The new woman

Women are growing up out of an age that used many devices to control our minds, bodies and energy potential. Women’s empowerment began with breaking out of the role of homemaker and moving into the male-dominated marketplace to earn our keep and control our economics.

This bold move gave us economic empowerment and freer rein in the control of our destinies. The new woman has all kinds of choices outside of the roles of mother, teacher or secretary. We can undertake any course of study and enter almost all professional fields as: pilots, financiers, scientific researchers, IT specialists, lawyers, doctors, judges, etc.

Professionally and economically, “we have come a long way baby,” but in a vitally important area to our survival, we have reneged to take full responsibility. In matters of health, many women are not extending themselves adequately in assuming greater responsibility. We are much of the time still being led like a bull with a ring in its nose: we allow the medical and pharmaceutical interests to exert overwhelming influence over our decisions concerning health issues.

According to Sherrill Sellman, an international women health care advocate, in Hormone Heresy: What Women Must Know About Their Hormones, “Women are a lucrative market spanning all age groups, from young teenagers to the postmenopausal. Synthetic hormones, surgical procedures, drugs, medical tests, diagnostic tests and ongoing doctors visits (not to mention complications incurred from all of these) makes gynaecology a most lucrative specialty.” In the US alone, 50 million women have used oral contraceptives. Hysterectomies are another big industry: close to one million American women have hysterectomies annually. The pill has contributed significantly to conditions that later necessitate the removal of a woman’s uterus and ovaries. Women and hormones are another big business.

We have been cajoled with scientific studies, media advertising, patient handbooks and drug samples to accept Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) as a magic potion. HRT has been praised as cure not only for hot flashes, but for all menopausal symptoms. In addition, it has been regarded as an anti-aging medicine to prevent osteoporosis, heart disease and even Alzheimer’s!

Recently, in the Journal of the American Medical Association there was an announcement that a $600m study, know as the Women’s Health Initiative, would be stopped three years earlier than planned. The study presented irrefutable evidence of the harm that estrogen/progestin therapy was doing to women. Both of these drugs are classified as known carcinogens (cancer causing) by the US government, the World Health Organization and The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in the US. Together, these hormones have over 120 possible risks and side effects.

Women need to remember that menopause is ‘passage’ into a new growth phase.

It is not a disease and does not require toxic, carcinogenic, steroid hormone treatments. What some women experience as a debilitating menopausal period, is largely the reflection of earlier abuses of lifestyle: poor diet, environmental toxicity, and stress taking its toll. Hormone imbalances are in fact, symptoms of poor health. If the symptoms are addressed only with HRT, the real underlying problems are simply ignored, not corrected. The female body is endowed with the means and intelligence to remain healthy and fit for all of its life. Nature has provided dozens of proven, effective and safe ways to balance hormones, regrow bone, and repair and maintain heart health without the use of toxic drugs.

To become hormonally balanced, women must embrace a more holistic approach to health care. Dietary changes, exercise, naturopathy, chiropractic care, acupuncture, homeopathy, herbal medicine, aromatherapy and stress management techniques are some of the safe and effective options available. Doctors and complementary health practitioners can both have a place in a woman’s health care programme if an integrative approach is used. Using all our resources is an empowered way to approach health care.

The more informed women become about our bodies and the choices available to us the less influenced we will be by the mass marketing of harmful drug treatments. Regaining the knowledge of our female physiology, reducing our hectic pace, honouring the needs of our bodies and returning to the healing power of natural foods and natural medicines is the way to health empowerment.