless examples of this stunningly hypocritical narrative, but it doesn’t actually seem to bother their audience as long as the fourth wall isn’t broken. The only people who point out that their role as online influencers is in direct contradiction with the teachings of their religion seem to be their critics.

So in this case, yes, she can in fact larp in the trad-wife internet niche without actually being traditional in the literal sense. And that is exactly what she is doing. Her content is a culmination of purposeful choices to send this message.

Earlier last year, in the peak of ‘trad-wife’ controversy, she collaborated with Hannah Neelman of Ballerina Farms (who makes similar content but is much more overt about religious and alt-right beliefs.)

This content visit to Ballerina Farms did exactly what it was meant to do: re-establish her role in this internet niche and generate many articles and controversy surrounding her role in marriage and conservatism.

In the Call Her Daddy interview, Nara seems to take on a different demeanor entirely. She dropped the fundie voice, wore regular looking clothes, and now is claiming that the trad-wife title is a severe misjudgment. Because ultimately she does want to be taken seriously, as a businesswoman and most importantly a person. Now that she’s rode the wave of tradwivery content being popular (and the discourse surrounding her alleged role), she can reclaim her personhood and independence again.

There is nothing really surprising about this, because this is exactly how propaganda works. Propaganda isn’t meant to be a portrayal of actual reality and life, it often is entirely baseless and hypocritical. You don’t have to stay true to the narrative to produce propaganda.

Historically, figureheads in the conservative and anti-feminist movement have always followed this pattern. Phyllis Schlafly, a prominent activist and famous anti-feminist voice of the seventies, who spoke at length about gender roles for women in the home and opposed the Equal Rights Amendment, was a highly educated attorney with three degrees. Looking at modern conservative figures like Erica Kirk we see this same dilemma again; how can the CFO of a huge organization have the gall to say women should be at home, and platform speakers at her ‘Women’s Summit’ who want to remove the 19th amendment?

Don’t they know that Serena Joy gets her finger cut off, too?

This is where the intersection of class in this dynamic unveils itself; because surely, wealth is a shield of protection against the subjugation of working-class women.

“Would a trad-wife be cooking in Schiaparelli?”

Nara says in the CHD interview, referring to one of the luxury runway clothing items she wore in one of her cooking videos.

This phrase itself is very telling. They wouldn’t, because tradwives are assumed to be ‘low-income’ (or at least, they don’t spend on luxury ball gowns because there are no balls to be attended) because they rely on the single income brought home by her husband.

The actual root of tradwife propaganda, the supposed luxury of staying home without stressing over bills or bosses to frolic in pretty dresses, isn’t the picture of a woman who is solely caring for many children and doing housework simultaneously. It’s the picture of a wealthy one.

(American conservatives seem to have a particular knack for wealth fantasies; it’s why they tirelessly defend the 1%, fan girl over Elon Musk, and vote as if republican proposed tax cuts would ever reach their bracket.)

It seems like Nara benefits, aesthetically, from whatever cultural controversy is occurring at the time; whether that be tradwives, or the ‘girl boss’ who runs her own brand and business, partners with companies and sells products.

The hypocritical nature of dressing up as a traditional wife while girl-bossing on the side gives her a particularly convenient pillow to fall back on when she is faced with any salient criticism; but I’m not actually a trad wife, am I?

why do we even care? [insert choice feminist commentary here]

The propensity for the internet to fall into unproductive arguments about women’s choices in this regard is endlessly frustrating because ultimately, we aren’t talking about just an individual here.

Nara Smith, as her audience and the internet knows her, is a brand. The actual Nara Smith, as in the person, we don’t know, nor see. This is the case for any serious influencer who monetizes content based around a specific aesthetic and target audience. Her choices as a private person have essentially no bearing on this conversation; what she chooses to put on her page and make content about, however, is a branding choice. And yes, brands are political, and can and should be criticized .

If we were discussing a regular woman who does not have millions of followers making the choice to skip education and stay home, that would be a different conversation entirely (though, still not one in which I would use the framing of ‘personal choice’. Sorry, but I don’t subscribe to the narrative that any choice a woman makes can be seperate from patriarchal influence. That’s not how socialization works.)

I don’t write this to say that Nara is a bad person or that she is even intentionally making these choices as some kind of greater allegiance to the Heritage Foundation or something. But I do think that people who have this kind of social influence also have political influence, and criticism is necessary and warranted. We can and should expect moral consistency from influencers and the brands they represent.

let me know your thoughts

The magazine evie is concerned with the amount of young women on antidepressants - not because they’re concerned about rates of depression and anxiety among gen z, or even quality assurance on the drugs themselves - but because of a commonly reported side effect, lowered libido.

I’ve been watching this particular conservative right-wing publication, whose target audience is presumably women aged 16-30, for quite a while. Though their positions are not completely overt in passing, combing through their articles it becomes clear their messaging is strategically layered with conservative language and dog whistles. It’s framed in a way intended to mimic more mainstream fashion and beauty magazines, with articles ranging from ‘1o Clothing Brands to Shop for Feminine Pieces’ to ‘I asked my Guy Friends: Why do Men Care about Women’s Body Count?’ to pieces which directly invert the standard view of sex-based oppression with ‘Nothing is Expected of Women Anymore.’*

(*and though in 2026 there are many salient criticisms of Dworkin’s work, if you’re ever looking for something that perfectly exemplifies her her theories on the socialization of right wing women, look no farther.)

Last week, I stumbled across a post by them which struck me as particularly insidious. Though they’ve written about mental health and SSRI usage before (mainly to blame women’s non-conformity to gendered roles at home and in the workplace on rampant rates of depression and anxiety), this claim took a more, perhaps uncharacteristically overt angle on their position on women’s role in society.

“We’re numbing a generation of girls,” the post states. “If a girl is put on SSRIs from age 8, she knows no before. She will move through her first crush, her first heartbreak, her first kiss, all of it dialed down a few notches and she will never think at ask what’s missing.”

SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, are the first-line of treatment for severe depression and anxiety. There are several different classes of these drugs which have slightly different molecular compositions and targets, but since their development and introduction into psychiatric care in the 70’s have been validated by a large pool of clinical data. Due to the various neurotransmitters these drugs target, degree of sensitivity and results on mood and depression levels are highly individual and dosage-dependant. Meaning, using these drugs requires constant physician- monitoring and adjustment. Many people don’t find the right drug or dosage that works for them on the first try. This is important context to understand, because outliers and bad experiences cannot be chalked up to just the efficacy of the drug itself.

The average age of a woman prescribed an SSRI, quantified by a systematic review of literature and clinical data reported age 45-60, which corresponds with perimenopause and menopausal age. A review in 2020 by the CDC reported similar findings, with the highest usage in women 60 or older.

It is relatively rare for a child to be prescribed antidepressants, reported most recently around 3.6% for ages 3-17 in cases severe psychiatric distress, most commonly PTSD. Low-dose treatment was found to be effective in reducing distress and symptoms of clinical depression in children. The indication that girls of age 8 or similar are placed long-term on antidepressants, or that they are the primary demographic for usage is outstandingly incorrect.

Like everything in medicine, prescribing drugs which alter brain chemistry should be considered in a cost-benefit analysis. No pharmaceutical is completely without risk. As a cancer researcher, I think about this all the time. When a patient has chemo, we prescribe them literal intravenous poison, which of course has off-target effects and plenty of risks. But the benefit (survival) is outweighed by these patients who knowingly endure chemotherapy.

As a fellow hater of the American healthcare system, there is plenty of room to legitimately criticize how these risks are communicated to patients. But doing so without acknowledging why these issues arise is senseless; we are operating in a for-profit system, in which insurance companies control billing and thus control the length of appointments, frequency of visits, and patient load of physicians. No, physicians are not paid or incentivized to prescribe any medication (that is illegal), but they are limited to 15-minute visits every six months, because that’s all United Healthcare thinks you need.

It’s immensely fascinating to me how, amidst the popularity of movements such as MAHA, the right will look for anything and anyone to blame rather than cross the isle for better healthcare policy, even if that means the rejection of science outright or the creation of ‘alternative facts’.

The risk which is of the most concern to evie is sexual dysfunction. This is a relatively common side effect of most antidepressants, due to the reduction of dopamine in the brain that results from preventing serotonin reuptake. This can lead to a lower sex drive, lower libido, and lowered ability to orgasm. However, in most people, after remaining at their consistent highest dose for 6 months, these side effects drastically lessen. The brain’s adjustment period to the tapering up of the drug will differ from individual to individual, but most all participants report the most symptoms in the first 6 weeks of starting the drug.

To be clear, these sexual side effects are not emotional numbing, as evie suggests. Libido is a complicated physiological phenomenon that can pertain to many biological and social aspects of one’s life. Reducing a lowered sex drive to one’s entire range of human complexity and ability to experience life is simpleton at best, objectifying at worst.

It’s incredibly telling how, in this short blurb, evie reaffirms their position on women’s lives being centered around men, romance, and love. The question remains what if a woman doesn’t want to have sex, rather than, what if a woman is so depressed she has lost interest in things she used to enjoy? Following this question, I wonder if they’ve considered that a dead woman can’t have sex, either.

The most commonly cited case, either to warn women off SSRIs or to invalidate clinical safety, is mention of PSSD, or post-ssri sexual dysfunction. PSSD is distinct from loss of libido while on the medication, it describes a phenomenon in which SSRIs have permanently changed one’s dopaminergic pathways in such ways where loss of sensation or sex drive occur. The prevalence of this phenomenon is hard to clinically quantify, primarily due to social factors, and that those who seem to be at higher risk are long-term users who may also suffer with withdrawal symptoms, making it hard to report pre and post SSRI function.

Though more research into PSSD is certainly required to understand its neurophysiology, the current consensus is that this is still a rare complication of SSRIs. Current literature suggests a 0.48% risk, or a prevalence of about 4.3 in 100,000. To be clear, I am not asserting that this is not a risk which should be discussed, researched, and considered in patient care; but, it’s not a reason not to treat depression.

Untreated depression also poses great risk to one’s overall health, including libido and sexual function. Clinical depression already encompasses lower dopaminergic and serotonin in the brain, which will naturally decrease libido and overall interest in sex. Low libido is a commonly recognized side effect of depression, and compounded with the neurophysiology, low energy and lack of interest in pleasurable activities can worsen desire.

Libido and women who are menopausal is a particularly complex phenomenon, who as we’ve already discussed, are the largest demographic for antidepressants. I recommend this article which talks about the complexities of sex, hormones, and libido during this phase of life where hormones which previously dominated sex drive and libido are eliminated.

I have no opposition to inquiring about research for the long-term implications of drugs like SSRIs, but I do oppose the assertion that depression in women is not worth treating at the risk they may not have a high sex drive. I have a few theories as to why these takes circulate in predominantly right wing-circles; such as the idea that suffering is virtuous and more morally pure than being medicated stemming from religious dogma. In a sense, it is of Christian belief that women are made to suffer; eve ate the apple and God made her reproductive capacity painful, as punishment.

Additionally, I circle back to Dworkin’s theory that right wing women use the embodiment of conservatism to circumvent patriarchal violence. As a consequence of this, they also embody the belief that if women just do everything right, like get married to a man, stay at home and make babies, they won’t be prone to depression anyhow.

This line of ideology also makes them susceptible to other unscientific lines of thinking, and mirrors movements like anti-vax for this reason. If I had to guess, I’d say most women who identify with evie magazine also identify with MAHA or ‘crunchy parenting’. Once you can apply the moral purity ideology to one area of wellness, it’s incredibly easy to keep doing so.

Even though we may expect this kind of reasoning from right wing media, it’s important to understand the social implications of posts such as these. Not just because of mental health stigma, but because it normalizes other aspects of specifically patriarchal violence - that women are defined by our ability to provide sex for men. The intention of publications such as evie are to weave these seemingly fringe alt-right interests into everyday culture, and feed talking points such as the declining birth rate.

Use discernment when encountering media, and as always, look for peer reviewed literature. Until next time ….

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There are now over 5k potential cases of cyclosporiasis, a foodborne illness caused by the parasite cyclospora, across 30+ states. It gets on fresh produce from exposure to fecal matter, usually via contaminated irrigation water. This parasite causes intense GI distress, most notably explosive diarrhea that can last anywhere from two days to three weeks.

It can be treated with an antibiotic (bactrim, or cipro) which prevents its replication, however, cyclosporiasis is a relatively rare lab test (meaning not readily available in many medical labs) that requires a fresh stool sample to confirm diagnosis. It’s especially hard to confirm and track the source of the illness because can take up to 10 days for symptoms to even show up due to the parasite’s life cycle, and consequently it can be hard to leave the house and find a lab which can provide the stool analysis when a person is very sick with diarrhea and vomiting.

The gag of it all (literally and figuratively) is that we have no idea which foods this parasite is coming from, only that it’s rapidly spreading. We can only speculate based on previous reports that it grows well on foods with uneven and porous surfaces, such as leafy greens, herbs, and berries.

What you should be wondering is: why isn’t there some kind of regulation to prevent contaminated produce from being sold? Why aren’t there mechanisms to track these kinds of parasites produce is susceptible to?

The answer is: there was, until Human Health Secretary RFK Jr directly ordered the CDC to stop tracking cyclospora.

This cut can be attributed to DOGE’s efforts to reduce the federal budget towards public health spending. Though this mandatory foodborne illness tracking is an additional cost, federal regulations remain the only way to universally regulate the quality of food and produce across the country.

To be clear, the funding changes did not outlaw tracking of cyclospora, rather leave regulatory policy in the hands of individual states, many of which do not mandate foodborne illness tracking. This can quickly devolve into a nationwide epidemic, given that produce is usually transported across state borders to be sold. (The entire purpose of government agencies like the CDC and FDA are to make sure industries don’t evade safety and quality checks and adhere to a universal standard, as a neutral third party regulating body.)

Though the business aspect of these policy changes can be understood - by politicians who have the food and commercial agriculture industry to answer to - but I have trouble understanding how the average voter can endorse these changes. Subverting regulations in the long term only saves industry giants money, at the expense of the consumer (who now has explosive diarrhea).

Many Trump-voting individuals beleive that leaving these regulations to state-by-state policy - or worse, zero government intervention which leads to just industry policy - is sufficient in preventing harm to public health such as cyclospora. To these people, I ask: you genuinely trust a giant corporation with your health? If a neutral third party (the government) cannot audit industries, who will? Do you really think private testing and regulatory services hired by these industries will be completely honest even if it costs the company money?

And this is far from the only aspect of public health and scientific research which has been drastically changed since 2021. Proposed budget cuts to the NIH, though since blocked by upper level courts, attempted to cut research regarding cancer, infectious disease, neurodegenerative diseases, and viruses.

As of now, the White House is proposing a 12.3% reduction of NIH funding (about 5 billion dollars). Additionally, the proposed change means the board of reviewers which approve grants and allocation of funding can no longer include peer review by actual scientists. Future grants for research regarding human health, science, and scientific education are overseen exclusively by politicians who have no scientific background.

The original justification for politicians doing jobs that are utterly and completely out of their scope of knowledge is that they are preventing unnecessary spending and preventing DEI. Though we can’t help but be left wondering what about research regarding cancer and infectious disease is unnecessary.

Much of what people consider ‘unnecessary science’ actually stems from a very poor understanding of how scientific research actually works. Essentially all major discoveries which we credit for bettering human health and quality of life (penicillin, vaccines, etc) was discovered by observations which originally had nothing to do with human health, by accident. Science for the sake of science, which is generated primarily by academic labs which rely on federal grants to stay in operation, is responsible for building knowledge foundations that industries (such as pharma) rely on to produce medicine and technology.

Major advances in health and science don’t arise in a vacuum. Industries don’t have the resources to start research without proof of concept and wouldn’t exist without academic labs. Since DOGE began implimenting NIH budget cuts, academia has lost nearly 20% of its workforce and many labs have shut down completely, or no longer have the funding to support taking on students (who often drive novel projects).

Given this information, and new attempts set forth by the White House to dismantle scientific funding, it’s likely that explosive diarrhea is actually the least of our problems. Not only can we expect more public health crises, but for the United States to fall drastically behind in terms of global research initiatives and technology.

If diarrhea isn’t enough to get off the toilet and to the midterm poll, maybe that is.

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This past week at a music festival in Michigan, a deceased infant was found inside of a porta-potty, still attached to the placenta. The infant was identified by a sanitation worker who informed law enforcement, and as of now, no arrests have been made and the mother is still unidentified.

Though this case is a rare and horrifying tragedy, it has encouraged a sensitive debate on selective empathy for women hypothetically coping with the extreme circumstances that lead to birth in those conditions. The situation of the actual woman involved is currently unknown, as well as the gestational age of the fetus at time of delivery (law enforcement reported that the infant ‘appeared full term’, but it should be noted there is no report or comment from a medical examiner available, thus this is still under speculation. It is also unknown if the fetus was alive at the time of delivery.)

Many feel that this scenario is a reflection of the tumultuous landscape of reproductive rights and abortion access in America. Whether or not it was the case for this particular woman, the discussion of how to handle cases which involve fetal remains, miscarriages, stillbirth, unknown gestational age, and what leads to such desperate and extreme circumstances for birth has much to do with the reality of post-Roe America.

Loss of Care Accessibility

Following the Dobbs v Jackson decision of 2022, over 1600 legislative changes to abortion access across the country have occured. As of 2026, 13 states have a total ban on all abortions, and 7 have extreme restrictions or ‘heartbeat laws’ which reduce accessibility over 6 weeks of gestation.

Significant data suggests that following the Dobb’s decision, access to in-person abortion services became severely limited by region. A 2022 cross-sectional spatial analysis on estimated time travel to abortion facilities found a significant change in accessibility of women’s healthcare. Prior to the Dobb’s decision, mean travel time for women ages 15-44 years to a facility providing abortions was between 10.9-27.8 minutes, compared to post-Dobb’s decision averages of 17.0-100.4 minutes. Crossing state lines to receive care has also become almost twice as common.

The Guttmacher Institute's monthly abortion provision study reported in 2023, now 1 in 5 women travel across state lines compared to 1 in 10 in 2020. In states where clinician-monitored abortion was more readily available, medical abortions increased by 11% between 2020-2023, likely accounting for changes in regulatory legislation and out-of-state travellers. This drastic decrease in access is in part due to clinic closure after abortion became illegal in many states due to ‘trigger-laws’ that took effect post-Dobbs.

The Guttmacher institute also reports that 43 total clinics across 11 states had shut their doors indefinitely. As of July 2022, a total of seven states now have zero open clinics, including: Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas. Prior to 2021, these states reported a total of 80,500 abortions. Following this shift in unavailability of in-person care, abortion services shifted almost entirely to by-mail Telehealth services and self-managed medical abortions. This forced turn to self-management ultimately did not change the total number of abortions which occurred each month, only lead to an increase in unsupervised medical abortions which totaled at an estimated 27, 838 in the six months following the Dobb’s decision.

In addition to abortion access, contraceptive access has been compromised as a result of abortion restrictions since the Dobb’s decision. General impact on reproductive health since the 2016 election has been quantified by the Reproductive Health Impact Study (RHIS) of the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks legislation on both the federal and state levels in Arizona, Iowa, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. The RHIS is designed to continuously collect data in these states via both quantitative and qualitative longitudinal studies, to provide insight on public health and how it relates to policy. This is based on the key finding that reproductive health, which includes services outside of abortion, are directly linked and impacted by restrictions on abortion.

Though ongoing, the RHIS has found a significant decline in funding for reproductive services and family planning (outside of abortion, since federal funding cannot be used for abortion services per the Hyde amendment of 1977). In the state of Wisconsin, a 78% decline in the service of title X funded clinics was reported since the Dobb’s decision. A survey-based study was conducted in the same states used in the RHIS of women aged 18-44, who reported barriers to accessing contraception from their providers or public clinics which they had accessed before.

Miscarriage, obstetric emergency and legal ambiguity

Though the overturning of Roe v Wade removed protections for abortion access at the federal level, on a state-by-state basis, many laws leave room for ambiguity and subjective interpretation which often leaves clinicians and patients wondering what is still currently available. Presently, all states in which abortion is banned make exceptions for the ‘life of the mother’, or when abortion is needed in an emergency. However, discrepancies have arisen for what qualifies as an emergency, as defined by law and not by physicians on a patient-by-patient basis.

In a national survey of practicing, board-certified OBGYNs nationwide after Dobbs, 1 in 5 office-based practitioners found they felt constrained in managing miscarriages and pregnancy related emergencies. In states with total abortion bans, 40% of OBGYNs reported feeling concerned about the legality of managing these issues, and the majority felt that overall, ability to manage emergencies was worsened.

Another qualitative report of OBGYNs practicing in states with total bans reported that 60% considered leaving the state altogether, with 11% actually doing so. This may factor into the growing shortage and demand for obstetricians, leading to ‘maternal care deserts’ in many states. Currently, 52% of counties across the country do not have a hospital with an obstetric care team available.

As of May 2026, at least nine women have died from being denied timely care for a pregnancy-related emergency. This is due to remaining legal grey areas on the treatment of miscarriage coinciding with abortion management, such as Mifepristone usage.

• Cj Grahm died in January of 2026 from cardiac arrest after her providers questioned if treatment for arrhythmia was lawful considering it would potentially cause harm to her fetus. (North Carolina)

• Porsha Ngumezi died of blood loss in 2021 after medical professionals failed to intervene during her miscarriage because her fetus still had a heartbeat. (Texas)

• Amber Nicole Thurman died from sepsis after being refused a routine D&C to clear remaining tissue from her abortion. (Georgia)

• Tierra Walker died from preeclampsia in October of 2024 after being told by doctors her high-risk pregnancy didn’t require an abortion. (Texas)

• Neveah Crain died in 2023 after doctors insisted on waiting to treat her septic miscarriage to confirm the fetus had no heartbeat. (Texas)

• Josseli Barnica died in 2021 from blood loss after doctors insisted on waiting to confirm the absence of a heartbeat. (Texas)

• Candi Miller died in 2022 from complications from a high-risk pregnancy due to her chronic conditions because she was unable to get an abortion. (Georgia)

It should be noted these deaths are also disproportionately black women, who are already at nearly three times the risk of maternal mortality compared to white women in states where abortion is banned.

What do women actually do instead?

Though cases such as the Electric Forest porta-potty infant make national headlines, this is not by any means a representation of what commonly occurs when women are denied abortion access.

As of May 2026, the supreme court determined that Mifepristone (the abortion pill) is safe to be distributed by mail by certified telehealth clinicians and certified pharmacies. Approximately 1 in 5 medical abortions are facilitated by Mifepristone delivered by mail, as it offers a discrete and accessible in-home option for termination of a pregnancy.

Mifepristone and its generic alternative are regulated under a shared system risk and evaluation strategy (REMS), which set guidelines for prescription and distribution as directed by the FDA. The Mifepristone REMS went under review as recently as 2021, and the FDA determined that the risks (such as the mild side effects and possibility of user error) are greatly outweighed by the benefits of allowing Telehealth prescriptions to continue. The FDA also approved stricter modifications in this review that regulate which providers may prescribe the drug, and the requirement of additional pharmacy and provider certifications.

Though there are many stories and speculations of women who committed infanticide after being denied abortions prior to the landmark decision Roe v Wade, there is no systemic mechanism for tracking these instances nor do they occur at a concerning rate.

However, there is a strong correlation with infant and mother mortality in abortion-restricted regions. Not from intentional deaths, but abortion bans are usually packaged with defunding bills that systemically impact free or low cost prenatal care availability, such as Title X clinics and Planned Parenthood. The intersection between socio-economics and care accessibility is probably the most daunting fact women in America currently face.

Circumstances regarding a mysterious and seemingly spontaneous birth, given what we understand about current legal circumstances, is valid in raising important questions from the public such as the fetus’s gestational age and viability being an integral part of the narrative.

Due to states with total abortion bans asserting fetal personhood, issues regarding stillbirth and miscarriage, including disposal or pregnancy tissue or the fetal corpse have created a grey area. Kentucky, Georgia, and Arkansas have arrested dozens of women for abuse of corpse and or homicide regarding a stillbirth or miscarriage. Pregnancy Justice, a legal advocacy group, reported a total of 412 cases regarding pregnancy, abortion, miscarriage and stillbirth in the first two years following the Dobb’s decision.

While the Porta-potty incident will continue to be a rare and horrifying situation, data suggests we will see more cases arise in which women are investigated, arrested, and charged for pregnancy outcomes. Likely, local and right-leaning reportings will frame this as a similar infanticide situation rather than a medical event which resulted in pregnancy or infant loss. Thus, it’s important to continue to ask questions and use discernment as these stories appear in the media.

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Most ‘science’ is bullshit.

…. would be the wrong takeaway when discussing the replication problem.

But, I understand why people outside of the field would feel that way, upon hearing that at least a good chunk of published papers, even in highly accredited journals like Nature and Cell are not reproducible. Don’t we rely on this data to come up with the innovative medicine and technology that saves and improves our lives? (or at least, makes us skinny?).

About a decade ago, a statistician coined the term 'the replication crisis’ and attempted to blow the lid off academia: here are all these papers, with incredibility high numbers of citations and high impact scores that have data which actually cannot be reproduced in a statistical analysis.

The ‘replication crisis’ makes for a great journalistic opportunity to induce mass hysteria amongst the non-scientist public, or feed into American culture’s propensity to pedal conspiracy. Public trust in science, especially in regards to public health is at an all time low. But what does it actually look like?

Maybe we focus results part so much that the repeat gets lost in translation?

A few months ago, I attended a seminar on this topic and learned that even Gregor Mendel, father of modern genetics and our understanding of DNA inheritance, was also not a wholly perfect and honest scientist. He, too, picked plants which just so happen to make the math of his punnett squares perfect. He probably had other data, other plants, which didn’t align with that equation, which he chose not to publish.

If he had published all of his data anyways, the ones that followed his Mendelian inheritance patterns as well as the ones that didn’t, maybe we’d have figured out non-mendelian inheritance and complex genetics sooner than many centuries later. But ultimately, he chose the pretty data set, and drew conclusions that were correct in that specific circumstances, but didn’t necessarily paint a complete picture.

And, Gregor wasn’t operating out of an academic lab with dwindling funding and the phrase publish or perish slowly circling in his working conscious, he was a monk in rural Austria.

The pressure to publish (before someone else) has never not existed in science, even Darwin felt it, having sat on his manuscripts for ‘On the Origin of Species’ for decades and only turned the work to the public when another guy came close to doing the same. The fear of getting scooped is generational trauma.

How do we even guarantee academic integrity, transparency, and quality when the pressures of the for-profit world and human biases exist? Is it all one big nothing burger of jargon?

Scientific nihilism is not the answer

Though it would be intellectually easier to dismiss every piece of scientific knowledge on the basis of the replication problem, just because data cannot be exactly replicated doesn’t mean it’s all false. It just means we’ve gained knowledge on a hypothesis conducted in those specific circumstances, which might be difficult to replicate.

Though examples of intentional exclusion of data (like the one I mentioned earlier) is considered bad and biased science, that’s not what’s going on with the majority of scientific literature. The discrepancies often lie in the choice of statistical analysis, and in what circumstances certain methods are utilized. When there is a plethora of methods which could be acceptable for analyzing a data set, it’s hard to decipher which will allow for the most accurate interpretation of knowledge.

The problem is also that there is no agreed upon definition of replication. To some, replicating data means following the exact protocol of previous work to produce similar or identical data, but it could also look like building upon or altering experimental conditions, or using different experimental methods or designs and comparing that to previous data.

Bias and statistics

Science, like everything else people do, is subjected to human bias. Though I imagine we think about empirical data as being objective and concrete, raw data is not what is published into journals. Before we can understand what our experiments mean, we have to analyze raw data in a way that makes sense, often by the selection of multiple statistical methods. This is where science becomes an art form which can fall under subjective interpretation.

The statistical analysis delima, staticians say, seems to come from a heavy reliance on statistical significance, or P-values. This is ultimately a mathematical way to analyze whether data can be used in support or rejection of a hypothesis, and for decades a heavy reliance on statistical significance determined which data to dismiss altogether.

Statistical significance lead to a phenomenon of scientific bias which has been coined as p-hacking. P-Hacking, though it sounds completely nefarious, can be a totally subconscious doing; we all ultimately want our projects to succeed, and as humans bias is inherently part of how we interpret the world around us. Though unintentional, it’s easy to be selective of data which favors significant results.

p-hacking can look like:

• Stopping data collection after a significant value is reached.

• Only reporting significant results instead of the entire data pool.

• Excluding conditions to attain significant results.

• Transforming data through analytical methods to attain significant results.

Making sense of literature

Another salient issue which was brought up by the above article was the misinterpretation of p-values, or assuming that an insignificant p-value means no effect at all, when this is not the case.

A crucial part of understanding the key takeaways of an experiment is understanding the methods they used to draw those conclusions. Without the statistical context, the data won’t make sense. As it turns out, statistical significance is incredibly easy to misinterpret, which is why staticians are urging scientists of both STEM and social fields to turn away from this method of analysis.

Outside of peers in the field reviewing papers related to their discipline, a lack of statistical understanding is also why ‘doing your own research’ as a non-scientist falls flat. If even experts who have done their own fair share of data analysis are misinterpreting results, the rate of public misinterpretation is probably insurmountable.

This is why many people defer to journalistic sources or social media for science news rather than directly reading scientific literature. And that makes sense, after all; scientists do not write for public understanding, they write for peers and journal editors to understand. However, ‘pop science’ is a huge source of misinformation when it comes to wrongly interpreting data.

Why can’t scientists just publish all of their data?

Though it seems like the best way to avoid p-hacking and selective interpretation would be to publish everything, including inconclusive findings, dead-ends, and non-significant data, the reality of that is unlikley.

Though this would be an ideal way of practicing science, it’s unfortunately not how the real world works for a plethora of reasons which are primarily monetary:

• Most journals have word and figure limits. You couldn’t include everything even if you really wanted to, in most cases.

• Pretty data gets grants, funding, and donors, which academic labs rely on to stay running.

• Industry and pharmaceutical labs publish results which are most favorable to the product they are engineering*, they aren’t interested in investigating outside of that because it’s not profitable/not in shareholder best interest.

* This is not suggesting that data produced by industries is false, it can still be good quality science. They just won’t continue to go down avenues that don’t seem profitable. This is why academia is important for the publication of science for the sake of science, outside of profit concerns.

• The publication industry is for-profit. It costs scientists and labs to submit work for peer review and publication.

I don’t mention all of this to suggest that scientists are intentionally skewing everything for a publication; most scientists have every intention of producing quality data and practicing science with integrity, though they operate within parameters which make this difficult.

However, it’s important to recognize that these are factors which increase the probability that data will be biased or not reproducible.

What can we do about this?

As much as I would love to end this with a positive note, the state of science in the United States under the Trump administration is dire. In 2024, Trump proposed a 40% cut to NIH funding for scientific projects (about $20 billion dollars worth of funding). Though this was later deemed unconstitutional by congress, it sent the field scrambling to secure funding for labs which rely on federal grants to remain operational and fighting for what money may remain.

In spite of the reinstatement of grants by congress, the Trump administration has outlined a clear agenda of workarounds to reduce funding for scientific projects. This began with rejection of grants on the basis of ‘anti-DEI’ legislation. In turn, this cut funding for any labs researching women, minorities, and discrepancies in healthcare. There is also a current proposal which will attempt to cut NIH funding again for the 2027 fiscal year.

Approval for federal funding and grants has also been proposed to be in the control of politicians rather than scientists. This overhaul which was proposed for grant management specifically asks reviewers, who are not scientists, not to consult scientific peer reviewers.

If you want to get involved in the preservation of scientific research, I recommend checking out Stand Up for Science.

In terms of combating bias in general science, proposed technological solutions are underway such as Open Science Framework, a database specifically designed to incentivize pre-registering study designs to ensure data stays in one place throughout the project’s entire lifecycle. Similar resources are also becoming more popularized and available as a way to organize resources as well as ensure integrity and reproducibility, notably Qresp and The Replication Database which focus on social sciences rather than molecular biology.

Other resources for the public as well as scientists include APS’s retraction watch database, where you can be notified on which studies have been redacted, modified, or flagged for faulty data.

we all toe the line

How many times have I squinted hard at a gel image, hoping a band will appear if I adjust the contrast enough? More than I can count. Probably, more than a band very clearly appearing.

These are choices each of us make while analyzing data in a scientific context. Insuring the integrity of science is a collective effort. However, it’s not one we can maintain alone; without public support for science, and federal incentives for academic scientific research, the likelihood of resolving this issue becomes less and less.

In 2022, I took a class called Holocaust and Genocide, taught by one of few genocide scholars in the world, Dr Alexis Herr.

I routinely left the class in tears. Yes, the content and details of learning about various genocides was difficult to stomach. But the majority of the class was actually focused on the framework of genocide and how it manifests in culture, which ultimately reframes your thinking on systematic oppression and the many layers of complacency and participation we all contribute to in various forms.

Primarily, that genocide intrinsically cannot occur in a vacuum or occur instantaneously. It requires the participation of a collective society, often propagandized by an authoritarian government to become willfully complacent, first with small implications until overt violence occurs. In well-documented genocides such as the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide, the rise to power of extremists took decades. The idea that the public is removed from responsibility, ie “the Germans had no idea what was going on in the camps” is outstandingly false. They knew, as did every community impacted by genocide does, in spite of what media akin to ‘The Boy in Striped Pajamas’ might lead us to beleive.

Eugenics is a facet of genocide which historically has shaped social complacency in organized violence. It is especially important to recognize for me as a scientist because it often pulls from basic theories of science under a warped interpretation.

Science in many ways is an art form, in which we must balance the seeking of truth with our own biases that affect our ability to interpret and communicate data. This is why the “Replication Crisis” exists, because it is extraordinary difficult to separate raw data from conformational bias (especially when choosing a statistical analysis method). Misleading science, accidental or not, permeates many aspects of American politics especially since the COVID pandemic.

The term eugenics was coined in the early 20th century by Francis Galton, a mathematician and cousin of revolutionary scientist Charles Darwin, as:

“the science of improving stock, which is by no means confined to questions of judicious mating, but which, especially in the case of man, takes cognisance of all influences that tend in however remote a degree to give to the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had.”

This is a very wordy phrasing. But essentially, he used the theory of Darwinian natural selection, which is probably one of the most supported scientific theories in our current paradigm of knowledge, and falsely applied it to human intelligence.

He asserted that skills and intellectual ability were inherited traits, and in order to better society we must reduce reproduction from individuals with ‘less desirable’ qualities. This is, of course, completely inapplicable to actual natural selection, as ‘talent and character’ are not heritable traits that can be selected for (intelligence is probably associated with many genes, and neuroplasticity plays every role in skill learning.)

It was this ideology that allowed for the 1910 creation of the Eugenics Record Office (later rebranded to Department of Genetics), a government-sponsored research department which tracked pedigrees in order to enact forced sterilization of certain individuals. This department is responsible for forcibly sterilizing an estimated ten thousand individuals with profound intellectual disabilities, mainly those who were institutionalized in care homes.

Forced sterilization, or the complete removal of reproductive autonomy continued heavily in America through the late 70’s. Indigenous women were particularly victimized by intentional obstetric violence from the 1920’s onward. By 1977, it was estimated 25% of indigenous women of childbearing age had been sterilized by a physician (this phenomenon also occured in the same timeline across Canada, and these statistics include indigenous women in Canadian reservations. The Sexual Sterilization Acts which allowed the lawful sterilization of these women without their knowledge or consent were not repealed until the late 70’s).

With this historical context in mind, we have established the following about eugenics:

• It involves a lack of consent and right to bodily autonomy

• It requires the involvement of a government body creating policy which is enforced

• As a proponent of genocide, it involves systemic violence and collective complacency from society. It does not occur at the individual level.

I relay all of this information, not only because I feel incredibly passionate about using the correct definitions of eugenics and genocide (as this is an incredibly important proponent of prevention), but also as a rebuttal to a recent debates sparked around family planning which conflate abortion and eugenics.

The assertion that abortion, or the elective termination of a pregnancy is murderous on the basis of ending a human life is a claim that is central to the anti-abortion or “pro-life” political movement. Often, pro-life politics meddles its way into talks about eugenics when the instance of electing for termination when profound chromosomal or structural abnormalities are detected.

However, recent online discussions have reproduced this narrative outside of a ‘Pro-Life’ context; even with self-proclaimed ‘liberals’ and ‘activists’ throwing the term around. It began with a YouTube couple opening up about their recent abortion when discovering their fetus had Trisomy 21, or Down Syndrome.

Immediately following the tweet, politicians and pro-life activists began denouncing their decision to terminate, posting photos and videos of living children with Downs. This is an unsurprising reaction from this frame of morality. Many pro-lifers claim that abortion in general is a genocide. What is surprising, to me at least, is the amount of individuals who apparently support abortion for other reasons, jumping the pro-life ideology train to call abortion for a profound disability such as Trisomy 21 as eugenics.

For the same reason abortion cannot be genocide, it also cannot be eugenics. Regardless of your moral contradictions with abortion itself, genocide and eugenics have specific definitions which are incredibly important not to water-down.

Eugenics intrinsically cannot be committed by an individual. By definition, it is a systemic form of violence which is perpetuated by a government body enacting policy.

As of now, there are zero instances of policy which require a couple who has received a Trisomy 21 diagnosis to terminate. The decision is an individual choice which involves informed consent from the person who is pregnant. Thus, this falls under the umbrella of family planning decisions.

Arguing for the rights of the fetus, by traditional anti-abortion ideology, ignores the bodily autonomy and consent of the pregnant person (this is the basis for the right to an abortion of any kind.) Whether or not you think abortion in general is ethical, you cannot apply the term eugenics by principle.

From my perspective, as someone who is wholly pro-bodily autonomy and believes forced pregnancy is a violation of human rights, I can still understand why some people are uncomfortable with the idea of getting an abortion specifically because the fetus has Down Syndrome. We live in a society which has been historically inaccessible to those with disabilities, and continues to worsen in America in terms of social safety nets, government support, and healthcare (which are all, consequently, reasons one may opt to terminate a pregnancy with abnormalities).

I do not beleive that termination of a pregnancy which prevents an individual from being born is at all synonymous with what eugenics actually is, which is the forced sterilization of disabled individuals. The assertion that adult disabled individuals shouldn’t reproduce, just on the basis of their genetic composition is much more in line with eugenic policy.

Gen Z has also applied the concept of eugenics to poverty and reproduction. If you can’t feed em, don’t breed em is maybe offensive, but has no actual footing in eugenics, but rather a discussion about capitalism, wealth disparity, and access to healthcare.

When we misuse terms like eugenics and genocide, it takes away from the immense gravity of these terms, specifically the slow progression and government involvement/displacement of power. This makes us culturally more susceptible to missing key red flags of potential political violence and propaganda.

While there is a place for you to discuss ethics and abortion, so long as it does not infringe upon the rights of other individuals, I highly implore us all to use caution and learn the definition of these terms. The less careful we are about monitoring political movements and activity, the more likely we are to become complacent in political violence.

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This week in conservative, male-dominated online spaces, several tweets which have now amassed over a quarter million total likes have begun a discourse which although might make most women recoil, may be reduced to ‘locker room talk’ by general society, or how we now talk about rape post Epstein files and President “grab em’ by the pussy.”

The tweet which started the phenomenon last week is a screengrab from the 2026 film Obsession, which debut only two weeks ago, of the main character (a young woman) frowning dramatically, captioned: ‘how your gf looks at you when you ask her to block the guy who ‘raped’ her in 2019’.

To put in context, Obsession is a film about a man who makes a wish upon a supernatural object for a woman he is attracted to to become obsessed with him. The film does include a scene in which the man ultimately rapes her, as she has no autonomy and control over herself after this ‘wish’ is granted and she is supernaturally possessed. Throughout the film, she attempts to communicate with the man that her ‘true self’ is being controlled and suppressed. Though I doubt the meaning and context of the film was part of the meme making process, it’s horribly ironic to use a character who is a victim of rape in order to mock rape victims.

The comments of this tweet are full of men seemingly relating to the experience of having a former girlfriend who is a victim of rape, or what they perceive to be an apparent false claim of rape.

Putting the obvious aside; it’s well-documented trauma psychology for people to have tumultuous and complex relationships with their abusers. The question it all boils down to (‘why didn’t you just leave?’) fails to account for a plethora of complexities and social pressures victims of abuse face. But, the men in these comments aren’t concerned with this, specifically because there is political purpose behind changing the cultural definition of rape.

We live in a society where sexual assault is a rampant problem. Most recent quantitative data on sexual assault (National Institute of Justice & Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Prevalence, Incidence and Consequences of Violence Against Women Survey 1998) says 1 in 6 women in the United States have experienced an attempted or completed rape within her lifetime.*

*(I specifically call attention to female rape victims because they constitute 82% of underage victims, and 90% of adult victims. This does not by any means disregard or invalidate the experiences of male victims, however, they are almost always assaulted by another male. Nearly 99% of (reported) perpetrators are male. Addressing the issue of rape culture starts with language and behavior that usually originates in male circles.)

This statistic alone carries a lot of baggage. If we assume that 1 in 6 is accurate, that means by statistical probability alone we all frequently share spaces, relationships, and friendships with rapists. Nobody wants that, however, it specifically creates a problem when attempting to address current conservative talking points such as the declining birthrate, the male singleness or ‘loneliness’ epidemic, or even just the common desire for nuclear families that get married young and stay together for decades.

The removal of women’s sexual freedom and autonomy, such as the Project 2025 agenda to remove access to tools like birth control and abortion, is aided by these cultural shifts to change the definition of rape and sexual abuse.

It’s easy for anyone, conservative men included, to agree to a rape scenario that looks like: dark alley, stranger, forced and violent assault in which the victim fights back. Even if there are some which take a victim-blaming stance to ask why the dark alley was ever walked down, it’s usually agreed upon that the perpetrator is in the wrong.

Except that’s not how the vast majority of rapes happen. Approx. 76% of sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim already knows. 21% of which are intimate partners.

The reduction of rape to this specific scenario leaves room for delegitimizing any experience which falls out of this narrative (most of them). In turn, conservative men can become more cognitively and morally comfortable with:

• Voting for convicted rapists and celebrating rapists in other cultural aspects

• Voting for removal of further autonomy from women, such as reproductive care (birth control, abortion) and no-fault divorce (both of which are large proponents of project 2025)

• Removing themselves from personal accountability or holding their friends/acquaintances accountable for inappropriate behavior.

• Ignoring the reality of the Epstein files and Trump’s involvment.

The end result of this being: most rape, if not stranger in a dark alley is just sex a woman didn’t enjoy very much, or regretful sex meticulously strategized for political disenfranchisement.

I understand what the reasonable follow-up to reading these tweets may be: I don’t talk like this. No men in my life talk like this. This must be a fringe group of incels. This is rage bait. But that ignores the inherent structure of how rape culture operates, or generally how any oppressive social structure operates. Purposefully inflammatory content, or rage bait, while may be disingenuous to the actual poster is also a contributor to the normalization of this kind of talk.

There is a reason why ‘not all men’ is remarkably unhelpful in regard to actually addressing core issues presented by rape culture.

I know, we as human beings hate being boxed into specific labels and ideas because we feel it’s devaluing of our individuality and culmination of personal experiences and knowledge. Everyone wants to be an exception to the rule, but the rule wouldn’t exist if enough of us actually were. The reason we can never actually broach the line of productive conversation or the root of real issues (online) is because so many of us are too quick to rush to defend our own personal honor, in the form of whataboutism, which is a natural response but one that I’m sick and tired of distracting from the actual meat of the argument.

We can’t change anything about society if we refuse to accept that our actions don’t exist in a vacuum, and that violence doesn’t suddenly spring from dark allies out of nowhere. Proximity to rapists, to the word rape, to the subculture of men which appear in this article should make you at the very least extremely uncomfortable and that’s why I refuse to give you an out by automatically filing yourself into the ‘not all’ category.

When it comes to things like systematic social biases, such as sex-based oppression, I actually think it’s okay to generalize.

The human brain is an extraordinary sponge that requires zero of your actual conscious thought to absorb everything about the world it can in fine detail. The high volumes of information it sorts, at every hour of every day since the moment you are born (or maybe before) is thrown into a collective subconscious decision on how to behave. Our social behavior was once key to our survival as a species, these inherent little biases were kept ingrained to give us insight on who to trust, and more importantly how to stay in the ‘in-group’ that survives. Survival as women, especially, was for centuries and centuries dependent on the ability to conform to the social role we were expected to play, even well before what we would consider the start of true sex-based oppression.

You can’t actually separate or discern that what is taught about sex and gender and that which is biologically innate, just by nature of our sponge brain and the fact that you cannot conduct an experiment with a control human that has no external influences or biases on the matter. It’s impossible. So yes, to some degree, every single human being who was socialized in society (any society) that contains rampant sex-based oppression (every society) has these internalized beliefs. The layers that they are concealed under could vary. I am not of the belief that removing all bias from the human brain could ever be possible.

When it comes to sexual assault, these layers have been recognized as rape culture, or a culmination of specific behaviors we have deemed ‘allowable’ just by lack of social consequence.

Someone is liking and engaging with these posts, and able to retain a level of anonymity by being online, so can we actually be certain it’s not the men we know in real life?

I have no other reasonable conclusion to draw here other than what should seem obvious: we need to continue to call out bad behavior by recognizing facts. Sexual assault is not something that occurs in a dark alley; it occurs at home, work, school, and in the places where you may feel most comfortable and safe. Enthusiastic continuous consent is required between individuals regardless of their relationship or proximity and the fact of consent being required is independent to whatever the circumstances may be.

But calling out bad behavior cannot start at the top of the pyramid. Cutting off your alleged rapist buddy is the bare minimum and expected of any decent, morally sound human being. It cannot just be that.

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(am i allowed to say the word porn on this website??)

Millennials (or late gen z now, I guess) have re-sparked the porn vs relationships debate on Twitter this week. So, I’m using this opportunity to reflect on my personal inner conflicts on the topic.

Maybe I am just completely immersed in and spoiled by the online bubble I’ve created for myself, but every once and awhile I am taken aback by the ways in which we (society) fail to recognize what should be an excruciatingly obvious outlet of systemic violence towards women.

As a person who is still growing a prefrontal cortex, still developing my worldviews and perspectives and ideals, and a woman, porn and feminism have always had a very complicated relationship in my brain.

On one hand: I’m inclined to hate puritans, as a secular and very evidence-focused individual. The repression of human sexuality, on the basis of books full of thousand-year-old abstract principles of morality that have no footing in modern society has always and will always be ridiculous to me. Human beings are sexual, by nature, we’re designed that way and our rawest, most animalistic form craves sex more than food and fire and shelter (at least in the first 20 years after maturation, I recently really enjoyed this article on libido after menopause.)

Though puritanism doesn’t have to be religious, it often is, because many major religions teach the idea that suffering, or depriving oneself of worldly pleasures (like good sex, masturbation, etc) is virtuous. You are in some regard, supposed to feel miserable and like a caged animal, and you only enter the gates of heaven at the condition you did not chew off your own leg to escape though you desperately wanted to. You fought the demons of human freedom.

There is eroticism layered in the tension of doing what you’re supposed to do, and what you want to do (which is where I personally beleive the best art is born). (But maybe only for those who don’t actually feel the heat of the hell they were made to see real and fear.)

The puritan that is offended by nudity, sexual innuendos, provisions of self pleasure is extraordinarily easy to hate once you’ve unpacked these ideas. Engaging in the sexual revolution, the modern or historical context of the term, is a freeing and a satisfying fuck you to these ideas in this context.

But.

Maybe … this anti-puritan rage isn’t actually a perfect analysis of sex and the porn industry when investigating society at large, or under the lense of feminism.

Stripped to the bare bone, sex on camera, filmed by consenting adults is non-problematic. Whatever.

But let’s not delude ourselves, that’s not porn. Porn isn’t even sex.

Porn, or adult entertainment, is an industry, worth a global 97 billion dollars. Thinking about that insane number, there is no logical conclusion in which you don’t realize at least a great portion of billions is produced unethically.

That number can’t actually be produced until you define what unethical means.

It’s a sliding scale. On the end of what most would agree, ‘most certainly unethical’ we have:

• minors

• revenge porn

• filmed and or uploaded without consent from all parties

• trafficking instances*

Then it devolves into this unfortunate grey area. Maybe some would say unethical, and yet these are also proponents which allow the industry to thrive:

• subverted boundaries of actors

• childlike features and behavior in acting

• breaches of contract and unfair compensation for actors

Lastly, we have what I ultimately consider deemed acceptable by society just out of a sheer lack of willingness to prevent these from prevailing and being so heavily popularized:

• ‘barley legal’

• ‘forced’

• ‘step sibling’

• overt violence (hitting, choking, etc)

• racial or ethnic fetishization

• *the ‘loverboy’ method (trafficking technique, though still controversial due to a poor public understanding of how sex trafficking actually works.)

Though the regulation of the porn industry seems like a great idea, ie we can prevent all these things from occurring (but realistically only the top two categories), it doesn’t actually remove the societal impact aspect of porn.

We don’t exist in a vacuum. Ultimately, the things we learn about sex from porn (which is first occurring at a younger and younger age), no matter how many times we tell ourselves that it isn’t reflective of reality, will impact how we act with real people.

(I wrote a reflection on specifically the ‘normalized violent sex’ aspect of this idea here:)

To be honest, I do not care at all to debate how feminist being a sex worker is.

I think the question of “is sex work feminist” is a pointless and unproductive conversation. As long as there is wealth disparity, capitalism, and poverty there will be sex work. The partakers are not pondering whether their participation is feminist, they are trying to make money. Even western, more middle class women who partake in online sex work cannot vacuum out the socialization capitalism has left us with.

The money is the primary intrigue, thus what outlines the exploitative nature of the industry, as with all things capitalism. Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely not equating being a full service sex worker to working a 9-5 or even a shitty fast food job. Yes, both are the result of the exploitation of human labor. But only one involves risking your life (and autonomy) to be penetrated by strangers, which is why sex work is a uniquely feminist and human rights issue.

Also, on a seperate note, I hate the way people talk about porn addiction. I hate that the central focus is on how the existence and abundance of porn might fry the dopaminergic pathways of some poor 22-year old loser sap, sorry if that seems unempathetic, when the reality is if someone is consuming so much porn that they are considered addicted, what are the odds they have viewed rape on camera and not even known? Ten times, one hundred times, every time? Who knows.

Treating men’s sexuality as fragile, coddling it so gently as not to disturb the violent beast that cannot help but tear through (or, jerk off to) the first pretty thing it sees is just rape culture.

After coming to these conclusions, it is kind of shocking how flippant, and Gone Girl cool girl monologue some millennial women/older gen z are about porn and sex in general.

We laugh at women who shrug off their boyfriend cheating with ‘he knows where home is,’ and yet, some of these narratives sound eerily similar.

The idea of porn in a monogamous relationship is off-putting to some people, and I can understand why - at the end of the day, it’s your partner aroused by other people - but we’ve created distance by reinforcing that it’s not real, it’s a production, and the woman on the screen is not going to jump through and start riding your man.

To me, I have a hard time with the fact that people really beleive you cannot have a healthy sexuality, both with yourself and with your partner, without porn.

Not because it’s not normal to occasionally fantasize about other people or want to get off by yourself, that is healthy, but the fact that we seem to promote or reinforce none of that outside of vehemently defending porn’s honor. By these standards, all healthy (male) sexuality boils down to is the right to jerk off to tiny teen gets pounded by stepbro?

Is it really that crazy of an ask to not want a life partner who watches that? Is it puritanical?

Women, I implore you to keep exploring the notion that you actually can just remain single until you find someone who adds something to your life, and that you don’t have to settle or lower your standards because chances are, you’ll be unhappier then than you are now, alone.

Anyways, these are my thoughts, let me know yours.

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As of this week, the supreme court has issued a 1-week hold on the low-level court banning of by-mail distribution of Mifepristone.

This means that the case of whether it can be distributed by mail, or will be totally banned from doing so, is currently sitting in the emergency docket for review. The supreme court will then decide on the future of how women access this medication.

If you care at all about women’s reproductive rights, this is a big fucking deal - let’s talk about why.

What even is Mifepristone?

Mifepristone is sometimes called the abortion pill. This is because it is the primary drug used in a medical abortion, usually in combination with another drug called Misoprostol.

A medical abortion is the termination of a pregnancy under 13 weeks of gestation. This is the most common form of abortion, and how about 96% of all abortions in the United States occur. Mifepristone, and its generic Mifeprex, was first approved by the FDA in 2000 after submission by it’s primary manufacturer GenBioPro.

What mifepristone is NOT:

• Plan B (emergency contraception cannot cause an abortion. it only works if ovulation (egg release) has NOT occured, and will not harm an existing pregnancy.)

• A contraceptive (it does not effectively prevent pregnancy and is NOT the same mechanism as the pill, or hormonal birth control, and cannot be used in place of birth control.)

How does mifepristone work?

In order to understand how mifepristone works, we need to understand a little about early pregnancy.

The placenta, which is the major organ developed during pregnancy that delivers blood supply and nutrition to the fetus, does not develop right away. It takes many weeks for the placenta to take over, and prior to that, a structure in the ovaries called the corpus luteum is responsible for maintaining the pregnancy by keeping the uterus decidualized (thick and vascular).

The corpus luteum produces a hormone called progesterone. This is the same hormone produced here every month during the luteal phase of your menstrual cycle; however, during pregnancy, the corpus luteum stays in tact to ensure the uterine lining doesn’t slough off. This relies on signalling of hormones from your hypothalamus (hormone controlling part of the brain), which is also receiving signals from the embryo (in the form of a hormone called hCG).

Mifepristone works by disrupting this hormone circuit, which tricks the brain into thinking there is no longer a pregnancy and kick-starts production of hormones that thin the uterus out (decrease decidualization). It does this by binding to progesterone receptors and clogging them up, which prevents progesterone produced by the corpus luteum from binding. Thus, it can no longer do its job.

This disruption of the essential hormone pathway will naturally cause the corpus luteum to begin to degrade (luteolysis), and the uterus to thin. In about 60-80% of cases, this will cause the pregnancy to begin to pass on its own by spontaneous abortion. For the remaining 20-40%, another drug called Misoprostol is used to speed along the process.

Misoprostol mimics the action of prostaglandins, which are what cause spasms and smooth muscle contractions of the uterus. Some women need 1-3 doses of this to help completely pass the pregnancy. Medical abortions usually provide a prescription for both Mifepristone and Misoprostol, as there is significant clinical efficacy of this combination.

Is Mifepristone safe?

Yes.

Despite its initial advanced FDA approval in 2000, Mifepristone has undergone several clinical trials and safety and efficacy reviews. The major studies cited for its efficacy, such as the 2004 study done by the WHO, included large sample sizes of thousands of women.

Mifepristone also has its own shared system risk and evaluation strategy (REMS), which is a program overseen by the FDA that controls its distribution and prescription. Mifepristone REMS was most recently reviewed in 2021 by the FDA under direction of the Trump administration, where they determined that any risks were greatly outweighed by benefits.

They also approved stricter guidelines for distribution such as:

• Only certified providers may prescribe Mifepristone

• Only certified pharmacies may distribute Mifepristone

The safest and most evidence-supported use of Mifepristone is a single 200mg dose in combination with Misoprostol, administered orally at less than 13 weeks of gestation.

When drugs are manufactured, the FDA looks at several factors in regards to safety: side effects, pharmacokinetic profile, and long-term implications. Pharmacokinetics refers to how the drug interacts with your liver, how long it stays in your system, and how many off-target effects it enacts.

Mifepristone passes all of these implications with flying colors. Its long half life (20-25 hrs) allows for it to stay in your system long enough to do its job, but is then easily broken down and metabolized without affecting any other parts of your body. There is no clinical evidence to suggest that medical abortions harm future fertility or increase your risk for uterine disease.

Is it used for circumstances other than abortion?

Yes.

Mifepristone, due to its anti-progestin activity is used to control other uterine conditions and is essential in miscarriage management. In the instance of a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage), sometimes the uterus will continue to produce progesterone even if the embryo is no longer viable. This is dangerous because sepsis can occur. Misoprostol is often also prescribed in miscarriage management to help the uterus contract and fully expel the pregnancy if it has not naturally occurred thus far.

*FACT: A clinician in the ED has no way of determining if mifepristone/misoprostol was used to induce an abortion. If you have taken these drugs, even if they are illegal in your state you can still safely seek treatment in the emergency room if you experience abnormal bleeding.

So why is Mifepristone in the news?

Due to strict regulations on which providers can prescribe and distribute it, most primary care physicians cannot administer the drug. Thus, the majority of women seeking a medical abortion must do so by online clinics.

The 2021 review of Mifepristone by the FDA determined that it has demonstrated enough safety and efficacy to not need an in-person evaluation to receive a prescription, which is key because many women in red states are within hundreds of miles of the nearest abortion clinic.

But now, since the FDA has underwent massive changes in review panels for drug safety by Trump-appointed HHS RFK jr, it is likely Mifepristone will go back to the FDA again for review.

If the supreme court determines it cannot be sent by mail, thousands of women will lose access to Mifepristone; regardless of the circumstance it is needed for (abortion or miscarriage management).

This is part of a larger agenda (as outlined by Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation) to completely criminalize abortion at the federal level. It is my personal opinion that they will use pseudoscience (such as likely what will be demonstrated in the upcoming hearing regarding mifepristone) to label other contraceptives such as IUDs, Plan B, and the pill as ‘abortifacient’.

The OBGYN crisis

Even if you never plan to obtain Mifepristone or forsee needing a medical abortion, these changes in legislation have a broad impact on the availability of obstetric and gynecological care across the United States.

Increasing evidence shows board-certified OBGYNs are fleeing red states and refraining from practicing/becoming certified in areas with stricter abortion laws. Approximately 52% of county Hospitals across the United States do not provide Obstetric care. This number is predicted to jump by 10-15% by 2035.

This leaves all women seeking prenatal, abortion, birth, and postpartum care without a provider.

Can I still get Mifepristone now?

As of right now (Monday, May 4th), Mifepristone can still be administered by Telehealth and by mail. The supreme court has issued a 1-week hold before it can review the case which challenges the legality of this.

Information on where to buy Mifepristone: plancpills.org

Plan C pills provides information by-state on where you can buy Mifepristone. It has a shelf life of 5-7 years when stored in a cool, dark place (like your medicine cabinet).

Buying from international manufacturers allows you to purchase without a prescription; however, use caution. Though these vendors are tested by Plan C pills, foreign manufacturers are not subjected to regulation by the FDA.

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Before I present you with any additional information, I want you to sit with the following facts and really think about them.

Unless it specifically had to do with the uterus or ovaries, prior to 1993, almost all clinical trials were conducted on men. This includes pharmaceuticals, research, the material doctors are trained on.

I’m not just talking about human trials, either. Even in animal models, the male of the species is (still) universally preferred due to the extra layer of complexity women’s hormones add. Even in predominantly female cancers, such as breast and cervical, male mice are utilized and are implanted with tumors that are made from women’s cancer cells.

It gets even more daunting when you realize that prior to 2004 - which is when the FDA actually started requiring new pharmaceuticals to include women in their human trials - any drug released before the rule reframing wasn’t required to go back and test on women or analyze sex differences. They could continue to sell their product with only male-participant backed data. As of 2000, only 1 in 5 NIH-sponsored human trials included any women.

That seems abstract, given we are now 26 years in the present - but less so, when you remember that the average discovery-to-shelf timeline for pharmaceuticals is fifteen years.

And now, in 2026, after the Trump administration appointed DOGE to restructure federal funding under the guise of getting rid of ‘DEI’, there is a reported 31% decrease in NIH-funded studies with the word ‘woman’ in the title.

I say all of this not to scare you out of using modern medicine, but to point out that this significant gap in research on female physiology (or really, just a complete lack of regard for it), is still permeating medical, biopharmaceutical, and wellness spaces.

Truthfully, historically, nobody has paid attention to the mechanisms specific to female physiology until it has some kind of exterior benefit.

For example… after the second world war, there was an increased interest in skin grafts for soldiers who had been burned or wounded, which of course requires an advanced understanding of immunology (to prevent rejection of transplanted tissue.)

Peter Medawar, an immunologist who was working on skin transplants in the 60’s, was the first to ask what would now seem like such an obvious question; during pregnancy, how does the female body prevent the immune system from attacking the embryo, which is technically foreign?

This question marks the first time scientists started studying the complex role of the placenta, and its ability to neutralize T-cells which are biologically hardwired to kill anything that isn’t you - and we learned some really important things, like what causes pregnancy complications like preeclampsia and recurrent miscarriage* - but this was all for the general purpose of improving transplantology, which is what he won the 1960 Nobel Prize for.

*The field of maternal-fetal immunology is still relatively unexplored, and though we know how things go wrong, we haven’t quite figured out how things go right. I recently attended a talk by Dr Elaine Kouame, a UCSF postdoc whose lab which researches immune adaptations during pregnancy lost federal funding last year.

Now that you have this perspective in mind, let’s talk about losing weight.

The dieting industry is nothing new. Although the female body has always been more or less treated as a commodity, social expectations regarding weight and physical appearance are forever changing. And just like politics, there appears to be a pendulum swing every few years towards which bodies are favored, or ‘trendy’ (the two are heavily correlated, but I’ll let someone else dissect that.)

I will provide this disclaimer now so that no one ruminates on it further: this piece is specifically regarding the science of how cyclical dieting, extreme weight loss, and eating disorders impact female physiology. I am not promoting obesity, and I don’t beleive in ‘health at every size’ - yes, there are plenty of health risks associated with poor weight management - but I think it’s fair to say that those risks are well known, and well understood.

If I were to pick a woman off the street, I’m sure she could list a few risks of being overweight off the top of her head; hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes. But, very rarely do we talk about the consequences of low body fat on women’s health; not just because it doesn’t suit the skinny narrative, but because we literally just don’t know.

Additionally, the consequences of cyclical dieting (or sometimes called yo-yo dieting) are just beginning to unveil themselves. Approximately 45% of American women are on a diet at any given day. This is something any woman can suffer from, regardless of weight or body fat percentage, and there is increasing data that even clinically obese women experience these negative of restrictive dieting (such as bone density loss), even if the weight loss is necessary for other reasons.

Because of the dieting industry, or maybe because of how we talk about weight loss, fat is meant to sound purposeless, as if it’s a disease or pathogen you have the misfortune of carrying, or just some extra fluff to cushion your boney insides and make you human-shaped.

But, adipose tissue (fat), has a very important biological purpose, and there is a reason women have more of it than men.

Fat is an organ, and part of your endocrine system. It receives signals from your hypothalamus (hormone controlling part of your brain), and returns them back by releasing a molecule called leptin. Leptin has an integral role in the kickstart of puberty in women (particularly, when you get your first period) and maintenance of your ovarian cycle. Thus, fat and your fertility are permanently intertwined.

When it comes to hormones, I find it peculiar we have seemed to care a lot about them in some regards, but not in others. It’s trendy right now to be fearful of synthetic estrogens in birth control and environmental endocrine disruptors in your cleaning products, so why then, are we ignoring that fat plays just as big of a role in your reproductive health? And why have we correlated having as little as possible with health and wellness?

(I wrote about the commodification of hormones and the wellness industry here, if you’re interested):

If we consider other hormones like estrogen and progesterone essential to maintenance of female health, we can’t ignore fat’s role in this process. Without an adequate amount of fat, the estrogen production factory in your ovaries shuts down.

Cat Bohannon, a scientist at Columbia University, talks extensively about fat in her book Eve*. Fat evolved from your liver and immune system to serve a specific role in ensuring both your and your offspring’s survival. Women’s fat is also distinct to men’s.

*EDIT: It should be noted this book does have some salient criticism, particularly on the representation of how natural selection acts on a population. However, the first few chapters and her commentary on fat and women’s health is validated.

The areas which seem to fall under the most scrutiny by society (and modification by plastic surgery) are actually, consequently, the most uniquely important fats for female reproductive health. The fat around your hips, butt and thighs (gluteofemoral fat), is comprised of distinct long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, or LC-PUFAs. We can’t make these fats in our liver, they come from primarily our diet (which is partly why ultimately, women need higher fat diets than men).

Gluteofemoral fat specifically evolved to allow for development of fetal eyes and brains during pregnancy, which rely on these specific fatty acids - this is why the body ‘holds on’ to them longer, or reisists metabolizing them - they are essentially a specialized store for reproductive success. Thus, this physiological propensity to hold fat in the hips is purposeful.*

These specific hip fat stores are is what is measured by the hypothalamus to initiate the ovaries to begin producing progesterone and estrogen at the onset of puberty.

*Bohannon also tried to conduct a study on the implications of breast milk lipid content on women who’ve had liposuction on their thighs, abdomen, and gluteal area due to the inability for fat in those areas to restructure itself after surgery. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough funding or resources to complete the project.

Even after puberty, this constant surveillance by the hypothalamus never stops.* The endocrine system, particularly the ovarian cycle, works in a feedback loop (think of an electrical circuit - all the wires need to be plugged in for the light bulb to turn on). The constant release of leptin allows for continual production of GnRH (gonadotropin releasing hormone) from the hypothalamus, which then signals the anterior pituitary to produce LH (luteinizing hormone) and FSH (follicular stimulating hormone). LH and FSH are the hormones that cue your ovaries to start selection of follicles (immature eggs) which begins estrogen production. (Estrogen is secreted by developing follicles up until ovulation; then, progesterone is released from what’s left behind.)

*Post-menopause, the pituitary continues to produce FSH (in hopes the ovaries will respond.) This is why high FSH levels can be used to determine if a woman has entered menopause.

If you deplete your fat stores, the you’ve pulled the plug completely on the entire circuit - your hypothalamus can no longer produce GnRH. This is why eating disorders, intense sport, and being chronically underweight can cause amenorrhea (loss of menstrual cycle).

Secondary amenorrhea is experienced by women who got their first period at puberty, but then stopped menstruating due to one or many of these factors. (Primary amenorrhea can sometimes be the result of young girls who are heavily involved in sports and never gain much body fat which delays menarche, but is more commonly associated with congenital hormone or anatomical dysfunction.)

It can take many months to years to recover from amenorrhea, even once you’ve gained that critical fat back, because GnRH production begins again as pulsatile (in small increasing waves.) Many women who have experienced amenorrhea also experience anovulatory cycles, meaning although they have gotten their period back, an egg was never actually released because the follicular reserve (amount of eggs in the basket) was severely compromised, or there wasn’t enough LH/FSH production for a mature egg to develop. This is the association between eating disorders and infertility.

Many women who have eating disorders, yo-yo diet, or are chronically underweight experience secondary amenorrhea; and while you might not mind not getting your period, or not want children, the consequences of low estrogen (especially in young women who are decades off from perimenopause) is detrimental to your cardiovascular, bone, muscle, and brain health.

Estrogen has many physiological roles aside from just egg maturation, which is why males also require some amount. Evolution often loves to kill many birds with one stone, if we’re spending energy to make a hormone, it’s going to serve many purposes (in most cases).

Cardiovascular disease is the most common cause of death in women, and new data shows an increase of prevalence in premenopausal women. Estrogen in the bloodstream acts as a vasodilator (opens blood vessels) by production of nitric oxide, which can reduce congestion, and it is also anti-inflammation and prevents endothelial cells (which line important blood vessels) from dividing.

A study in monkeys (which have analogous cardiovascular systems to ours) analyzed the effect of low estrogen on heart health. The premenopausal, young estrogen-deficient monkeys developed abnormal coronary vasomotion, or a disfunction or proper dilation of arteries, as well as atherosclerosis (a buildup of fat in the arteries), causing obstruction which significantly increases the risk for cardiac events.

Another study in self-reports from women with irregular cycles found a 50% increase in risk for cardiovascular disease via atherosclerosis.

Heart stuff aside, estrogen’s more recognized role is in your skeleton. Estrogen, at the end of the day, is a proliferative transcription factor (a molecule that turns on genes), and is responsible for turning on osteoblasts (bone-building cells). In the absence of estrogen, osteoblasts die off - thus, there is nothing to help regenerate lost bone density. In their place, there is a rise of osteoclasts (bone re-absorbing cells), which leads to further bone deterioration. Estrogen in the gut is also pivotal for calcium absorption, which is what your bones need for regeneration.

The rate at which this loss of density occurs is intensely fast. An investigation of young, premenopausal female athletes with amenorrhea found that just six months of low estrogen yielded the same average density of a 51 year old woman. The more prolonged the amenorrhea, the more density was lost, and even in young women the drop-off of hormones causes the same pathway which initiates in menopausal women to occur at warpspeed.

I get that it’s easy to forget about your bone health if you are a young woman who is far off from menopause, however, weak bones later in life can lead to a detrimentally lowered quality of life.

For example, reduction of mobility by injury due to weak bones leads to a snowball effect of quality of life issues, which is why 1 in 3 women die after 12 months of hip fracture injury. Injuries that occur as a result of osteoporosis lead to largely increased risk period following recovery.

If bones and heart health weren’t enough, here is a (non-exhaustive) list of additional complications referenced for amenorrhea-induced estrogen depletion:

• High cortisol levels (stress hormone)

  • hypercortisolemia also leads to additional bone density loss by suppression of osteoblasts

• Hypothyroidism

• Early menopause

• Heightened risk for autoimmune disease and chronic conditions

Though increased cortisol (increased stress) seems to be innate in estrogen deficiency, estrogen is also has a large impact on cognition and mood regulation.

Particularly, low estrogen has been associated with fluctuations in the production of serotonin and dopamine, which makes you more likely to develop anxiety and depression. Estrogen is also involved in the synthesis and binding of serotonin in the brain.

Estrogen has stakes in many neurobiological mechanisms in the central nervous system, and the withdrawal of estrogen from these systems is something that is largely undefined. In the context of menopause, estrogen is hypothesized to protect against neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. It’s unknown what these implications look like on a young woman who is premenopausal.

I demonstrate these facts not to fear monger or add to any kind of stigma surrounding disordered eating, but to encourage women to demonstrate caution. Put simply, there is just not enough evidence to suggest that extreme weight loss and dieting do not permanently put women’s health at risk.

This does not exclude the use of GLP-1 inhibitors such as Ozempic and Wegovy. Though (fortunately) the trial period of these drugs did include female participants, they are simply too new to run longer-term studies on the implications of extreme weight loss by suppression of signalling molecules like GLPs.

Who’s to say that women will not put themselves through the ringer with these drugs (physically and financially) only for the tides to change again in the next 10 years for the newest ‘in’ body?

As always, I’m happy to provide PDF literature if any of these sources are not open access.

Let me know your thoughts!

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In a post of mine from a few months back, I wrote about my acute fear of space and how it drives me into a permanent state of existentialism.

Even if I was decent at math, and hadn’t dragged my way through introductory physics out of spite (and the credit requirements of my undergrad program), the insurmountable amount of insignificance one must feel seeing Earth from afar would probably be enough to make me want to burrow myself into a hole deep in her core and never resurface, the only way of feeling grounded again would be to feel the cool dampness of dirt against bare skin, thanking every microorganism silently evolving to make it possible by fixing carbon and filing the atmosphere with breathable air.

Turns out, the very fine line of fear and fascination is also walked by astronauts themselves. They aren’t all like Spock, they had motivations that were emotional and tumultuous leading them into that tiny vessel. From a neurobiological perspective, can one even differentiate the chemicals of fear and excitement? The adrenaline is still intoxicating enough to drive humanity to do these things, either way.

I cried real tears watching Artemis II resurface. Not even at the prospect of the first woman’s moon flyby, but just at the joy of this accomplishment for humanity. It’s a hard and very weird feeling to describe, maybe just a caveat of being human; we are primed to feel community, finally, at these kinds of accomplishments. (And, wow, is it refreshing to see competent and smart people working together in a government entity. We’ve been deprived of that it seems since 2024.)

The woman thing was kind of a secondary feeling for me, after the initial ‘moon joy’. Although I write extensively on women’s issues, it’s still fairly easy to take for granted the agency we have as women in living in 2026 compared to the lived experiences of our mothers and grandmothers. Growing up, my mother, the breadwinner of our family, would constantly update me on the cents-to-the-dollar women make to men - a slow improvement, climbing in single digits by decades. She repeated a story of finding out her salary comparison to a male colleague, her boss defending the discrepancy with ‘well, he has a family to feed.’ If we pedal back a generation from that, the stories become even more laced with horror and coercion.

There is, plainly, nothing that could deter me from the joy I felt seeing Christina Koch’s photos from space, an American woman and a scientist doing something mathematically unfathomable to me. It’s not that women have not been scientific contributors (we always have, to the same degree as men), but here is a woman being joyfully and loudly recognized. We aren’t confined to shadows, to being overshadowed, to archives handed to whatever man happens to be in proximity. No longer a decades-later afterthought for those who are curious enough to dig deeper.

I often wonder if what deters more women and girls from the pursuit of ‘hard’ science that we think we’ll be resigned to fates like that of Rosalind Franklin and Margaret Hamilton. When taught about these women in school, finally, there was never a follow up of well here is currently what women are doing. Though we claim to have shifted the narrative towards a desire to give credit where it’s due, there is so much emphasis on previously overlooked and little toward here’s who to look for.

One Christina Koch has the power to undo the work of those who seek to see women disenfranchised, such as the Heritage Foundation. In spite of all this administration has attempted to undo, it only takes one woman with two little braids floating in space to light a small spark in the eyes of one million girls.

It’s a myth actually,

the whole ‘when you turn 25 your brain is finished developing’ bit.

Neuroplasticity (the ability for your brain to continually make new connections and learn new things) never really ends, and though it does get harder to learn new things as you age, some parts of your brain continue to change forever.

Why then, climbing to the middle years of my twenties, do I find the thought of going to a bar in a crop-top completely disturbing? Actually, is there not a single thing in this goddamn dresser that hardly even closes that I feel good in?

It’s not insecurity.

Nothing about my midriff (physically) has really changed, and I’m not sure I’d care if it had, because it’s just something else entirely that nags at the nape of my neck, wears down on my collarbone, makes my bones crooked and distorted so fabric doesn’t sit right without pins to hold it in place. Everything I try on is wrong, the object in the mirror is not me but some indiscernible mannequin that I’m trying to shape into, I don’t know, an aesthetic? A “cool girl”? A visionary? A muse?

Am I just too old for crop tops? Am I just now realizing I never liked them to begin with? No, that’s a lie. The things I laboriously and excitedly wore to the club at 19 were far more offensive than a belly button.

Has my self perception changed, or just the trends?

It’s so incredibly easy to hate on people for trend-following, but really, we all do it. It’s peak human behavior, it’s every epigenetic wiring we’ve ever acquired from our ancestral escaping of bipedal prairie madness; blend in with the pack and you survive. Am I comparing low rise jeans to the divergence of genus homo? Probably. Apparently, our nervous system can’t tell the difference between ordering a coffee and looking a predator in the eye. Why would this be any different?

My sense of identity comes from where? I would love to say it’s anything but my clothes and my appearance. I would love to say it’s my writing, my yearn for learning, my propensity to give good advice, my teaching style, my weakness for handwritten letters. I would love to say all of that, but the first thing people notice about me is probably my dark hair, my height, the wash of my jeans.

As a teenager I was obsessed with Pinterest. I feel like I reference Pinterest in a lot of my articles, but truthfully, if there’s anything that shaped my ideas about self-perception, style, and aesthetic it’s that. And I remember the days when it wasn’t all AI and ads. But wasn’t it kind of always an ad, in a way?

They’re selling you something, if not in a monetary exchange then in brain space. They’ve planted a seed, that perfect put together and perfectly absolutely unattainable image. There will be weeds there, for a long, long time. Weeds which overtake the synapses of nearby neurons, that click click click on when you’re in the Target beauty isle with suddenly two-hundred dollars worth of merchandise in your cart already.

The opposite of socialization is isolation. Maybe that is a miserable existence but I’ve always wondered what I would be if I were raised in a box.

Okay not really.

But, I can’t be the only one who thinks there’s kind of a horrible irony involved in acting in a movie such as The Substance, a film in which exaggerated prosthetics were used to create the image of a ‘perfect woman’, and then directing a Sabrina Carpenter music video which is kind of just tits and ass with a side of song?* Can you make commentary about the experience of womanhood, aging, and the beauty industry while also participating in these kinds of projects?

[*To be clear, this isn’t about Sabrina. I don’t think her discography actually aims to communicate any kind of meaningful political or social message aside from being catchy in order to make money. I don’t care for her (or her music),

(and I have to be honest: the lyric ‘I get wet at the thought of you being a responsible guy’ sounds extremely pathetic, but I’m also not a straight woman so maybe that’s just the type of shit yall are actually on?)

but that in it of itself is the goal of 98% of the entertainment industry, and not worth some kind of feminist investigative journalism on individual choice, the ‘choice’ involved is just what can we do to make the most money. The ‘yelling about how much I hate men while also being gleefully on my knees for them’ is just plain relatable to a lot of people, regardless of how hypocritical it is (humans often are, I’m not trying to be judgmental, we are all big walking contradictions sometimes), which is why she continually entertains that narrative. It clearly sells very well, even if people aren’t thinking about it.]

I don’t actually have an answer to these questions, but seeing both pieces of media left me with a weird feeling. The same weird feeling I had about Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games series having a neutral stance on real-life genocide when she very excellently played a character who dismantles a murderous dictatorship.

Disconnection from the artist to the actual art seems very unnatural and bizzare despite the internet constantly telling us not to put celebrities on a pedestal or expect any kind of salient political commentary from them. For almost all of history, artists made art because it was a reflection of their politics. Nobody became a playwright in the 16th century because they saw a market to exploit of peasants who found relatability in commentary on class.

But now, I guess it’s all different, the art you make can just be a job and nothing else. Maybe this has something to do with people becoming celebrities based off of virality, or nepotism. I’m not sure.

I’m not condemning Qualley or suggesting that someone’s career has to be perfectly in one specific box, I really enjoyed The Substance and I think its commentary is still relevant, and communicated in a very entertaining and humorous way. Her other projects haven’t been devoid of criticism either; she’s done a lot of acting for queer characters that hasn’t been super well received by critics like her recent film Honey Don’t! She’s married to Jack Antonoff (famous producer for artists like Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey, Lorde etc) and there’s no indication that she’s actually queer herself (not that I personally think that disqualifies someone from taking queer roles, but it’s something that’s brought up a lot.)

I think about this Fiona Apple meme a lot:

I feel like I write this in literally every single thought-piece I do on feminism, but if I must then I will. It’s not a lifestyle, it’s not a religion: it’s a frame of thinking. It’s a way of analyzing our relationship to patriarchy. Choices can’t, ultimately, be sorted into two ‘feminist’ and ‘unfeminist’ boxes because life is infinitely more nuanced than that, our brains are too good at sorting social ques and correlating it with survival for that. And if we think about it too much we end up spiralling like Fiona Apple did.

How do we make progress? How is progress defined? Is it even possible, or are we just condemned to being hypocrites forever?

anyways, I really like the song margaret. I always think about my wedding first dance when I listen to it.

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It’s always the things we begged, pleaded and fought for that end up chewing up and salivating all over our soul, isn’t it?

Higher ed was never not in the picture for me, I have always considered myself an education fein. I thrive off of lectures. I soak myself in knowledge, I want it to spill out of every pore in my body.

Biological knowledge conquests just ended up perfectly fitting this hunger. There is always an unanswered question in biology, always a gap to fill. You could stretch every scientist in the world so thin they’d fit on one of those medieval torture wheels and not even scratch a microgram into the surface of the Universe’s secrets.

I feel like a God when I hold cancer cells in my hand. I can conquer this, this evolutionary failure of DNA and twist and shake and break it with my own two hands. I put in my earbuds and blast punk rock and I seed these little evil speckles into a petri dish and I watch them grow and I feel whole.

Do I like the idea of doing science, or do I actually like science? I love to gather information but seeking and arranging it is a whole other skill set.

Here I am, on the precipice of greatness and academic success, staring at the outline of my thesis and the promise of publication and yet I would rather be writing on my stupid substack blog.

In fifth grade, I won some scholastic award for writing that got me a day-trip to the art museum and my little story published in a book. I sat myself by a sculpture made of little buttons stacked one on top of the other to resemble coral and wrote a short story about snorkeling. My English teacher made me promise I would never stop writing.

I’m haunted by a quiet inner voice that asks a gnawing stupid question about an alternative universe in which I made that my career. I imagine that teacher, her early-2000’s spunky pixie cut and flashy outfits appearing in the corner of my lab space: what are you doing here, Kara?

Stupid fucking fig tree analogy. I wish Plath had never written it. Yes, I named my blog after this analogy but that doesn’t mean I like grappling with this constant inner-crisis, one could argue, neurologically, we never actually had a choice to begin with. Those neurons fired already, your thoughts are just a scripted code from the Universe, a toddler given the illusion of choice by deciding what color shoes to wear when it didn’t matter as long as you went outside.

I started babysitting at 12, for the family that lived two doors down.

They had an absurd amount of trust in me, a hardly-developing adolescent in cutoff jean shorts and a full railroad track in my mouth, leaving me alone with their two young kids for overnights and days in the summer.

The parents were millennials, who had bonfires in their backyard that went all night and left the beer cans circled around the fire pit in big piles like a frat would. They were never invited to the porches of the other neighborhood parents, particularly the moms, who just spoke in low serpentine tones with wine-stained teeth and watched them from afar.

Before they started paying me, I had been practically watching them for free. The mom would always insist I wasn’t obligated, but the three year old would often follow the brigade of neighborhood children blocks from her home, and if I didn’t look out for her, who would?

A day in the summer, the lot of us lined up on the curve and bikes sprawled out on the grass, toddler on my lap, the mom’s sister came to visit. She was heavily pregnant, belly hanging out of the front of her tank top like a perfectly round melon stuck to her stick-thin frame. She stood on the front porch of their house watching us, hand supporting her back, sucking on a Marlboro red.

As a kid, I was sure I’d never smoke a cigarette. The American anti-smoking campaign had been firmly planted in the center of my brain, that old lady with the hole in her throat talking raspily in my ear. I knew even then you weren’t supposed to be smoking while pregnant. I judged her, harshly, for thinking she must not have cared enough about her baby to quit.

I remembered this the other day as I was buying a pack. I don’t smoke regularly, but that throat cancer victim in my head had been replaced in adulthood by a chic french woman off my pinterest board that insists they don’t count when you’re drunk.

I moved away the summer I turned 14 and never saw them again. It feels, in many ways, like a chapter left half-written then abandoned in the center of my life. Out of place, and disorienting, this sibling-like bond myself and my neighborhood cohort had, so many days of our childhood spent together then abruptly nothing.

I took my first ‘official’ full-time nanny gig at 19, the summer between Freshman and Sophomore year of college. I had almost anything on my mind except children coming home that break, freshly tattooed, fresh bob and black box dye, fresh urge to run my car down the highway with my sandal pressing the accelerator to the floor while melodrama is blasting between the crackles of my radio transmitter.

Then there they were, three children, who needed me to cut their hotdogs into small pieces and drag them out of the community pool at 4:30.

They go to the Lutheran private school, their mother had beamed at me, the first fact I had received during the job interview which was no more than a 10 minute phone call. That had made no difference to me, of course, until the 8-year old looked me dead in the eyes and asked me not to say the Lord’s name in vain.

There was a charmingly American hypocrisy to their family dynamic. The parents were freshly divorced, mother shuffling the children back and forth to the house, which the father had received. They’d married young and divorced ugly. I never saw the two parents at the same time. Jesus paintings and bible verses hung in Pottery Barn-esque frames around the townhouse.

The father had a certain kind of patriarchal intensity about him, that made me certain he had been the more religious one of the partnership. My head conjured a blurry image of a mother-in-law with pointy nails tightening a lace heirloom veil around a bride. Every time I saw the mother, I couldn’t help but feel a little proud of her for getting out, even though I had no reason to beleive she needed escaping to begin with.

At 19 I had no sense of professionalism. I wore crop-tops and triangle bikinis at the pool, and put a I stand with planned parenthood sticker on the bumper of my car. I couldn’t help but hope a little that I’d get a look dropping the kids off at vacation bible school.

I was never once assumed to be just their nanny; I guess that’s a cute charm of a small Midwestern town. The kids eventually started calling me mom in public just to fuck with me.

The little boy once decided to run away on his still training-wheeled bike. I chased him, sandals smacking the pavement until I buckled over to catch my breath. I thought of the busy street only two blocks over and I pushed through the ache of my wheezing lungs, tugging him back to me by the collar of his neon dinosaur shirt. The girls watched the ordeal from the porch, giggling.

The cat died that summer. A squirrely little black thing, always shimmying out of a hardly cracked door to be outside; until one day, a truck barreled down their suburban quiet street to end its life.

Why would they do that? The youngest asked me, why wouldn’t they look to see if he was there? I had no answer for her.

On the last day with them, I was draped in an odd sadness. These kids, my pseudo-kids whom I’d spent the entire season with, were unburdened by my leaving.

See you never! The little boy shouted from the door frame as I got into my car.

I returned to my nannying endeavors after starting grad school. (the stipend is never enough.) At 22 I was much more business-minded, fresh out of a corporate gig, I owned slacks and button downs, my hair was long now. I asked the right kinds of questions. I still used that escapee mom as a reference, though I found out she had re-married. Even had another baby with her new spouse, who had four children of his own (eight total?) she had been the religious one all along.

Nannying in San Francisco was like night and day compared to my Midwestern adventures. There was no running rampant through the town looking for new playgrounds and hiking trails. I seldom left the house with my clients, parents too cautious of the city, the red light and swiveling lense of a nanny cam always following me. Printed schedules, and absolutely no screen time, under any circumstance. Every parent worked remotely, silently watching and analyzing from a eggshell white painted home office.

Everything I’d learned about economic social dynamics came crumbling to pieces. Despite what I wanted to beleive, I was treated significantly better by the wealthier families. Not just in terms of pay.

When I could land positions in the Presidio, my meals were usually always comped, my uber rides home after dark paid for. I was never expected to do anything outside of childcare (which you’d think would be the standard, but it isn’t). My boundaries weren’t pushed in any capacity, if anything there was a great deal of laissez faire which made the actual job so much easier.

Though it would be very hard to call anyone with a family in the city not wealthy, there was certainly a discrepancy; some parents hated to see me be still when children slept, and I was tasked with pointless chores like reorganizing the toy boxes, which would inevitably be undone the moment of the child’s waking.

I often think about the fact that I don’t remember any of the babysitters I had as a child, except for one, who’s face I can’t really make out other than a blondish ponytail and her stick-shift car.

I look into the faces of these children, who are all the same in their endless why-questions and constant unravelling streams of curiosity, and wonder if my face will be the one that sticks.

Is there a ‘right way’ to menstruate?

According to instagram: Yes.

Somewhere in the world, a little girl scraps together pieces of old cloth because she doesn’t have a pad. Another stayed home from school because she was made to feel ashamed and dirty for bleeding.

But here, in the land of the 6.8 trillion dollar online wellness industry, you can hire a coach to tell you exactly what to eat and how to exercise depending on the date of your cycle.

Natural family planning, or the act of carefully monitoring your cycle phases as an alternative to conventional birth control methods or fertility treatment used to be associated with hippy health-conscious moms who drive Subarus, or the fringe strict Catholics. But now, it’s taken a completely different face: the traditionally conservative, religious, anti-government wellness influencer.

While sex education and a good understanding of the ovarian cycle is an absolutely necessary foundation for all women and girls (as is contraceptive education), what was originally a decent concept has been turned on its head to support capitalistic interest in the wake of predominantly conservative politics and MAHA.

Rather than appealing to those who believe in education as a means of empowerment and autonomy, we now see cycle talk as a further reinforcement of patriarchy and the religious-conservative role for women, specifically in the ways products are sold.

the wellness industry

On both ends of the political spectrum, the pharmaceutical industry is often painted as a universal evil and the pinnacle of exploitation. And while I don’t disagree that there are many systemic issues that cause inequity, the for-profit healthcare, capitalistic system we operate under allows little room for alternatives.

The price of insulin might be an outrageous disservice to humanity, but at the very least, we know that every product on the market is meticulously regulated and on par with the current standard of care.

This cannot be said for the wellness industry, big pharma’s older, eviler cousin. Since the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, supplements and beauty products do not undergo regulation by the FDA and are not held to the same consumer protection standards. Supplements on the shelf are legally allowed to not disclose the actual parts-per-million of compounds they are claiming to contain. They can also make superficial claims about their product without any actual evidence to support them.

Though this has been the case with supplements for awhile, as the new age of internet marketing as arisen, new avenues of promoting consumerism has, too.

Women are already spending up to 900 dollars a year on beauty and cosmetic products. Transitioning the market towards spending on wellness and health products is an easy lateral move, especially when women are far more likely to experience health issues like endocrine disorders and autoimmune disease. Perimenopausal and menopausal women are also vulnerable to this, though physician-monitored HRT (hormone replacement therapy) has become a more popular route in recent years.

the balancing act

The phrase ‘your hormones are out of balance’ is one that is universally thrown at women, even by healthcare professionals, regardless of the chief complaint.

I have a bone to pick with this phrasing. While your hormone levels can certainly be abnormal or out of the expected range depending on circumstance, like menopause or an endocrine disorder, I still can’t figure out what exactly is being balanced.

I understand the colloquial use of ‘balance’ might be referring to a feeling, rather than an actual biological mechanism; but I also think using terms that reflect the biological reality empowers women not to be influenced into unnecessary consumerism.

Hormones aren’t a scale, they are more like an electric circuit in a loop. The hypothalamus, the hormone control center, is often both the beginning and end of this loop.

If you are either under or over-producing a hormone, that is endocrine dysfunction.

Common endocrine disorders in women:

• PCOS: Large benign cysts around the ovaries produce excess androgens. Often treated with hormonal birth control. (approx. 1 in 10 women.)

• Hashimotos (Hypothyroidism): Autoimmune disease in which the thyroid becomes dysfunctional. Requires supplementing with synthetic T3/T4 for the rest of your life. (women are 7-10x more likely to develop than men.)

• Type II Diabetes: Insulin resistance due to unmanaged high blood sugar.

• Menopause*: *not a disease, but often causes a slew of very uncomfortable symptoms which can be treated with supplemental synthetic estrogen, or HRT.

blackballing the pill

Hormonal birth control, in recent years, has become more and more controversial in health and wellness circles. There are many erroneous claims made about the pill, particularly.

The anti-birth control craze has lead many women to turn to natural family planning, or cycle tracking, instead (though the chance of pregnancy due to human error is much, much higher with this method.)

Gen Z specifically seems to beleive the birth control pill is used as a ‘bandaid’, rather than addressing the ‘root cause’ of disease.

*As a woman who researches in the field of women’s health: I absolutely do not disagree with the fact that the female body is underrepresented in a clinical context. Diseases like PCOS and endometriosis, which primarily impact women, are especially lacking in clinical understanding. I completely understand the perspective that obstetric and gynecological care is not designed with women’s pain and best interest in mind, and particularly has a deep history of racism and exploitation of BIPOC bodies. This is not an argument in support of keeping the system currently in place.

However, many people do not understand that in the context of disease, there usually is not one distinct ‘root cause’. Disease is complicated and is often accompanied by comorbidities which make it difficult to assess exactly how and why they exhibit the pathophysiology they do. ‘Root cause’ is a phrase that is almost exclusively used in alternative medicine spaces, often for the intent of selling their service or product, or pedaling conspiracy; you’ll notice the answer they provide is something bizarre (and medically unlikely) like parasites, mold poisoning, etc.

The hypocrisy of these kind of conspiracy posts like the one above never fail to make me laugh, because these are the same people (by and large) voting to ensure the US healthcare system remains for-profit and domineered by large corporations and insurance, under the guise of wanting ‘small government’. Do you want regulations to protect you, the consumer, or not? Do you want healthcare to be mediated by the government, a neutral third party that is not profit motivated? Hell no! That’s communism!

𖤓 essential feminist knowledge: the history of the pill, in historical context

In the beginning of the 20th century, the American Birth Control League was founded by Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood), which organized in opening the first free clinic where women could access contraception in 1916 (primarily condoms). Prior to the success of her career, women had little to no access to contraceptives.

Until 1965, the Supreme Court had ruled that laws about contraception was determined on a state-by-state basis, meaning in many states all forms was completely outlawed. Griswold vs Connecticut finally changed the landscape and outlawed state bans on birth control. It is also important to note other legislation regarding women’s autonomy which was also in place at the time, such as laws regarding the recognition of marital rape, which did not become universally illegal until 1992, and the legal recognition of no-fault divorce by The Family Law Act of 1969 in California (though it took until 2010 for all states to change their laws). Roe v Wade, a former federal protection for abortion rights (until the Dobbs decision) occured in 1964.

Sanger became a public advocate for scientific research on the birth control pill, which lead to the development of Enovid, the first pill to hit the market in August 1960. And by 1965, 1 in 4 American married women under 45 were using it.

Though the pill absolutely revolutionized women’s personal reproductive freedom and autonomy; it’s also important to discuss how Sanger is criticized - not for her role in development of the pill, but from where she received funding. Multiple groups are accused of being eugenicists, or specifically interested in contraceptive development to prevent those who were seen as ‘genetically undesirable’ from reproducing. Sanger ultimately took the money because she believed this ethical line was worth crossing in order to service women by the pill’s production.

cycle syncing

If you’ve seen a menstrual product commercial in the past 10 years, it’s probably something like this: a gorgeous skinny woman with great hair doing something active like a headstand yoga move, a marathon, ballet. Something that implies grace and precision, the message that in spite of our biblical bleeding curse, we can do it all.

While yes, these commercials are selling a product, they also created a new problem: if you can do it all, there are no further purchases necessary. This belief also coincides with the very 2010-esque girlboss feminism, or general erasure of biological realities between men and women. The Girlboss™ is generally a huge point of contention for the conservative wellness movement.

The alternative to this is convincing women that they are intrinsically incapable of competing with male biology. You’re in pain? It’s because you aren’t woman-ing enough.

This idea can, incredibly quickly, devolve into a direct support of the disenfranchisement of women (home, uneducated, financially dependant on a man) under a pseudoscientific belief about the ovarian cycle.

Is there any actual science behind treating the cycle phases like a lifestyle guide? Should we be doing only pilates and eating avocados during the luteal phase?

It is absolutely true that women experience wide ranges in hormone fluctuations throughout our averagely 28 day cycle. This is in extreme contrast to the hormonal cycles of men, which are roughly 24 hours and exhibit a generally stable pulsatile release of testosterone (after puberty).

Contrary to what we may have been told, painful periods and changes in mood that alter your ability to participate in your day to day life isn’t normal. There are many real conditions that can make your cycle less manageable; and while lifestyle changes help to an extent, they are not the end all be all. This methodology, to me, seems akin to telling someone with clinical depression to ‘just take a walk outside and try to be happy’.

The most recent trend is specifically regarding the optimization of fitness to match your cycle phase, claiming that strength training recovery is intertwined with the uterine environment activity.

However, there is no clinical data to support this. A randomized controlled trial published to the Journal of Sports Medicine in 2024 aimed to gather data on blocking training phases and exercise intensity on the ovarian cycle to examine the impact on endurance, muscle recovery, cardiovascular parameters, and menstrual symptoms in an 8-week period. The results were statistically insignificant, meaning there was no true difference in these fitness-related factors between the women who synced their cycle to their workouts and the control group. (However: I will acknowledge the small sample size used here. There is very limited research to work with.)

Another randomized controlled trial published in 2023 to Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport used a similar mode of investigation to investigate the impact of exercise intensity on menses. They concluded that on a psychophysiological scale, women felt more emotional changes in late-luteal and menses (as I’m sure we can all attest to), but actual sport performance was not changed. (This study also has a very small sample size. But in their defence, I’m not sure the funding or interest exists to create a larger-scale study.)

So, your style of exercise doesn’t have to depend on your cycle phase. There is much more evidence that ANY kind of exercise can actually alleviate symptoms particularly during menses.

When it comes to other dietary and lifestyle influences, for women with endocrine disorders such as PCOS, there is sufficient evidence to suggest some changes may be minimally helpful in reducing symptoms. Introducing foods such as turmeric, flax seeds, and fenugreek have shown some reduction in symptoms and cyst size. However, this was often done in conjunction with traditional first-line treatment (hormonal therapies). Hormonal birth control is still the most effective way to treat the condition, but these dietary changes may add some benefits in reducing symptoms and cyst prevalence. Overall, it certainly doesn’t hurt to modify your diet, but the claim that these modifications alone can reverse PCOS symptoms is false.

the fertility obsession

The obsession with health and wellness, which is reflected in marketing practices, also seems to be a thinly veiled disguise for the new conservative political concern about the American birth rate declining (which is actually a thinly veiled disguise for harsher immigration policy. Russian dolls of bigotry.) Vice President JD Vance even suggested families without children should pay higher taxes.

This overlaps with the great replacement theory, which is a rhetoric spouted by white supremacists who fear that minorities may one day outnumber european ancestry by demographic, thus encouraging white women to have babies. (One of many ties the wellness industry has with white supremacy.)

There is also a pedophillic undertone present in the fertility conversation. I recently came across an paid ad collaboration on Instagram between an influencer account called ‘naturalnursemomma’ and a company called Truly Free Home, which claims to sell products that are ‘non-hormone disrupting’. (someone actually Dm’d the company about these claims, i’ll link the video here)

Firstly, there is something deeply creepy about this presentation. It feels more like an exercise of control rather than a legitimate concern about your daughter’s health, which isn’t that surprising considering the religious dogma that tends to be a keystone of conservative wellness spaces, but disturbing nonetheless.

Yes, there IS data suggesting that menarche (onset of first period) has been decreasing in average age, but this seems to be correlated most heavily with diet rather than environmental hormone disruptors. The hypothalamus (master of the hormones) contains receptors for leptin (hormone which is released by fat), and a critical percent of fatty tissue must be achieved in order to kickstart the puberty pathway in adolescence. Childhood obesity might have a much larger stake in this discussion than laundry detergent.

The way in which we casually talk about fertility, or even just our cycles, also contributes to this phenomenon. In internet culture, this idea has also subtly manifested in meme format, particularly ovulation. I wrote about that here:

Statistically, women are choosing to have children later in life than at any other point in history, which contributes to a lower birth rate than previous generations. A study published last year by the National Vital Statistics Reports System (a subset of the CDC) found that first-time motherhood for <25 year olds had dropped by 26% between 2016-2023, in addition to a 25% increase in first-time moms 35 and older.

Though maternal age has increased, having children in your mid to late thirties does not guarantee you’ll have any issues getting pregnant. By age 38, fecundity declines by about 14%.

But, as this meta-analytical study points out, women who choose to delay having kids to advanced maternal age are very aware of the risks associated; but the consideration for building strong financial and relationship foundations took precedence over potentially having to do IVF or other fertility interventions.

submissive and breedable

Does all of this exist just to support (knowingly or unknowingly) the growing agenda of Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation? Or does it exist because companies simply use the current political and social trends to find new consumers to exploit?

Chicken, egg, I guess. Regardless, it’s absolutely important to recognize the message this ends up sending; the normalization of returning to a societal model where women are infantilized, subservient, and dependent on men for survival.

The virality of posts such as these, as well as conservative wellness influencers gaining rampant popularity depends on a prolific market for wellness products (because they make their money via ad revenue - and many also go on to launch wellness brands of their own).

Influencers like Nara Smith and Hannah Neeleman have amassed millions of followers from doing exactly this. Both women are proponents of the ‘from-scratch’ MAHA-inspired wellness trends, while also being extremely openly pro-natalist and religious-conservative. (Fun fact: Hannah Neelman’s brand Ballerina Farms recently underwent investigation for listeria in their raw milk products — hmm, who would’ve thought?).

Choice feminists can debate for hours on their ‘married-by-18-and-10-children’ lifestyles, but at the end of the day both women have the same goal — to make money.

As I mentioned in my previous article ‘is pregnancy ‘body horror?’’ , treating feminism like a religion with a set of rules you must follow only seems to drives women further and further from investigating their own choices and relationship to patriarchy. We cannot chastise women who do choose to marry young, stay at home, and raise kids as not being ‘perfect feminists’ (because then, we would all be hypocrites for doing anything in alignment with patriarchy), but that doesn’t mean we cannot intellectually explore why some women are driven to this lifestyle, which supports patriarchy.

There is not a black and white way we can assess ‘feminist’ and ‘unfeminist’ choices, however we can acknowledge that education about the realities of parenthood, pregnancy, and financial literacy is largely responsible for the delay in maternity we see today, and that the disenfranchisement of women is dependent on them having no agency or skills outside of the home.

what about men?

Though women seem to be the primary targets of wellness consumer culture, men are certainly not exempt from weird and harmful hormone talk. Hormones, particularly environmental estrogens, have made it to the ‘podcast bro’ table many times.

Around 2010, alt-right conspirator Alex Jones made the claim that tap water was responsible for the ‘feminization’ of men due to women’s birth control usage. He claimed that women are ‘peeing out estrogen’ into the water system, and cited a fringe study (which was later debunked by the EPA) on frogs and fertilizer to back this claim. Though this is an old narrative, the topic has resurfaced recently in the wellness communities, and was even mentioned by Trump-appointed HHS RFK Jr.

To be clear: birth control is mostly progestin (synthetic progesterone), and even combination pills contain little estradiol, because progesterone is the hormone which stalls the ovarian cycle and prevents ovulation. Also, the compound is metabolized by your liver into steroid byproducts. Unless you are directly flushing your pills, it’s not getting into the water system.

Environmental pseudo-estrogens are a legitimate concern for being carcinogenic, if you are exposed in high doses to compounds like bisphenols, pesticides, flame retardants, and pollutants resulting from fuel combustion (mainly firefighters, factory workers, and those who live where groundwater is compromised by waste and runoff). These compounds don’t contain actual estrogen, but mimic the chemical composition enough to stimulate estrogen receptors, which are inherently associated with cell proliferation (and could be cancer promoting). However, they do not have a salient impact on testosterone levels or ‘feminizing’ secondary sex characteristics.

Phytoestrogens in foods have also sparked an irrational (misogyny rooted) fear of feminization, such as soy products. But realistically, your endocrine system is tightly regulated, and you would have to eat literally buckets and buckets of soy to see any measurable difference.

what’s a girl to do?

Women’s reproductive health, and navigating your own issues with your period, contraception, and fertility is hard enough. And it only seems to be getting harder since the Dobb’s decision’s impact on the availability of OBGYN care, free clinics, and even websites and government resources which used to be more available.

It makes sense to me that women are turning to online communities to connect over our reproductive problems, especially when many of us have bad and unencouraging experiences navigating healthcare, and our pain is routinely dismissed and minimized. However, I encourage you to guard your health by using discernment. Influencers with no formal background or training on medicine, endocrinology, or disease are not a good place to source information from (and YES, THIS INCLUDES CHIROPRACTORS.)

Some TIPS I’ve created for navigating online information:

• ALWAYS check credentials. Even if someone is using ‘Dr’ in their username, this does not mean they are a medical doctor. Medical doctors are MDs and DOs. Beware of vague or unfamiliar abbreviations, google is your friend.

• Are they trying to sell me something? This is a good question to ask yourself when viewing content online, especially if it’s an inflammatory statement. A link in their bio is a good fast-track to this, usually.

• Consider the source. Even if someone is citing legitimate research or a publication, that does not mean they are interpreting it correctly. Data analysis and reading scientific lit is a skill that someone any without background in the related field may not have (and no, it’s not an insult to someone’s intelligence to acknowledge this, journals are written for peers in the field and even professionals struggle with literature outside of their scope of research).

We must fight misinformation and advocate for science as a collective. If you are a fellow scientist and want to get involved in the preservation of funding for research, I recommend checking out Stand Up for Science.

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About a year ago, a woman went viral for creating a list of reasons not to get pregnant. Every bullet point was the culmination of some woman’s horrific pregnancy experience, ranging from uterine prolapse, fourth degree tears, to a provider putting their entire hand inside of the uterus to scoop out the placenta.

The vast appeal of this list is clear; most of us who have never been pregnant have no idea exactly what happens in the delivery room or the months leading up find this completley shocking. Of course, everyone knows that complications can happen and something as extreme as what makes this list won’t happen to everyone. But for some, even the thought of having to subvert physics, to push the absolute limits of human biology to bring a baby out of such a narrow space which we are hardly even evolved enough to do is horrifying enough by itself.

Pregnancy is obviously not a body-neutral event, and if anything, I think this kind of discourse brings a greater appreciation and respect for those who choose to endure it, though many people feel The List is another layered brick of disrespect towards the labor of motherhood. A woman’s body has never not been a controversial subject, in the context of pregnancy or not. The natural inclination for mothers to feel already undervalued and criticized for their existence, especially in the fragility of being postpartum, is perfectly understandable. Is the discussion of the grotesque, terrifying things gestation does to the human body an exercise of teaching autonomy and informed consent, or devaluing of the process which brings forth human life?

the conservative view of pregnancy

Like all things in a woman’s universe, pregnancy is political. In the context of American politics (which I write from because I am American), motherhood can be viewed from two very different perspectives.

We can start with the biblical version. Though modern conservatives seldom actually align themselves with basic biblical teaching, the more archaic views have imbedded themselves into the root of American traditional conservatism. This includes the Bible’s vocational role for women as a wife and mother, and explanation for suffering.

In the Bible, eve ate the apple, she defied God, and so the pain of childbirth, menstruation, and pregnancy is a justified punishment. This unfortunate fate of the modern woman takes the shape of medical misogyny, especially in obstetric and gynecological care. Regardless of a woman’s religious or political affiliation, you tell me which providers in your area will provide anesthesia for an IUD insertion.

The pain and suffering of childbirth, in traditional conservatism, is also seen as virtuous and morally necessary. As we’ve seen a rise in conservative social politics since the recent sweeping of Republicans in all three branches of government, it’s no surprise we’ve also seen the trad-wife trend thrive. A good trad wife is praised for her natural home birth, for enduring labor on her kitchen floor and standing right back up to get back to work, newborn in tow.

There is, of course, a huge hypocrisy to note when we look at another element of the conservative political party; the Pro-Life movement.

In order to be successfully pro-life, as in convincing as many women as possible to give birth, you must ignore the possible complications and grievances of pregnancy and motherhood. It’s in best interest of pro-life politicians to treat pregnancy as nothing but a temporary inconvenience. The ideal narrative to convince women to give birth is something like: You’ll have a nice round belly for a few months, push a couple times and then you can go back to living your life! Just do adoption!

This is also in part why ‘Pro-Life’ advocacy groups ignore the obstetric failures of red states, such as the OBGYN drought and physicians leaving in droves because they no longer wish to practice medicine with a judge over their shoulder, or the rates of infant and mother mortality specifically for black women. There can’t be actual danger associated with doing what they want (giving birth) or you’ll lose the fence-sitters altogether.

The tradfluencer aversion to modern obstetric care also suits this narrative. When you’re convinced to join something like the Free Birth Society, you don’t care what’s happening to the OBs in your state.

When you take these things into consideration, The List might actually be a salient tool in personal advocacy and bodily autonomy, especially for those who live in rural communities where standard care is already limited, let alone complications or emergencies.

the ‘left’ view of pregnancy

I put ‘left’ in quotations because there is not necessarily one monolithic opinion, and the left (or everyone who isn’t on the right) is significantly more fragmented in terms of political beliefs and voting.

Though conservative media tends to paint the left as unanimously childless, barren, birth-control obsessed blue hairs - family-oriented and suburban areas tend to poll much more democrat. A registered democrat is actually much more likely to have a family than not.

But, there is a subsect of the internet which drives this discourse about pregnancy and body horror, usually from liberal childfree women. This is where The List was born.

Looking objectively, everything on The List is medically accurate, meaning it is technically something which could happen to you should you fall pregnant. It’s not trying to be disingenuous. So why does it bother people?

Alongside discourse about the biology of pregnancy, comes discourse about children, being child-free, and children’s role in the community at large. From a pro-autonomy stance, it’s fine and normal to want to avoid pregnancy with the knowledge of its implications on the human body. Where it seems to breed problematic ideologies is the general resentment of children in public spaces, like the genuine belief that children shouldn’t be allowed on airplanes (public transportation) because they might cry.

I won’t be obtuse, being child-free as a woman is a right which we should not take for granted, one that our grandmothers were not afforded. Women of previous generations did not have the agency or tools to family plan on their own desires, and it’s frankly shocking that things such as marital rape are still a subject of legal debate (not just in the united states, but globally). It’s not radical to get married and have children, not by any stretch of the imagination; that’s exactly what has been expected of women for forever.

That doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed to have children or get married, but no, it is not necessarily the feminist thing to do. Radical feminism is the rejection of these patriarchal expectations for women, including performing the labor of pregnancy and motherhood for men who are unhelpful at best and violent at worst.

But, many of us will go on to get married and have children, nonetheless. As I often say, feminism is not a lifestyle or a religion, it’s a frame of thinking. Every single one of us, for as long as we can remember has been spoon-fed these patriarchal norms every day of our lives; few women will actually dissect where these came from. Many of us will recognize the inequity in parenthood between men and women and become mothers anyways.

Choice feminism would be pretending both choices are equally empowering; they aren’t, but at the end of the day, we all make unempowering choices, whether we’re aware of it or not.

“but you chose this!!!” Both sides of the spectrum will yell at the mother who struggles to discipline her child in public.

Did she? Was she properly educated on the risks of pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum? Or did she follow the motions because it’s what she was told was the right thing to do?

a beautiful little parasite

As a biologist, there is absolutely something to be said about how weirdly horrifying the nature of pregnancy is. Many people refute the idea that a fetus is a parasite, perhaps out of moral obligation, but really, it is. Here are some things I find absolutely fucking bonkers.

Let’s start with conception. For many decades we were taught the idea that sperm ‘races’ to the egg, and the fastest swimmer gets their genes passed on. But this could not be less true.

The vagina’s microenvironment is actually built to destroy sperm. Its acidic pH, due to the bacteria that live there, is form of natural spermicide which is why sperm must perform a chemical reaction (called capacitation) to survive. (Just like we have built-in immune defences against pathogens, hmm.)

At the chance that some sperm does survive, it then must go through another chemical reaction (the acrosomal reaction) in order to interact with the egg. The egg contains surface receptors which are capable of assessing the vitality of the sperm, essentially ‘choosing’ which will penetrate and then cause a wave of calcium-mediated reactions that kickstart development.

Oh, and let’s not forget that women can only really get pregnant like 3 days out of the month. The second the egg bursts out of your fallopian tube, it has approximately 24 hours to become fertilized or it looses vitality. But the insane odds don’t stop there…

Implantation is a literal invasion of the uterine lining. It is actually a violent process, wherein the zygote must turn off the immune system’s attack mode (for pathogens!) in order to turn on the angiogenic and wound repair pathway (to make new blood vessels to support what will be the placental blood supply). Once it does this (by a series of molecular signals) the immune system will slowly destroy cells in the uterine wall to make way for the embedding embryo. This is why some women experience implantation bleeding.

Side Note: These cellular pathways are also exactly how cancer cells metastasize and tumors create their own blood supply. I recently went down a rabbit hole about fetiform teritomas, where a tumor develops and actually turns on embryonic developmental pathways so it resembles a fetus. Fetus, tumor, parasite… what’s the difference, really?

There’s also fetus-in-fetu, a very rare (but horrifying) developmental abnormality where a fetus develops with a parasitic twin inside of it that steals its nutrients and blood supply (and in this case the sibling is literally considered a parasite).

Weird case studies aside, even in the most perfect and normal pregnancy, you are growing an entire new organ (the placenta) which will subsequently detach and come out after birth, leaving you with a dinner-plate sized wound. You are sacrificing your precious calcium balance to build a skeletal system from scratch. You are, for the rest of your life, walking around with bits of your baby’s DNA inside of you forever (microchimerism). You are synthesizing hormones and cholesterol which are driving that little thing’s development. That’s wild.

call your mom.

For a discourse that might have been fear-inspired, it has (for me at least) shown me a greater appreciation for womankind. There are many things in biology that terrify me (this being one of them), and yet it is also equal parts enticing.

I wrote about the ‘maternal urge’ of mine here:

It’s hard to balance the (biological?) reality of wanting to be a mom and also acknowledging the reality of pregnancy and motherhood. I don’t have all the answers, I can only write about my current experiences, and hopefully share a bit of knowledge.

free resources

• Sterilization Options: If you are looking for doctors willing to preform tubal ligations for women 21+ regardless of marital status: here is a crowd-sourced link of OBGYNs by region

• Pregnant and don’t want to be: plancpills.com provides guidance on getting abortion medication by US state, including from private manufactures (no dr appointment acquired - however always do extensive research when buying from a non-US FDA regulated supplier).

• Postpartum: postpartum support international provides many resources and non-judgemental guidance for PPD, postpartum rage, postpartum anxiety, and postpartum psychosis.

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A decade ago, a woman might have taken great offence at the suggestion that her cycle is a major dictator of her emotions and actions.

Now, this kind of conversation seems to be commonplace among Gen Z across various social media platforms, ranging from ‘Haha ovulation! I’m so horny’ to ‘Women are not capable of logic or working normal jobs because of their cycle’.

Between the co-opting of terms like ‘hormone regulation’ and ‘cycle syncing’ by the fitness and wellness industry, the recent anti-birth control craze, and the online consensus of ovulation turning you into some kind of sex-crazed maniac with insatiable urges, we seem to have lost all sense of biological and everyday reality.

What is ovulation, actually?

Put simply, ovulation is when a mature oocyte (egg) is released from the dominant follicle (protective casing) in your ovary, and begins to make its way through your fallopian tubes and into your uterus. It typically occurs around day 12-15 of your cycle, marking the middle.

During ovulation, a surge of a hormone called LH is required from your anterior pituitary gland (hormone-controlling part of your brain). Estrogen is also at its highest during this time, as it’s released from the developing follicle.

The egg itself only lasts about 24 hours after it’s released before it looses viability. Your fertile window lasts longer than that (about 5-6 days) because some sperm may survive inside your reproductive tract for several days. So, if you have sex right before or after ovulation, you may still get pregnant even if it’s not exactly to date.

Right before or during ovulation, some women report mild symptoms such as bloating, breast soreness, and changes in cervical mucus. Some women feel a small pinch or cramp. If you’re trying to get pregnant, you might track ovulation by basal body temperature (temp becomes slightly elevated during ovulation), and testing with urine dip LH strips.

But, it’s not a 100% accurate way to ensure you do (or don’t) get pregnant, some fluctuations may cause ovulation to occur earlier or later than usual.

However, in general, most women do not know the exact date they’ve ovulated. Unless you’re routinely picking at your discharge to test its consistency, and taking your temperature at the same time every morning, you probably can get a ballpark estimate of your ovulation date but not precise accuracy; this is why conceiving successfully can be something that takes a lot of planning. (and why ‘natural family planning’ can result in accidental pregnancy, if not done absolutely perfectly.)

Women are objects (wokley)

The common thread that unites most tweet/instagram reel/tiktok sensationalizing ovulation is the idea that this biological mechanism turns women into apparent sex feins with no emotional control.

Yes, an increase of libido is normal, but let’s not overstate things; it’s also normal for your libdo to fluxuate at different times in your life, regardless of your ovulation schedule.

Libido is a complicated phenomenon which driven by combination of hormones, social and psychological factors, and your overall wellness and environment. It’s also sensitive to things like stress, sleep, and diet.

Also, it’s okay to have increased sexual desire even if you aren’t ovulating. I understand the urge to use hormones as an excuse to like sex (men do it all the time) but you don’t actually need one. Women can also be sexual beings and that is okay. Much of these memes seem to be a cope of the fact that, yes, women also enjoy sex (and can enjoy it at any point in the cycle) despite what religious doctrine and purity culture often employs on some women who are raised in conservative communities.

What I would like women on the internet to reflect on is why ovulation has taken such a stronghold as a female meme, when it is actually shorter than the other phases of the cycle and, when comparing, has far less noticeable symptoms and side effects.

It all seems to boil down to the idea that once per month, women turn into fertile sex gods who can never turn it down. This is not a narrative that encourages any good-faith conversations about education regarding the cycle. More often, it opens the door for misinformation which is used by misogynistic men and people looking to exploit women.

Where else have we heard the excuse of an overwhelming hormone-driven urge to have sex?

The idea that hormones are all-consuming is nothing new; but very rarely is this narrative permitted towards a woman’s emotional outbursts. Unless, of course, this outburst benefits men (sexually).

In any other context, our periods make us emotional, difficult, sensitive, unpleasant to be around.

The secondary point of discussion in the online space is how our cycle impacts our attractiveness.

In regards to ovulation, it is often a positive association: brighter eyes, clearer skin, fuller breasts. Estrogen is at its peak the day before ovulation, and these changes might have some impact on hormonally-influenced secondary sex characteristics like breast tissue, and clearance of hormonal acne; but it is not a magical spell which turns you into a virginal, fertile sex goddess. I very often wonder if we would actually notice these subtle changes in appearance if they weren’t constantly shoved in our faces.

Conversely, the other phases of the cycle are also judged by how pretty it makes us: the luteal phase seems to take the most flack for this. Progesterone is one hell of a hormone, and some women are particularly sensitive to it; meaning it can cause dramatic changes in mood and cause that icky, bloaty, sluggish feeling.

There was a study in 2020 on facial symmetry during the various phases of the ovarian cycle, and yet we still have no idea what causes endometriosis.

Hormones as a capitalistic commodity

Why did the tides change? What clicked in the feminist mind that shifted us from wanting to divorce ourselves from the harmful stigma around PMS and raging 28-day fluctuations as much as possible to embracing the idea that maybe bitches be crazy, after all?

I won’t dive into this too much because I’m planning to write a longer, more in-depth essay investigating the impacts of the wellness industry on our perception of hormones, the cycle, and our health. But where there is systemic medical misinformation, the wellness industry is often standing in the background somewhere.

I beleive the phenomenon of using the term ‘hormones’ as a wellness attention-grabber buzzword probably started with the rise in usage of hormone replacement therapy for menopausal women, then slowly devolved into something targeted at much younger women.

The idea that hormones are something you consciously need to balance is a very interesting phenomenon to me, because a) hormone levels are designed to fluctuate and work in feedback off of each other, not reach equilibrium, and b) if you have a working hypothalamus, it’s already doing that for you.

But wacky science aside, this sellable product also may be feeding into the new, revamped idea of how our cycle defines us as women in social spaces. Like many other things the patriarchy works in tandem with capitalism over, of course you don’t need a cycle coach to bleed every month, but it’s great at convincing you your health is dependant on spending money.

Is the witchy, bleed with the moon, womb power image of a middle-class white woman with etsy tapestries on her walls doing anything to actually close the scientific gap in knowledge about women’s pain, or solve systemic issues regarding periods like lack of access to care products? Or is it just priming you to buy an online course written by someone with approximately zero endocrinology training or specialty?

Just some food for thought.

(Stay tuned for more wellness industry criticism)

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From the age of about fourteen, I started imagining what it would be like to be pregnant.

Maybe one could dismiss that as a natural consequence of the onset of puberty, a body swelling with new breast tissue and widened hips and hormones. Surely that is a natural thing, a curiosity of the capacities of my maturing body. I am continually fascinated by how specialized every tissue which knits life from scratch is.

But, I know women who have never felt this - who also went through the dreaded trenches of female puberty - and still think of pregnancy as body horror, of a two-lined nightmare.

The caretaker gene isn’t actually a gene - more so, a culmination of our socialization as women and girls, and probably some amount of personality and upraising - but whatever it is, I have it.

I yearn to grow life in my body, to feel the weight of a baby laying on my sternum. I daydream about it, I imagine what they would look like and how I would parent them.

For a year in undergrad, I worked in a medicinal chemistry lab washing glassware. They synthesized antiestrogens, and the leftover byproducts were very toxic - acetone never cut it, I had to use copious amounts of methanol to get them clean, which constantly got all over my hands and probably in my lungs. Ever since, there is this deep fear I have that my precious reservoir of follicles has been tainted, my ovaries coated with a black tar of ruin. I put my career first, one bullet point on my resume, and now the methanol and toxic reagents are running rampant through my bloodstream and I will never have children.

The concept of not being able to ‘have it all’ is not lost on me. I know that the only people who can really experience a full-fledged family and un-ceilinged career success are men - with a woman who stands silently behind him, a child on her hip, unstyled hair, and a full Google calendar.

In part, I guess that’s not all men’s fault - they are not the ones left with a wound from a grown and then detached organ, from the subversion of physics to bring a baby out of a narrow, narrow pelvis. It really is unfair, the way we have to bear the pain of it all and are still expected to needlessly attend to everything afterwards. It’s a miracle that more women don’t absolutely lose their goddamn minds.

When I think about having children, I sort the experiences in two places in my mind.

The first is the absolute joy of it all, the excitement, the possibility. Newbornness, the oxytocin, the snuggly baby tightly wrapped in soft cotton around my torso. And then, there is the other half. The complete abandonment of your previous self to a total and decimating devotion to another being. The dichotomy of being both beautifully and violently life- changing.

My mother had me at 37. She lived a very full life before having me, she danced and acted and lived in New York City. She had many jobs, many hobbies, many figs to choose from. She dated the drummer for the Violent Femmes - hell, she made him part of a love triangle with my father.

There are many people, especially now given the social dynamics of villainizing childfree women and insisting a declining birthrate is a prominent cultural issue in the rise of conservatism, that will try and insist that nothing has to change with kids. I think this argument can be disillusioned by simply having a conversation with a parent.

I started nannying when I was 19 to support myself through my education. I worked with many families - wealthy, middle class, one child, seven children - despite apparent differences their dynamics were all woven by generally the same threads. The mother bore the majority of the emotional and physical labor (even in divorced families).

The longer I worked with a family, the more the mothers would begin to confide in me. They told me things that it seemed they had no one else to tell, because I would provide an empathetic ear and soft expression. The weight seemed to be lifted just in the act of complaining, of expressing things that were deemed horrible or unmotherly to admit to their husbands and children - the redundancy, the frustration, the urge to drive away and never come back.

Men make childbirth and pregnancy seem like a surrender to their power, also. If a woman has your children, she is yours indefinitely - if not as a partner, as a person whom you have control over, or ownership in the eyes of other men. The ‘baby mama’ isn’t respected like the wife, she’s dominated, and then discarded.

Given all of these things, why do I still want a child?

To an extent, we all think we will be an exception to the rule. Somehow, I will find myself in a perfect scenario where all labor is equally divided, where I surrender my body but not my soul and my personality.

I wonder if I am victim to the socialization of women being doomed to wifehood and motherhood. The soft cascade of images of women in flowy sundresses, so beautifully dressed and clear-skinned, so perfectly in love with themselves and their kin. My Pinterest board, walking me through an artistically painted delusion that no amount of critical thoughtwork has the power to supersede.

For now, I just hold the image of the potential dearly in my maladaptive daydreams.