So in the last few days, I’ve been confronted again with one of the things that triggers me EVERY freaking time…
I was told how my body felt, what my body was going through.
I was explained, sorry mansplained, sorry doctorsplained, what was “wrong” with my body.
I know for a fact that I'm not alone in this. We all, men and women alike, go through that…
I know.
But it seems, from my perspective, from a woman’s perspective, that it is so much worse for women.
Why?
Because… we’re women.
We are cyclic (don’t get me started about that, you will find all about that subject in this article).
We go through more body changes than men.
Yes, it’s a fact.
And these changes, menarches (the first bleed), ovulations, menstrual cycles, periods, pregnancies, menopauses, these changes, these life changing (quite literally!) transitions… have everything to do with our bodies.
AND each of us is unique, each of us has a different body…
AND bodies DO NOT conform to mathematics, human made timeframes, scientific or geometric factors.
Not all girls menstruate around 12 years old.
Not all pregnancies last 39 weeks.
Not all women have menopause at 52 or 53 years old.
Each one is different. Each woman's body is unique.
And behaves differently, in a unique way.
Of course men’s bodies have the same unicity and differences … Just a tad simpler though, more straightforward!
I have been told so many times that I wasn't sick because I never spike a fever. Yes, never. Guess what, I had meningitis (yes, fully diagnosed) and still did not spike a fever… Oh I was sick already, I almost died… And the doctors saved my life… when they finally started looking for the disease because I was insisting that something was off…
I have so many stories… From my own life, from my female friends…
Stories of women who weren’t believed when they complained, stories of women who self-diagnosed “against all odds” and saved their own life when doctors had previously refused to treat them, stories of girls who believe they were abnormal and felt shame because they had their first period earlier or way later than the “norm”, stories of women whose menopause started at 35 or whose erratic menstruations lasted 20 years …
Do you know how we define the norm, how the medical, scientific world defines the norm?
They create forms with all the numbers in there, let’s say for the age of the first menarche (first bleed)... So how many started bleeding at 7, 8, etc up to 16, 17, etc... and calculate the average…
This average (and it is a possibility that NO ONE, or almost no one actually meets this number exactly) then becomes the norm.
Let me explain some more…
Let’s say we take 100 girls.
50 of them have their first period at age 10.
50 of them have their first period at age 15.
So the average age is 12.5.
And the norm becomes 12.5.
But NO girl menstruates at 12.5.
And ALL the girls may feel inadequate.
OMGoddess…
And I know I’m giving an extreme example here…
Yet.
Women are repeatedly kept in ignorance.
Women are repeatedly NOT informed of the variations, differences and unicity of every function of their bodies.
Women have traditionally NOT been taught about the variations, differences and unicity of every function of their bodies.
When I was sure I was pregnant with my first child, I made an appointment with an Obgyn in my local town in France.
He made an ultrasound to check the tiny bean growing in my womb.
He measured everything.
And came back to us (yes my husband and baby daddy was in the room) with a date of conception and a date of delivery.
He said our baby was conceived on October 24th if I remember correctly.
I doubted him. In fact I was in the UK while my husband was in France on that date.
So I basically said it was impossible.
The doctor, white coat, posh degree on the wall and all, insisted on that date, saying the size of the embryo was irrefutable and conclusive.
Again I disagreed.
I added that the doctor was putting me in a very difficult position with my husband at that moment… Making Hubby doubt if I had had intercourse with someone else while in the UK, and that the baby actually wasn’t his altogether.
I made it sound like a joke. But it didn’t feel funny to me.
Thank the Goddess Hubby loved me and believed ME over the doctor…
And the doctor de-escalated, finally saying nothing was ever certain.
But that doctor could have put my whole marriage in jeopardy. Because he knew better, because his scientific certitude was ... certain.
And you would think that after that I wouldn’t have trusted the doctor or at least that I would have taken anything he said with a pinch of salt, wouldn’t you?
Nope.
His conception date was off by a month.
But both hubby and I believed his due date prediction for July 28th.
And nothing was ready when my water broke on June 26th…
Arthur was born on June 27th, at 2 am, with no obgyn in the room, a peaceful and fast delivery… He was almost 3.5 kg and more than 50 cm.
The next day, the obgyn (yes, the same one) came in the room and said something of the sorts of “Well, he looks healthy for a preemie”.
Two hours after that, the pediatrician came in to examine the “preemie”.
The guy laughed uproariously and very bluntly said that there were no preemies this big, this heavy and with all their “features” so “finished”. He added “Let’s not even discuss with the obgyns, they really believe their numbers…”
Why am I telling you this story? What’s the moral here?
Well…
I was stupid. So was my husband.
We blindly believed the man in white, even when we KNEW that what he was saying was BS.
I didn’t even question the idea that the length of a pregnancy is, once and for all, 39 weeks. Or that the conception date that was given to us was wrong, thus making the due date just as wrong.
I just went with it.
Including when I felt like a stranded whale and could not believe I still had a month to go.
Because I had been educated, by society, by schools and family, by tradition, by centuries of patriarchy and education to respect the uniform, to trust the white coat, to have faith in Science, to place my confidence in Medicine over my intuition, over my feelings, over my perceptions of my own body, over the messages I was getting from Her, from my beautiful, strong, magic, all powerful and VERY talkative body.
Enough.
This ends now.
We need to reclaim our perceptions around our body. Men and women alike.
But for women it is even more crucial because the messages come in cycles and are ever-changing (again find the article here) … And women need to learn and understand the language of their bodies, to maintain constant and close communication with their bodies and to regain trust and faith in their bodies… to get to know and comprehend their bodies, their cycles and the Archetypes that dance through their cycles.
That is how we rise. That is how we thrive. That is how we flow.
That is how we participate in the awakening of the Feminine Energy in the world.
That is how we change the global vibration of the planet for a more balanced one, where men and women peacefully coexist and thrive.
One body at a time. One woman at a time.
We start with ours.
Today.
I would be so happy to hear from you about all that. Thank you in advance for your comment.
So much for today ...
See you soon, for my next online adventures!
Until then I send you love, light and gratitude.
Isaya
PS: If you feel you’d like to be accompanied on that journey, just reach out to see if we are a match for mentoring, if I can help you live a Goddess Life on a daily basis, embody the Goddess while navigating in flow, finally comprehending and harnessing your nature and that of the Universe.
Awesome article Isaya. Really thought provoking and speaks to so many of my experiences. Yes, what if . . . conventional medical practitioners (and we as women) saw past numbers and connected/prioritised the lived experience?