Beyond Taboos: The Real Challenge Behind Transforming Women’s Healthcare

And what—if anything—we can do about it.

I promise this blog isn’t about to become book review central.

Though, if it does, I wouldn’t be mad.

Consequences of putting a writer to work in a bookstore.

Anyway, I do have a customer to thank for what I’m about to share. I was ringing up her purchases one Saturday when I noticed a theme. Hazarding a guess, I asked if she’d be open to book recommendations about women’s health equity. Her eyes widened and, without missing a beat, gave me an enthused “YES!” As we swapped stories, she told me about a book I’d not heard of called Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women. What sold me wasn’t the wonderfully blatant title but its promise of readability and accessibility. So, on the ever-expanding reading list it went.

A few weeks went by before I picked up a copy while traveling in DC, along with two brilliant stickers: one that read “VOTE” with the V depicted as a uterus and the other of RBG. Supremely fitting for the locale, I thought. My new travel companions and I spent a few more days hiking around the (supposedly walkable) city before heading home to Seattle.

Then, I cracked it open.

I’ve not picked my jaw off the floor since.

Take a look around. It’s still a man’s world, isn’t it?

It doesn’t take long to realize this world isn’t made for women.

Wage equity? Gotta wait until 2056. Gender equity? A mere 300 years away, according to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Inclusion in clinical trials?

We’re thirty years young and nowhere close to where we should be.

I mean, what does our menstrual cycle have to do with the drugs we take, anyway?

And on and on it goes.

So perhaps I shouldn’t have been so shocked by Manne’s candor as she lays out, chapter by chapter, exactly how men’s entitlement impacts women. She unveils stat after stat and story after story that leaves you wondering why they’re not breaking headlines, day after day. Or, if one does, the news cycle often jumps to the next, more salacious story with haste, leaving us in the dust or preaching to the choir.

Manne touches on women’s health in particular through two chapters, one on medical care and the other on bodily control (cue The Handmaid’s Tale intro). My underlining between these pages got a little out of control as she emphasized the difference between men’s and women’s pain management, the Black maternal mortality rate, and how hard women must work for “invisible” conditions to see the light of day. Here’s an excerpt to give you an idea:

“Many of us may be taking the wrong dosage of drugs we ingest on a daily basis, thanks to the lack of women’s representation in clinical trials.”

Fun fact.

Here’s another zinger Manne shares. Women are seen as capable of speaking into others’ care, such as our children or parents, while not being considered knowledgeable or competent enough to advocate for our own health needs. “A woman is not entitled to ask for care for her own sake, or for its sake, simply because she is in pain, and because that pain matters,” Manne writes.

Are we not our own experts?

Are we not the ones who move, eat, breathe, and think in our bodies every day?

Why, then, are we dismissed, marginalized, and overlooked when it comes to deep insights about our very being?

Manne then flows into the chapter devoted to bodily control, or our lack thereof, where my notes of “what” and “NO” now populate the margins.

I echo Manne’s query, “Is life sacred or not? One wonders.”

I read this chapter twice.

Wrapping up, Manne investigates entitlement to domestic labor, knowledge, and power and what happens when women attempt to upset the fruit basket, so to speak, and challenge long-held assumptions or seek leadership roles.

Spoiler? It doesn’t end well.

Just ask Elizabeth Warren.

Or Hillary Clinton.

Or the many women for whom the term “gaslighting” becomes all too real.

The other day, I read that in Washington State, it costs more to pay for childcare than to send the same child to college. I had to read that headline a few times before it sunk in. No wonder, I thought, women leave careers to stay home and raise children. Yet the cost of staying home is astronomical. In 2020, that number amounted to $1.5 trillion in missed earnings in the U.S. alone.

Earnings that could be fueling our sluggish economy.

It’s true: We’ve come a long, long way, and momentum for health equity continues to accelerate. But, underneath the surface, women’s and men’s roles remain much the same.

Why women’s health leaders need to understand what drives society before moving forward.

We must first understand the rules of the game to play it—and turn it on its head.

Because how can a women’s health startup get funding if the founder doesn’t understand the cultural norms working against her?

How can we change the language allowed on social media and on billboards if we do not understand why it’s kept off in the first place?

The ‘system’ isn’t stagnant.

It’s actively working to maintain a status quo. Yet once we see it laid bare and exactly how male entitlement seeps into the cracks of our culture and healthcare, we can start pushing back more effectively.

How can we turn the tide for women’s health?

My first thought was to craft one of those nifty conclusions that outline five top tips for overcoming male privilege in women's health. For the SEO and thought leadership and all that jazz.

Except, that felt quite disingenuous.

As if such a summary is even possible.

Even Manne doesn’t leap to any one conclusion beyond staunch commitment to the fight ahead.

It’s a complex state we’re in. And every woman comes to the table with different strengths and stories.

So here’s what I figure.

I’m going to keep listening to experts, learning how best to advocate, telling stories, and sharing experiences.

Because the stories we tell about others and ourselves inevitably shape society. And men have been controlling the narrative for long enough.

Health unites us.

Stories unite us.

And the more connected we are, the more empowered we feel, the stronger we become to resist and push back the ever-encroaching tide of male entitlement.

We can become a force so powerful we can’t help but prevail—if (and only if) we do it together.

Coming home from DC, I put work aside for a few hours to watch the movie “She Said” about the journalists who exposed Harvey Weinstein and helped popularize the #MeToo movement. What struck me was not the power of a single story but the power of the many, many stories needed to take down one single, albeit powerful, man.

One was not enough.

It should be, but it wasn’t.

So, together, we must hold our righteous anger and frustration in one hand and unyielding hope in the other.

We must acknowledge this quite insane system we’re a part of, and yet we cannot stay there.

We must continue questioning the status quo and pushing for our voices to be heard and listened to.

What happens now?

There's no single answer or person to fight against such an entrenched system.

All I can say is I'm going to do my best to wade into the fray with eyes wide open.

Many men hold implicit entitlement. Therefore we can assume we hold the opposite, Manne explains.

Our minds are powerful things.

And once we start recognizing what's ours?

I dare you to stop us.