Why is the language of women’s health so aggressive?

‘Incompetent’, ‘geriatric’, ‘atrophied’… Ageing as a woman means being described by the bluntest of descriptors, writes Amber More mature.

“When was your final period of time?”

The problem arrives from the other side of the curtain as I strip from the midsection down and climb on to the examination table. “It need to have been…13 months back,” I reply, as my doctor attracts back again the curtain and techniques the company close of the desk. She retains a shiny silver speculum in her suitable hand. “Congratulations – you have designed it via menopause. How has it been for you?”

“A full breeze,” I reply smugly, silently pitying people females who say their life are upended by “the change”.

“A few of sizzling flushes and – OW!!” The speculum, typically a benign instrument, has morphed into a malevolent shaft of broken glass wrapped in barbed wire. “I’m sorry,” states my health care provider. “Exams like this can be demanding following menopause. Your vagina has atrophied.”

Atrophied? My vagina has atrophied? Atrophied – as in “squandered away”? Till this moment, I have usually attributed this condition of decay to the v-e-ry aged, the v-e-ry infirm…and the v-e-r-y useless. Undoubtedly very little to do with my most vital female bits. 

I go away the business with a prescription for oestrogen suppositories (“insert 1 two times a week and see how it feels for the duration of sex”) and a monsoon of poor medical reminiscences. Out of the blue, it is 12 several years previously and I’m in a distinct doctor’s workplace, breathlessly sharing the information that I’m up the duff. Having obtained expecting rapidly and very easily in my late 30s, I am more than the moon. 

I am also, my health care provider informs me, a “geriatric pregnancy”. I can continue to truly feel my bubble of Yay-I’m-knocked-up pleasure breaking like the proverbial waters. For the subsequent 39 months I reside in worry about my building child, and I’m wracked with guilt about my possess stupidity: How could I, by health care definition an outdated lady, bring a healthy babe into the earth? 

Turns out, I could, and I did.

I remember a further prognosis, just a pair years ago, when a deep black-and-blue bruise mysteriously appeared on my decrease still left leg. A third health care provider solves the mystery. “You have incompetent veins,” he declares. Translation: If the muscle tissue and one-way valves turn out to be weak or fall short, the vein turns into incompetent, and blood commences to gather in the vein somewhat than returning to the coronary heart.

They may well not be ideal, but absolutely “incompetent” is an overreach when describing my tough-doing work blood vessels? They’ve been correct there with me as I crawled and toddled as a baby, hurdled and danced as a teenager, walked kilometres close to international towns, and strolled vacant Aotearoa beach locations. I depart the business office as deflated as my veins. I’m confident I’ll in no way safely hike, bike, dance or choose prolonged-haul flights once more.

I also depart deep in believed, reflecting on the energy of text when it comes to women’s health. 

Atrophied. Geriatric. Incompetent. Is it just me, or are there more to these labels than damning diagnoses of damsels in clinical distress? I can only imagine the howls of outrage if guys have been labelled with similar circumstances. 

“The tests are conclusive, sir – your scrotum is atrophied.”

“You’ll have a difficult time turning out to be a father with these geriatric sperm.”

“Take this small blue capsule – it’ll assistance with your incompetent penis.”

The clinical fraternity (and all its mighty – ahem – customers) would increase up like a prized appendage and demand an conclude to this detrimental nomenclature.

In distinction, we females tend to acquire these diagnoses to heart, making it possible for clinical conditions to outline not only our human body elements, but to fill our minds with self-doubt (What do I know about possessing a newborn at 40?), self-sabotage (sex right after menopause is heading to damage – why would I even go there?), and self-loathing (I detest you, body, for letting me down!).

It’s not a new phenomenon, of study course – girls have been excluded from or excoriated by the male-dominated clinical planet for generations. When I Google “male dominated clinical world and women’s health”, a slew of solutions appears: “The feminine trouble: how male bias in medical trials ruined women’s health” (The Guardian), “The lengthy history of gender bias in medicine” (Time magazine), “Women’s wellness ‘missing out’ for the reason that of male-dominated investment” (Monetary Periods). 

Last week, I returned to the doctor’s office environment for my annual exam.

This time, on the other hand, I was speculum-prepared. I have taken a year’s really worth of oestrogen “bullets”, so it ought to be smooth travels for that malevolent probe. “Remind me where you are on the menopause journey,” says my medical doctor as she gently inserts the chilly steel.

I hold my breath, anticipating a shock of agony. Practically nothing. It does not harm. Hallelujah. Bit by bit, I start to exhale. “It’s been two decades because my last period. What is going on down there?”

“You’re undertaking good, the oestrogen is doing work. Every little thing seems to be pristine.”

Pristine – as in “clean and fresh new spotless”.

This time, I depart the doctor’s business office rejoicing.

Even with my geriatric womb, as blood flows through my incompetent veins, I have cheated the jaws of atrophy.

Like a phoenix increasing from the ashes, I’m 100{35112b74ca1a6bc4decb6697edde3f9edcc1b44915f2ccb9995df8df6b4364bc} resurrected, restored, and all set to fly.