Excuse me. Can a woman weigh in on female reproduction?

For centuries, the female body, especially the reproductive part, has mystified men. There was a time when a woman who was in a bad mood was deemed “hysterical.” Do you know what that means? It means people thought her womb was wandering around, causing her to be off-center. The Greeks would put nice-smelling spices between a woman’s legs to lure the womb back to its rightful place, assuming that this would help the woman calm down. Women have been diagnosed as mentally ill when really their problem was a hormonal imbalance or severe PMS syndromes. A woman’s pain has, in fact, for many years, become fuel for dismissal. “She’s just upset because it’s her time of the month.”

Now, even with medical science where it is, women are being told that they don’t really need birth control pills, or if they do need them it’s because they’re sluts. “Put an aspirin between your knees,” we’re being told. This might all be great fodder for conversation but for one super huge problem. It is men who are leading and participating in these conversations. Women are not invited.

Luckily, I have my own blog, and even though I’m just a woman, so far my ability to write seems to go over pretty well, so I thought I would use this real estate to toss a few facts out there. From a female perspective.

It’s all in a name

Much of the conversation going on right now is about “birth control pills” or “contraception.” Did you know that the same pills can also be referred to as hormone replacement therapy or HRT?

The Mayo Clinic defines HRT as follows: “Hormone replacement therapy — medications containing female hormones to replace the ones the body no longer makes after menopause.” The National Institute of Health notes that there are generally two groups of women who use HRT:

Generally, health care providers prescribe HRT for two groups of women:

• Women going through menopause and who had already gone through it (called post-menopausal)—The natural levels of these hormones drop during menopause. This drop can lead to symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, vaginal dryness, and sleep disturbances.  HRT may be used to help lessen some of these symptoms
• Women with certain health conditions—In some cases, women’s bodies don’t make normal levels of the hormones because of a medical problems, such as premature ovarian failure.  For these women, HRT replaces the hormones that their bodies should be making.