SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE

In her books, her op-eds and her wildly popular Twitter feed, Dr. Jen Gunter helps women around the world separate vagina facts from vagina jade eggs. Now she’s untangling that feared and misunderstood time: menopause.

- KATE RAE

Menopause has long been the punchline to a rambling joke about women’s health. More recently, though, it has become a paycheque, with many companies and practitioners promising magical cures to cash in on our discomfort, anxiety and desperation.

Enter Dr. Jen Gunter. She devotes her social media presence to tackling damaging myths about women’s health and taking down purveyors of “bullshit” solutions—Gwyneth and her vaginal steams very much included. Now the Canadian-born San Francisco-based ob-gyn hopes to make this phase of our lives more manageable, healthy and happy with her new book, The Menopause Manifesto, which delivers history, feminism and stone-cold facts. Those pills, creams and fake tests you’ve been hawked? Time to chuck them in the trash. Thank you for writing this book. As someone white-knuckling it through menopause, it was so helpful to read. Oh, great! Yeah, women need a lot more information.

Do you want women to dog-ear your book and bring it into their next doctor’s appointment? What’s your hope?

I hope it helps inoculate people against the misinformation online. Lies about hormones and therapies seem to be Instagram and TikTok fodder. I hope this helps people realize what’s a scam, who is scamming them—and who is just woefully misinformed—and what might hurt them. And I hope it helps them have the conversations they need to be having with their healthcare providers and to be able to push back if they’re not getting the information and help they need.

But where can we get help? Articles about women’s health always blithely say, “Talk to your health-care provider,” but you really only get 15 minutes with your family doctor.