May 2, 2024

A once-avoided topic is suddenly everywhere: the problem of women's hormones.

Right now, on the front page of The Washington Post, there are 3 separate headlines:

“Women in early menopause with bothersome symptoms should not be afraid to take hormone therapy to treat them, and clinicians should not be afraid to prescribe them,” said JoAnn Manson, chief of the division of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the paper’s first author.

2. "'Menopause brain' is real. Here’s how women’s brains change in midlife. Brain imaging studies of women — conducted before and after menopause — reveal physical changes in structure, connectivity and energy metabolism."

For decades, some doctors have told women that the brain fog, insomnia and mood swings they experience in midlife are “all in their heads.” Now, emerging brain research shows they’re right....

 3. "Senators, Halle Berry to unveil $275 million bill to boost menopause care"

Congressional leaders will unveil Thursday a $275 million bill to boost federal research, physician training and public awareness about menopause, a campaign led by prominent female lawmakers and boosted by the star power of actor Halle Berry.

"Actor Halle Berry" — that's how we're supposed to talk now. Wouldn't want to call attention to her womanhood. She's just endorsing and promoting supplementing and fine-tuning women's hormones.

I remember when it was socially and politically unacceptable to say anything making a problem out of women's hormones, especially to say that they are skewing us mentally. What's going on? These articles are all about menopause, and you can see there is a product to be sold and a government ready to channel tax money into it, but I'm wondering if this new attention to women's hormones is related to the numbers of young people seeking to readjust their hormones. Maybe female hormones are a problem. The traditional feminist answer was that femaleness is not the problem. The problem is the male-dominated society that perceives a problem. What may be emerging now is a sense that the natural body is problematic, and we humans should want treatment.

56 comments:

Ann Althouse said...

"Now, emerging brain research shows they’re right.""

The antecedent is ambiguous. Who's the they? The women or the doctors. It's supposed to be funny. The *doctors* are right, "but not because women are imagining it." It's "in their head" because the brain is physically affected.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Any senator who can't define what a woman is without using "I'm not a biologist" escape line isn't competent enough to vote on such legislation. That would be most of the Democrat senators.

Mr Wibble said...

What I find funny is that they'll talk all about the hormones of older women, acknowledging that hormones can have an effect on a woman's brain, but if you extend that line of thinking to the millions of young women who are currently modifying their hormones through birth control, suddenly it cannot be discussed.

B. said...

Since getting children to take HRT for life isn’t as popular as it once seemed, Big Pharma needs to find customers.

rhhardin said...

PMS talk has been forever, one of the jokes being that if you mention it to a woman with PMS she's even worse.

It's in the men having to deal with women joke class.

The talk was never avoided.

rhhardin said...

The chief sex difference is brain wiring, not plumbing. Structure considerations first for men, accommodating all the feelings on the matter for women. When one of the feelings comes from this or that hormone, it gets into women's calculation and men notice. Women can pretend not to, or not.

Apparently now there's feminist progress to be made, probably in the form of a new victimhood, by showing women are actually the victims, not their spouses.

It's not just places to lie down in the ladies' room any longer.

Enigma said...

Utter BS. "Emerging brain research"? Where were the authors a decade ago? Putting males and females into fMRI machines and comparing brain function is hardly an original concept. This was known before, but tenure-tracked professors love their self-aggrandizing sophistry.

"It's worse than we ever imagined!!!!!!!! Something must be done!!!!!!!"

For millennia before brain research and likely before trepanation was invented, anyone, anyone around women pre-and-post puberty or pre-and-post menstruation or pre-and-post menopause knows that hormonal changes are real and can be dramatic. Moods change, PMS changes, priorities change, memory is affected, etc. etc. etc.

Insert an obvious and brutal critique of the Obamacare-induced transgender sex reassignments and body mutilations HERE.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

More tax payer dollars shoved into the grifter abyss. Debt hiking bullcrap.

why can't hollywood wealth fund this nonsense privately?

No no no - gotta hit up the middle class - destroy the middle class in the names of "good feels on The White Left View" Look how amazing the husk puppet is - He cares.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

I thought women were cancelled.

Trans insanity and child abuse are the left's new radical frontier of hivemind victim farming.

Wince said...

Congressional leaders will unveil Thursday a $275 million bill to boost federal research, physician training and public awareness about menopause, a campaign led by prominent female lawmakers and boosted by the star power of actor Halle Berry.

Actor Halle Berry can reprise an earlier role and testify to the effect of “Make me feel good”?

rhhardin said...

In the 90s Wm. Kerrigan mused on PC words like "server" and he supposed that in some distant future a truck driver will like what he sees, lean over the counter and ask, "How long have you been a server, Honey?"

The 90s joke having been that he'd say "server" naturally in this future.

Bob Boyd said...

You know, it's possible Cricket simply picked the wrong time of the month to help himself to a chicken dinner.

And it may turn out to have changed the course of history.

Another old lawyer said...

I'll seriously consider calling actresses actors when the Academy awards merge the 4 acting categories into 2: "Best Actor" and "Best Supporting Actor." Until the industry does, no.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

In the 19th C the more feminist women insisted on the use of such forms as poetess or doctress so that everyone would know that it was a woman doing the work. Now, for some reason, we aren't supposed to know whether it's a woman or a man doing the work.

Lilly, a dog said...

Sugar
Spice
Everything Nice

Case closed.

Jake said...

It’s almost like thousands of years of collective experience has value.

Roger Sweeny said...

I am now reading Cat Bohanon's Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, new and as far as I can tell, a best seller. It is, of necessity, about how women and men are different. But it is very careful not to sound at all "traditional" or "right-wing". Definitely not "women should be proud of birthing and nurturing children, maybe even make that a good part of what you want to accomplish in life." Instead (at least so far), there's a lot of "pregnancy sure makes women suffer, and after pregnancy, and before pregnancy, too."

A lot of talk about cis- and trans- and "queer" and other non "hetero-normativity". And, of course, the blindness of male researchers.

In many ways, it's a very good book, but it is striking to me how she seems to be going out of her way to assure her readers, "I'm not anti-feminist. I'm not anti-progressive."

Wince said...

Althouse said...
"Actor Halle Berry" — that's how we're supposed to talk now. Wouldn't want to call attention to her womanhood.

"I say actor, not actress, because the word actress is nonsensical."

Birches said...

Forgive me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that most post menopausal women still took estrogen supplements. My mom doesn't, but she's kind of crunchy about medicine and doctors. I thought she was an aberration.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Just cut your tits off and you'll be a man- problem solved!

Oligonicella said...

Althouse:
"Actor Halle Berry" — that's how we're supposed to talk now.

Don't want to hurt the feefees of those assholes that don't give a shit about other's feefees, right?

Actress Halle Berry. She's a good looking woman and a reasonable actress.

Mr Wibble said...

In the 19th C the more feminist women insisted on the use of such forms as poetess or doctress so that everyone would know that it was a woman doing the work. Now, for some reason, we aren't supposed to know whether it's a woman or a man doing the work.

We should bring back the word "Senatrix".

Oligonicella said...

Enigma:
Putting males and females into fMRI machines and comparing brain function is hardly an original concept. This was known before, but tenure-tracked professors love their self-aggrandizing sophistry.

There's no grant money for "Yep, just like we figured."

Ampersand said...

The "actor" word applied to both male and female performers has been an interesting political/linguistic development. For roughly the past 15 years, trade journals and the LA Times have unisexed the acting profession.
The absence of pushback is interesting. Was Marilyn Monroe ever an actor? Are there no women in the profession who regard their sex as an essential element of their craft?
Now that action films have adopted the new cliche of the female lead knocking men unconscious with knockout punches, perhaps all this is appropriate.From Hollywood's perspective, we're all men now.

gilbar said...

the simple solution to menopause (and ALL other "women's problems") is simple!
At the age of 10, give the person a Full hysterectomy AND mastectomy (top and bottom surgery)..
THEN, provide "T" (testosterone) supplements for the rest of the person's life..
PROBLEM SOLVED!

Amy said...

As a breast cancer survivor, the information I was given was that there was a definite increased risk of developing breast cancer from being on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) which is why it was removed as a protocol a few decades ago. (I did not take HRT.) I have not read that those studies had been reversed. I think the new messaging goes along with a normalizing of hormones for trans people/children, as well as an overall attempt at increasing comfort/trust in using pharmaceutical products in this way.

HRT was all the rage when it came to market - it was called the 'fountain of youth' for menopausal women in the 1960s. After a spike in bc, it quietly disappeared. In the same way, they are not going to know the problems this one causes for a long time after its use becomes widespread. I would pass on being the guinea pig, even if I were eligible.

Temujin said...

I'll cut right to the chase and state that the marketing teams at some larger pharmaceutical companies have agreed that this is a long-leftover fertile ground from which they can make billions. And so...they support research showing there is no need to fear the drugs, support mental health studies and people behind them to add another avenue to the arsenal, and of course, they support Senators who always have their hands out and are in need of things to Stand For.

I look forward to the new menopause drug commercials on tv at night, slotted neatly between the dancing Jardiance team swaying and singing away diabetes, and the smiley Opzelura users, now freely wearing short sleeve shirts.

Howard said...

Take charge of your own healthcare. Eat right get plenty of exercise have healthy social relationships get plenty of sunshine.

Staying pissed off all the time and blaming all of your problems on other people is the key to staying a dried up cat lady and an obese impotent dirty old man.

https://www.bodylogicmd.com/blog/how-to-increase-oxytocin/

RigelDog said...

I'm furious. I am crying now (and I'm not an emo type of person).

My quality of life since menopause has been significantly diminished and HRT was not offered to me. In my gut I KNEW that the HRT studies were probably overblown, and also that there was a paucity of ongoing research into what kinds of hormones and other drugs might be helpful.

And now it's too late for me to regain the functions that I lost.

Howard said...

I just heard this on a weightlifting podcast featuring Dr. Doug McGuff of body by science Fame.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

Alley Oop logic
💪🤪🤙

Rocco said...

"Senators, Halle Berry to unveil $275 million bill to boost menopause care

I missed the comma when I first read that line, and two thoughts popped in my mind:
1) They made a sequel to Bulworth in real life?
2) Senators? Is she going by they/them now?

n.n said...

Feminine gender geriatric progress.

n.n said...

There are natural dietary and behavioral changes that mitigate the effects of geriatric progress in both sexes. Fine print: Individual results will vary.

n.n said...

Transgender: a state or process of divergence from sex-correlated attributes. Libido? Do women change islands or planets as they age? #MenToo?

Iman said...

Moar of Hardin’s “HE-MAN WOMAN HATERS KLUB” please!

MadisonMan said...

The "problem". Who is framing it that way?

It's the age-old question.
Why can't a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square
Eternally noble, historically fair
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
What can't a woman be like that?

Sydney said...

Why the hell is Congress involved in any of this?

The Vault Dweller said...

I wonder if part of this is looking for an escape hatch for Pharmaceutical companies. Recently, as in the last year or two it seems to me that popular opinion (the spoken out loud kind) has shifted on Trans issues, especially regarding transitioning children. I wonder if pharmaceutical companies made a lot of fixed cost investment in production capabilities for hormone production and now want a new buyer group for some of them. Testosterone replacement therapy is already a widely accepted practice for middle-aged and older men, but hormone therapy for middle-aged and older women has been widely perceived as dangerous. If companies already had an alternative to trans folks buyer for male hormones perhaps they are hoping to have an alternative to trans folks buyer for female hormones.

hombre said...

Oh. So it's hormones. I see.

hombre said...

And the young ones demonstrating for Hamas? Hormones?

Bob Boyd said...

Cricket wore one of those service dog vests only instead of SERVICE DOG it said, DO NOT RESUSCITATE.

takirks said...

The whipsaw back-and-forth from "women", whateverthehelltheyarethisweek, is awe-inspiring.

Also, from the standpoint of the servitor male, who only exists to satisfy the every want and need of these forlorn creatures, confusing as f*ck.

We're supposedly delusional about the hormonal issues surrounding menses, but we're also supposed to be accommodating about the whole thing, and look the other way for all the transgressions visited upon us during these periods of heightened hormonal madness. The ones that don't exist... "Oh, I was on my period... You should know better than to take me seriously!!!"

We're supposed to protect the weak and helpless, inclusively of all women, everywhere at all times. Yet, when those women want to murder the weakest and most helpless, the babies in their wombs, all of a sudden we've got no say in the matter, and are not supposed to protect those lives, which apparently exist solely at the whim of the involved woman... The same one whose irrationality we're to excuse at all other times.

Then, there's this: "Oh, we've got special dispensation to be utter bitches and be impossible to live with because... Hormones and menopause." Waitaminute... Weren't you telling me that none of that had any effect on women?

The real wonder is that more men don't pay attention to this and just put up with the bullshit, in hopes of getting laid occasionally. If women were men, living in a male world? They'd be ostracized and banished from polite company due to their behavioral issues and inability to control themselves in public. Either that, or they'd spend a hell of a lot of time recovering from the beatings they'd get for being assholes.

Women do not even see the double-standards they live under, because they're completely unaware of the dispensations they're granted just for being female. If a male behaved towards other males the way most women do, that individual would have a short, painful life until they either goaded someone into murdering them violently or they'd reform their behavior. Only women can get away with the interpersonal crap they routinely pull without receiving return violence. Which is something they, as a group, just don't get. Take away the sex, and most women literally have nothing to offer; nobody would want to be around them because of their toxic behavior.

The older I get, the more apparent the double-standard line is: You observe the younger women interacting with the world, and the less you like them or their worldview. About the only thing saving them from social ostracism is the fact that a young male is driven so hard by his libido that it's not even funny. Were it not for that fact, the majority of them would never tolerate the game-playing, the cattiness, and the sheer perversity of female conduct and mindset.

I'm pretty much done with the sex, TBH. Last conversation I had over abortion was what did it, too... Seems that as a male, I'm not allowed to have an opinion, but at the same time, I'm supposed to be the gallant idiot and get myself killed for any women in trouble because "weaker sex", and they're just owed my fealty and life. However, I'm to have no opinion nor make any attempt to save the life of an unborn child, because those lives may be taken by any woman, any time, for any reason.

The sheer effrontery and entitlement on display during that conversation were what did it, to tell the truth. I'm supposed to sacrifice my life for some random female, but for me to question that when said female can simply take the life of an unborn whenever she likes...? How's that work, again? I have duties, she doesn't?

It was like trying to discuss esoteric theology with my dog. And, far less successful; the dog, at least, likes the sound of my voice.

Mason G said...

"Why the hell is Congress involved in any of this?"

There's money involved in this.

Enigma said...

@Temujin: I'll cut right to the chase and state that the marketing teams at some larger pharmaceutical companies have agreed that this is a long-leftover fertile ground from which they can make billions.

@The Vault Dweller: I wonder if part of this is looking for an escape hatch for Pharmaceutical companies. Recently, as in the last year or two it seems to me that popular opinion (the spoken out loud kind) has shifted on Trans issues, especially regarding transitioning children. I wonder if pharmaceutical companies made a lot of fixed cost investment in production capabilities for hormone production and now want a new buyer group for some of them.

With declining marriage and birth rates, hormone support stands to be a growing market for several decades. There are many 30-year-old virgins today, and a 30-year-old female virgin is statistically unlikely to marry, unlikely to have children, and more likely to age alone. Menopausal and alone. Some women may well migrate to Woke Green Gaia neo-convents as modern nuns, or struggle mightily without the support and stability of a male partner. [Even though some marriages fade with menopause, as men move on to fertile young partners.]

LilyBart said...

The Women's Initiative Study, which was the study that triggered the sharp pull back in giving HRT to women, was not designed to determine if the hormones were safe or not, and should NOT have been used to deny HRT to women. Maybe it should have triggered more studies, but instead, they stopped prescribing HRT to women and told them to go home and suffer. "its just natural", they said. But menopause doesn't just give you hotflashes - the loss of the hormones affects the cardio system, bones, teeth, and yet, the brain and other systems. But if you wanted hormones, they acted like you were a fool who valued 'comfort' over safety. (one problem with the WI study was that the women on the placebo were primarily in their 50's while the women on HRT were in the 50's-60's and 70's. When they compared women in the 50's (apples to apples), they found there was not a materially higher risk of cancer. What they did prove, as one GYN put it, was the older women have more health problems than younger women.

My SIL, an OBGYN, who didn't take any HRT, and now at 70, says she deeply regrets not taking them. And she talks of the impact of the loss of the hormones on her patients. The medical community behaved horribly in the face of the WI study, and poorly served women.

LilyBart said...

Amy said...As a breast cancer survivor, the information I was given was that there was a definite increased risk of developing breast cancer from being on HRT (hormone replacement therapy) which is why it was removed as a protocol a few decades ago.

Amy, I'm sorry to tell you that the study was flawed. It was designed for a different purpose; not well designed to determine if the HRT caused BC. They should have continued to look at the link instead of deciding to 'deny' it to all women.

The medical community has failed women (again).

Marcus Bressler said...

Yes, why is this the government's concern?
My daughter, who is a working actress, calls herself an "actor". She has also used the term "Latinx" in text messages to me. I suppose the upbringing by two, dedicated conservative parents was swept away by her three years in Manhattan at the American Academy of the Dramatic Arts, hanging with the overwhelming leftist teachers and actors and actresses, including the aspiring, in the profession. That and she married an otherwise great Scotsman who holds leftist views. She did apparently listen to us in that she rarely posts on social media and when she does, no mention of political stuff is posted. It may not be "brave", but we told her sometimes you need to broadcast your views on religion and politics, but sometimes you need to eat. Her and I have never discussed it, and our relationship isn't the best (due to my character defects that did not involved her, except on the periphery). We were estranged for many years until my oldest, her sister, died at 40 from a drug overdose. So, I don't have many years left and I have made the decision to accept her unconditionally if the only other option is to not have her in my life.
But to me, she's an "actress" and even Hispanic people reject the label "Latin", which was bestowed upon them by the benevolent Left.

Rabel said...

Speaking of postmenopausal actresses, I saw an excellent one, Harriet Sansom Harris, at work last night in a movie called "Jules" with Ben Kingsley, who was terrific as an older man with early stage dementia. Jane Curtain was also pretty good.

Yes, there was an alien, but the characterizations were what made it so good.

I might have teared up just a bit, though it's mostly gentle comedy.

Cat lovers and performative hard asses might want to avoid.

Lloyd W. Robertson said...

"Brain imaging": is that fMRI again? Boomer science, I'm afraid. But taking a step back: constantly re-discovering the Curse of Eve is funny.

Former Illinois resident said...

And what form of compensation does this actor Hal Berry receive for promoting menopausal hormones?

Are "menopause hormones" for biological women, or should trans-women, being "women" also partake, to ensure their menopausal femininity? Or are trans-women already taking regular female hormones, and should avoid menopause hormones, to avoid negating their hard work towards becoming a "semi-biological women"?

Does Congress want women to consume menopause hormones, on basis of this one study, and ignore the history of breast cancer occurrence amongst women who had taken menopausal hormones at their doctors' urging?

Have congressional sponsors disclosed whether they own big-pharma company stock?

Mason G said...

"Take away the sex, and most women literally have nothing to offer; nobody would want to be around them because of their toxic behavior."

I was watching a video of a youngish (mid 20s?) woman being interviewed a while back. When asked about her negative opinion of similarly aged males today, she launched into a laundry list of perceived male flaws and faults. The host interrupted and asked "So what, aside from sex, do you bring to the table in a relationship?"

Crickets.

When asked why that's not a problem, the response was, with a wave of her hands in front of her face, "What more do I need than *this*?"

So there's that.

Josephbleau said...

I took an old friend who retired to Copper Mountain many years ago, and we were standing in the lift line. A young girl walked past us and butted into the line ahead. My friend loudly said "If they didn't have pussies, they would put a bounty on them and shoot them like coyotes."

Applause rang out, and the girl went to the end of the line.


walter said...

In the sage words of Momala: "Yeah".

walter said...

Maybe Noem has an out here.

Anna Keppa said...

Wince said...
Althouse said...
"Actor Halle Berry" — that's how we're supposed to talk now. Wouldn't want to call attention to her womanhood.

"I say actor, not actress, because the word actress is nonsensical."
************

Now ask her to explain "mistress".

RBE said...

Cricket's vest...DNR...I needed a laugh today!