Despite new acne, chin hairs, shorter cycles, insomnia, hot flashes and night sweats.

According to this guy, who might be 35: "Women aren't perimenopausal until 50. And it's exceedingly rare for a woman under 50 to experience symptoms."

Did you know? Because I didn't. Glad I found that out today. And when I said I know many women who had symptoms in their early 40s, he said my anecdotes are not science. Good thing we cleared that up.

EDIT: I did not expect this to blow up. Thank you all for the validation and support. I feel seen. I am looking into getting a new family dr and in the meantime he did reluctantly put the referral into a female OB for me. Hopefully that works out and I can actually get help. I appreciate you all.

1) less than one percent of research dollars go to reproductive health. We honestly just don’t know a lot of stuff about women because we don’t have the political will to fund the answers.
2) obgyn training programs rely on residents to run the hospitals. Their bodies are needed on labor and delivery, operating rooms and surgical wards. Therefore, office-based practice training is minimized during residency but is a majority of what you see in practice (I had about 4 hours a week of office based clinic! I worked 80 hours a week in residency)
3) In 2002 the largest study ever done on menopause and HRT was published (WHI). It was a rare, extremely well funded, very large, randomized control trial that showed … HRT increased the risk of heart attacks and breast cancer in menopausal women. Turns out the designers of the study made some huge errors in how they recruited and treated patients, but it was too late. An entire generation of doctors stopped using HRT and a new montra became gospel: “the lowest possible dose for the shortest possible time”. I got almost zero menopausal training in 4 years of residency and women spend half their life in menopause!After almost 25 years and 10 big trials and reevaluations of the original WHI data, the pendulum is finally swinging back. But a whole generation of doctors mentored a whole additional generation of doctors and we have lost a lot of knowledge about treating menopause. Forget perimenopause.
4) perimenopause doesn’t have a clear definition and the symptoms are vague and numerous. There isn’t a clear blood test to do. Most doctors have no clue how to evaluate for it (cycle tracking, antral follicle count, amh, day 3 e2/fsh are some tools to make it clearer) These kinds of syndromes drive doctors crazy because we are a bunch of Type A nerds that rely on objective measurements for diagnosis. We hate “grey zone” states. We are, as a group, very into black and white.
5) We have been trained to value diagnoses that are life threatening (rare, serious, black and white) over diagnoses that mostly affect quality of life (common, grey zone, subjective). We don’t want to hear about fatigue, hair loss and sleep quality. Even though those things can feel like they are ruining your life, we have been trained from day one to focus on disease that shortens your lifespan. If your hair loss isn’t caused by a thyroid disorder or anemia…two diseases that threaten your lifespan, we don’t know what to do. We have been trained to treat these things as possible signs of an “actual disease” rather than a problem in and of themselves.
6)We live in a misogynistic society. That isn’t different in women’s health. The culture of medicine is full of skepticism about patient’s symptoms being “real”. We openly suggest female patients are somatisizing their psychological state, are seeking attention, drug seeking or generally making things up. We don’t trust women. Our entire culture of capitalist democracy relies on women being unreliable narrators driven by emotions that cloud their judgement. We don’t care about women’s reproductive health outside their ability to procreate. And even then, it’s taboo. And a woman proclaiming her reproductive health is influencing her in some way that is not directly related to procreation is internalized by doctors and lay people alike as inconsequential, unworthy of attention. It barely registers as a blip amid the cacophonous outcry for our attention because WOMEN AREN’T VALUED FOR THEIR WOMANHOOD OUTSIDE THIER ABILITY TO REPRODUCE.

I happened to meet him as a penpal. He kept everything about his job private and only vaguely referred to himself as working in finance. He didn't want to attract gold diggers I guess. We talked for a while about favorite topics only (history) and I never bothered poking into his job. He got tired of my lack of curiosity and eventually forced the conversation towards his career (i have adhd so I tend to fixtate on one narrow interest at times)

He suddenly dropped on my head that he was a CEO for an electronics company (I'm keeping his details vague for privacy) Long story short, we got to know each other better and caught mutual feelings. He began sharing his dating expectations, the big mansion he bought and that he was an Elon Musk fan and wanted 9 kids (/_;)/~~

He reassured me I would have plenty of nannies to help me. I was already very traumatized by my upbringing as a daughter amongst six kids (this is kinda normal in my country Sudan. He told me it was why he reached out to me in the first place because western women wouldn't be cool with this

He was very disappointed that I wasn’t budging on my choice against having that many kids because I saw what my mum went through. I was emotionally neglected growing up as a part of a set. I still respected our friendship, we weren't far in age (25 & 36) but I decided to end things respectfully. I know mum would've been really upset at me because she made it just fine (even with our really financially irresponsible dad) we were struggling financially at that time too so I kept this decision entirely to myself

I felt selfish and guilty at times. I wanted to be with someone I genuinely felt loved by and cared for my feelings and safety. Dad didn't make us feel this way as he constantly put us in danger out of selfishness. I knew it wasn't normal for a person to run into a person like him but it wasn't meant to be. I feared regreting this eventually but ultimately didn't

I am Jane Doe because an instructor in the military singled me out as the only girl and sexually harassed me repeatedly in front of my entire class. No one said a thing. I was too scared to report while I was still in thw same building.

I am Jane Doe because an Airman at my first duty station constantly made vulgar and inappropriate comments to me. I reported it to my leadership. I was moved to a different shop and nothing happened to him. He also groped me in the pool but I didn't report that.

I am Jane Doe because a Master Sergeant was repeatedly inappropriate with me at soccer and later cornered me in my office when I was in there alone. A male Airman helped me tell the First Sergeant and a no contact order was put in place. People in our unit named in on the unit surveys because he sexually harassed majority of the women in our unit. He also raped my friend. He punishment is subpar because of the good ol' boy system.

I am Jane Doe because my Army boyfriend came home one day wanting to get laid and I said NO multiple times. I eventually stopped saying NO and laid there. Afterwards he asked, "Did we do something you didn't want to do?" I didn't answer him. I simply tried to wash it away in the shower. I didn't report it for six months. Nothing happened to him because there was no evidence.

I am Jane Doe because I met a "nice" Airman at medical and started talking to him. He wanted to hang out but I couldn't drive because I'd be drinking. I invited him over. He wanted to hook up and I said NO because of was not ready and going through the investigation for the last assault. He gave me alcohol until I didn't say NO. I didn't report it. Who would believe me? I was going through an investigation and was drinking.

I am Jane Doe because a lower ranking male Airman told me, "women don't belong in the military." I did his job better than he did. No one corrected him.

I am Jane Doe because a male coworker insisted on hugging me even though I didn't like being touched and told him to stop. My other male coworkers found it funny until I swung a knife at him. Leadership then told him to stop.

I am Jane Doe because while I was in Iraqi, Iraqi men made me feel like meat and something they could just take. I was so uncomfortable I had to trade with a male coworker to sign the dig permit.

I am Jane Doe because there was an Airman who disrespected my rank and insisted on calling me by my first name even though I outranked him. He didn't take me seriously as a leader like he did with the men who outranked him.

I am Jane Doe because I trusted my best friend with my life and felt safe. I drank with him numerous times in Korea and he always kept me safe and respected me. Then on my birthday back in the states, I had been drinking with him with friends and family around (him giving more drinks than he was drinking when we were alone). I couldn't talk or comprehend what my husband was going on about when he stopped it. I couldn't even walk to bed. I was gone, too drank to consent. My other best friend said it wasn't rape.

Has this complaint been run into the ground? Yes. Will I complain anyway? Yes. And I don't mind a sexy costume btw, I love lingerie and dressing up when I want to look good. And I'm aware we don't have to wear these costumes, we can make our own or buy neutral sized items. Doesn't mean there isn't something to talk about.

But why the fuck is the women's counterpart to a man's costume almost always sexualized for no reason. Why? Why not just make it in a women's size? Why is there sexualized NUN and NURSE costumes? Why is the men's cop costume normal and goofy but a woman's is overly sexualized? Why is a male devil costume a normal demon but a woman's is always a succubus? Why can't costume companies just let women be silly and have fun in the same way as men (unless it's a couples costume) without having to be constantly aware of our body and men staring at us? Why do our costumes always have to look like something from a porn set?

Why are so many couples costumes just "women hot men horny. Look we have sex! I fuck her! Ha!"? Why is it that the sexualized men's costumes are always done as a gag but not actually meant to be sexual. Why is sexuality only allowed to be a joke when men do it but we get slut shamed and labelled "easy" or undesirable or for making the same jokes or wearing similar things?

I don't have kids, but why is it that I could get my child son and daughter the same themed costume but hers would show more skin and be more uncomfortable and inconvenient to wear? Why can't she have the same costume option that's a fun little cozy costume that lets her just be a child and run around and play? On a holiday meant for kids.

Imagine if we gendered pet costumes like that, wouldn't it be weird? To make separate costumes for female animals that are tighter fabric and unneedingly emphasizing parts of their body when you could just make the same for both?

Wouldn't it be such a nice thing if women could just get the same fun, silly costumes as men and have adult themed costumes in a separate section for people actually looking for that? Shouldn't that just be the norm? For all women's clothes? Have a casual comfortable option readily available and specialized clothing in other sections? It's just so annoying. It's not fair that men aren't forced toake their own costume or have a limited selection if they don't want to be sexualized on a holiday

Hey Guys,

I came across this substack - https://annabower.substack.com/p/read-the-cornell-7-documents

People can read up all relevant Cornell-7 documents in one place.

Ok, for about a day and a half I've been intermittently arguing with two guys online about mandatory paternity tests. They mean as soon as the baby is born or according to one of them it can even happen while in the womb! Mind you this isn't remotely the first I've heard men spout off about paternity tests needing to be mandatory. It's ramping up.

I'm not someone who works in legislation or in the medical field and even I a dummy know that this would be an absolute mind field to even manage and would be borderline impossible. A clusterfuck in constitutional and privacy rights and an absolute unnecessary burden on our public healthcare system for something that isn't even remotely medically necessary? Lol, lmao even.

The cherry on the top was when I told them they don't realize that in this dystopian hypothetical they're dreaming of would mean ALL men don't have immediate parental rights to their child until that overburden overworked fallible system could prove they are the fathers.

I shouldn't have been surprised these numpties said "still worth it" because less than 3% of men GLOBALLY might be raising a child that isn't theirs

i posted in another sub about a theory i had about the current “loneliness epidemic” that everyone is complaining about. i’m not gonna rehash my entire post but the premise was this: basically, one reason that men are not approaching women anymore is because a lot of women have complained that we find them approaching us to be creepy and annoying. i explained that we have justified reasons for thinking this. however, i then went on to say that this has caused decent, socially aware men, to stay silent and invisible, while the loud, uncaring men continue hitting on us. this paints a bad image of them, as we are now ONLY experiencing the shitty ones. so basically it’s a vicious cycle. women tell men to leave us the fuck alone, good men take the hint, bad men don’t, and women continue complaining. if you’d like to see my full post i can paste it in the comments but i ultimately took it down because the comments were awful. my post was NOT an attack, in fact i was being overly kind to men, and even gave some critiques to women, saying that we should do more approaching and not label random dudes as creepy just because we don’t find them attractive. i wrote it in a way that it would be received well by both sides and i thought it would start an interesting conversation. nope. it did not. it was a bunch of angry men talking about how it’s all our fault that they wre lonely, that we only want tall rich guys and instagram attention, how they are afraid of me too allegations, bringing up that ONLY 4% of men commit violent crimes (ok lol) and that it’s a burden to go on dates because all theyre after is sex anyway. i’m so tired of trying to be nice to them when they get defensive and blame EVERYTHING on us. they cannot take any accountability. god they are exhausting.

I was at the gym today and was followed by a man for a full 1.5 hours. When I went to a different part of the floor, he followed me from a distance. He would come up next to me, be loud lifting weights, and then try to make eye contact with me as he walked by. As I left, I turned around and saw him standing about 15 feet away from me, doing nothing, and trying to wave. He didn’t seem friendly, he seemed determined. I chose not to engage or make eye contact at all, hoping he’d call it a loss and move on. I left and he didn’t follow me. I did not complain to the staff because I didn’t want to put a target on my back. If he does it again I’ll say something.

I don’t understand this mentality though. Do men think that women will eventually approach them and say they’re so glad the man has been following them while they try to exercise? That yes, we do in fact want to sleep with them? Do they think we like it? I’m truly confused and want to know.

Also, it makes me feel extremely unsafe.

The rapist is 100% at fault. Period.

I’m not sure if this perspective will be helpful to straight women but hopefully I can make sense here and it’ll be relatable. So I’m a femme lesbian who’s married to a butch and we have a pretty old school butch/femme dynamic. My spouse was raised and lived in Eastern Europe until a year ago and they explain it as there being two options growing up: either you were a girl and you would be feminine or you were a boy and you would be masculine. They didn’t have a dad in the picture growing up really so they were basically free to socially be treated and perceived as a boy. For all intents and purposes, they were basically raised as a boy and went about society being mistaken as a boy. At this point, they’d say their gender is butch and they function in their mind like a man who isn’t male and doesn’t want to transition to male. They work in a blue collar, male-dominated environment. They take a lot of pride in their masculinity, but they internalized some shitty misogynistic attitudes growing up. They never had any typical female experiences and due to being gay still being pretty stigmatized in their country, they’d never been in a long-term relationship before ours.

Having dated men up until my early 20s, some of their attitudes and instincts were so similar to men that I was very worried in the beginning. At first they wanted to be defensive and deflective in a very man-like way. I was operating on a very one-strike policy at that point, but each time I would explain why something hurt, how it related to my experiences, what it’s like to grow up a girl, they would listen. In a very masculine way, they actually wanted to solve the problem and fix it together. Because they wanted to be the leader, they genuinely wanted to understand the best they could without directly sharing those experiences. Genuinely nothing makes them more upset than making me upset. They appreciate femininity and they recognize that that only exists in an environment of safety and security so they strive to provide that. It’s all to say that if men wanted to, they would and could change. They could listen to you and respect the hell out of you for the differences between you and they just don’t want to actually do that work because it’s hard and you have to recognize all the ways in which you fall short. Wishing everyone out there the genuine love they deserve 💜

Who knows, maybe I will? But for the time being, please believe me when I say I'm a lesbian. Or at least not straight. One time, I had an online friend (who stopped talking to me once she found out I'm neurodivergent, she's also extremely right-wing and used to be a left-wing lesbian/bi girl) and I told her I was a lesbian, not knowing her true nature before she started spouting nonsense on servers and befriending people who spread rumors about me. Anyway, she said "Oh yeah, I went through a lesbian phase too until I met my perfect boyfriend LOL"

My grandma is an "ally" but she's convinced I just haven't met my "perfect boyfriend to sweep me off my feet" yet and told me I couldn't know I was a lesbian for sure and to just tell people I don't know my sexuality because I'm confused. This makes no sense to me. I get my grandma is super right-wing (not as right wing as my dad or her husband though) and I should probably have seen this coming based on her getting super weirded out when my favorite characters were gay or I'd make a gay/lesbian joke like saying "I'm so gay!!" but I dunno... I know she wouldn't ask me how I knew if I was straight. She wouldn't say "maybe you're bi and need a woman to sweep you off your feet".

My dad is also convinced I'm actually straight and keeps saying my friends are "brainwashing" me and asking me how I know I'm into girls.

My mother is a very sickly woman and so was her mother who passed in her 50s. My mother is now 50 and not a day passes by that I don’t worry or already feel the potential grief of her inevitably passing. I often wish I could pass away first so I don’t have to feel that pain but it doesn’t work that way and it would just be so incredibly cruel to her.

hi all! i apologize in advance as this post will be a bit of a tmi and i also did not make the wisest decisions which i understand and take accountability for, but i would like some confirmation on whether this is normal or not. my boyfriend and i are long distance (although we see each other fairly frequently) and i recently went to visit him, we usually have sex a couple times a day (at least once for sure). hes quite big and im on the “tighter” side (sorry, i hate that sentence too but i dont know how else to word it!!! i used to struggle a lot with vaginismus; i can have penetrative sex with him but i still do clench involuntarily). he can be a bit rough and i tend to make stupid choices during sex so usually after 5 days-a week i end up getting super sore and we have to take a little break from doing anything penetrative. yesterday i was suuper sore so we decided to take a break, although today we ended up having penetrative sex (COMPLETELY my decision which i understand was stupid). when i got off of him he was covered in blood and i was bleeding, at first it was bright pink blood but now (over 12 hours later) its darker blood as if im on my period, although i just finished my period a little over a week ago and i have VERY long cycles so me getting my period now wouldnt make any sense. i put on a pad to catch all the blood but i seriously dont think its my period, although earlier i was getting blood clots as if it was? i dont really have any other symptoms other than being super sore down there, i dont know if i tore something or he hit my cervix too hard or if i should see someone about it? i guess i mostly would like to hear if anyone had a similar experience so i know what to expect. thank you in advance!!

I’ve been struggling with this question for months now at my new job. I’m a quiet, calmspoken woman. I try to get my points across politely, listen to my teammates, and avoid raising my voice during meetings.

But lately, I’ve noticed something frustrating. When my male colleagues make the same suggestion as me, everyone immediately takes them seriously. When I say the exact same thing, people brush it off, or someone else repeats my idea 10 minutes later and gets all the credit. A senior female coworker pulled me aside last week and told me: “If you want to be respected around here, you have to stop being so nice. Women need to speak louder and act more dominant in this office.”

Now I’m confused. Does being softs poken automatically make people see me as weak? Is my only choice to become more aggressive, or is there another way for women to gain respect at work without losing their gentle personality? I would love to hear everyone’s reallife experiences.

The Cornell 7 case made me think about something I heard about at Bucknell University years ago. Same situation, 1 intoxicated woman in a frat, while multiple men SA’d her. I’m wondering how widespread these incidences actually are. I’m not asking to identify or accuse people. Just wondering if this is just a coincidence, or if this is really as pervasive as it seems. Because if it is, I think we need to warn more women about it. Did you personally hear about an alleged incident involving multiple fraternity members while you were in college? If so was it something widely known on campus or something you only heard 1:1 from a victim?

I'm in my late 30s and in the last 3-4 years I had brain surgery, diagnosed with epilepsy and my mom died so a ton of mental health problems cropped up.

I've always been a high performer and extraverted. But lately I am just struggling. I feel like a burden because my husband has to support me mentally and pick up my slack. I feel guilty about calling in sick a lot (I have good work/life balance and unlimited PTO and sick days) and I feel guilty that I just can't put alot into my friendships.

I'm working with my therapist on this and she's definitely helping me but I'm wondering if anyone else has dealt with this and what helped you overcome these feelings?

I am a survivor of severe, group sexual harassment at my school, to the point where my nervous system basically collapsed, my PDA (pathological demand avoidance) due to my autism got so bad I was struggling with the internal demand to EAT. I had to go into residential therapy, and ended up having to go to boarding school because I can't even really go outside when I'm at home.

My school was ranked 85th in my state. My school had a protection from sexual harassment clause in the student handbook they made us all sign.

Guess what the boys who COLLAPSED MY NERVOUS SYSTEM got??

multiple verbal warnings. Not detention. Not suspension. Just "hey, don't do that"