"I’m not sure how doing the right thing alienates people."
"Using the right terms isn’t just semantics; it's about respecting women's health, rejecting misogynistic legacies, and using science-based language that empowers rather than confuses."
"A word after a word after a word is power " - Margaret Atwood.
Thanks for this Dr. Jen. I saw those comments on your Instagram post and was a bit flabbergasted. Especially by the guy talking about marketing, who was quite obviously new to your vibe.
The term HRT made me NOT want to use it (and I therefore had an incredibly unnecessarily shitty 50th year). It implied to me that it was somehow trying to reverse aging, similar to the aforementioned Botox, and that is just so not me. I'm happy to work on accepting aging, but it was reading you describing what MHT really is and the suffering was optional that led me to seek treatment of my symptoms.
Correct terminology is important. Correcting terminology - especially terminology that brings assumptions with it - is even more important.
"Using the right terms isn’t just semantics; it's about respecting women's health, rejecting misogynistic legacies, and using science-based language that empowers rather than confuses."
This is an ongoing issue that is, finally, at long last, being looked at for the serious issue that it is. Gender differentials in medicine can be appropriate and valid when referring to physiology, but many of the terms used that are gender specific have a negative connotation, such as "hysteria", a "mental illness" that only affected women, because (in theory - and often believed by practitioners) no man would suffer from such problems, especially emotional problems.
Medical practice has been male-focused for so long - has for so long assumed that whatever diagnostic criteria, treatment, etc. was appropriate for men was appropriate for women as well, and thus for children - that issues such as the one described here in regards to terminology seems minor, and yet, it is representative of beliefs that permeate both medicine and society, beliefs that focus on women being the same as men, except for when they are inferior, when, in fact, they are simply different.
I don't have a problem with the term Fallopian tubes... or Down Syndrome; it gives credit to Gabriele Fallopio. Oviduct makes me think of cat dissection lab.
That Premarin ad gave me the heebie-jeebies (to use the technical term).
I have been on hormone therapy for about a decade now, which my Swiss doctor calls, correctly, "Hormontherapie." When I have mentioned this to friends in the US, they did not understand until I said "HRT." So there is still some way to go. Thank you, Dr Jen, as always.
I’m all about evolving our terminology and think we should move to the new term if that’s what has been decided. However this seems more like a solution in search of a problem than anything else. We are “replacing” something or a part of something that has been lost (either naturally or through a disease process). “Hormone replacement therapy” is no more misogynistic or indicative of a disease than a knee replacement or hip replacement. We do testosterone “replacement” in men just as we do testosterone “replacement” in women. The fact that HRT is used as a marketing ploy is not the fault of the English language. And since we are on the topic of using incorrect terminology, using the term “Big Pharma” in my opinion is harmful. While there are significant problems with our pharmaceutical industry, labeling it as "Big Pharma" sows distrust and plays right into the hands of MAHA and the Big Wellness.
Excellent essay. Especially:
"I’m not sure how doing the right thing alienates people."
"Using the right terms isn’t just semantics; it's about respecting women's health, rejecting misogynistic legacies, and using science-based language that empowers rather than confuses."
"A word after a word after a word is power " - Margaret Atwood.
Thanks for this Dr. Jen. I saw those comments on your Instagram post and was a bit flabbergasted. Especially by the guy talking about marketing, who was quite obviously new to your vibe.
The term HRT made me NOT want to use it (and I therefore had an incredibly unnecessarily shitty 50th year). It implied to me that it was somehow trying to reverse aging, similar to the aforementioned Botox, and that is just so not me. I'm happy to work on accepting aging, but it was reading you describing what MHT really is and the suffering was optional that led me to seek treatment of my symptoms.
Correct terminology is important. Correcting terminology - especially terminology that brings assumptions with it - is even more important.
"Using the right terms isn’t just semantics; it's about respecting women's health, rejecting misogynistic legacies, and using science-based language that empowers rather than confuses."
This is an ongoing issue that is, finally, at long last, being looked at for the serious issue that it is. Gender differentials in medicine can be appropriate and valid when referring to physiology, but many of the terms used that are gender specific have a negative connotation, such as "hysteria", a "mental illness" that only affected women, because (in theory - and often believed by practitioners) no man would suffer from such problems, especially emotional problems.
Medical practice has been male-focused for so long - has for so long assumed that whatever diagnostic criteria, treatment, etc. was appropriate for men was appropriate for women as well, and thus for children - that issues such as the one described here in regards to terminology seems minor, and yet, it is representative of beliefs that permeate both medicine and society, beliefs that focus on women being the same as men, except for when they are inferior, when, in fact, they are simply different.
I don't have a problem with the term Fallopian tubes... or Down Syndrome; it gives credit to Gabriele Fallopio. Oviduct makes me think of cat dissection lab.
That Premarin ad gave me the heebie-jeebies (to use the technical term).
I have been on hormone therapy for about a decade now, which my Swiss doctor calls, correctly, "Hormontherapie." When I have mentioned this to friends in the US, they did not understand until I said "HRT." So there is still some way to go. Thank you, Dr Jen, as always.
I’m all about evolving our terminology and think we should move to the new term if that’s what has been decided. However this seems more like a solution in search of a problem than anything else. We are “replacing” something or a part of something that has been lost (either naturally or through a disease process). “Hormone replacement therapy” is no more misogynistic or indicative of a disease than a knee replacement or hip replacement. We do testosterone “replacement” in men just as we do testosterone “replacement” in women. The fact that HRT is used as a marketing ploy is not the fault of the English language. And since we are on the topic of using incorrect terminology, using the term “Big Pharma” in my opinion is harmful. While there are significant problems with our pharmaceutical industry, labeling it as "Big Pharma" sows distrust and plays right into the hands of MAHA and the Big Wellness.