How are you doing? You hanging in there? I am trying to find the balance between reading too much which makes me feel terrified and reading too little so that I don’t know what to feel terrified about which leaves me feeling terrified. From Iowa removing gender identity protections from their state’s civil rights code to the DEI madness that gets more “Handmaid’s Tale” every day. It can feel like we are living in our own dystopian novel.
I listened to Science Friday on NPR this past week just long enough while running errands to leave me wondering if what I heard was some type of April Fool’s joke in February. I listened as two physicians discussed the challenges researchers are currently facing as they work to understand and implement the mandates from the White House. There is a whole list of “flagged” words that if used in their studies will stop current research in its tracks and make future research impossible. Obviously, words like diversity, diverse populations, any mention of LBGTQ, sure we have been hearing this for some time. But it doesn’t stop there, the flagged word list includes women, female, women’s health and contraception. Women’s health research has a long history of being underfunded. There was an article in May of last year that discussed how manufacturing companies that test feminine products use a mixture of water and salt to test the absorbency of their pads rather than real blood. It was not until a study in 2023 that human blood was used for the first time ever to test the efficacy of these products. I was astounded when I read this and yet it explained so many of those embarrassing moments when the products, I depended on failed me so fully.
Growing up there was a sense that things would just keep getting fairer. That women would continue to gain ground, would have seats at bigger and bigger tables, and that the silly notion of men’s superiority would finally just fade away. And yet here we are.
As a white woman I recognize that I have been protected from some of the cruelest forms of discrimination. But I have been the token woman on a professional board, have made statements that went ignored only to be restated by a man who was applauded for his contribution. I have been overlooked for a leadership position in favor of a younger male colleague with less experience. My experiences are minor, and I have left these spaces because I could. I recognize that the experiences of others have had more lasting consequences and leaving may not have been an option. This goes a long way to making a case for the need for DEI initiatives.
As women, we take the challenges of our sex in stride. We joke and say that if men had to endure monthly cramps, headaches, nausea, back aches, and bleeding there would be better products out there. We say that if men had to carry babies and deal with the discomforts of pregnancy and the pain of labor things would be different. All joking aside this is literally true. And instead of getting better it is getting worse.
The NIH has for decades published data from the PRAMS (Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System) assessment. This tool has been valuable in collecting data to help with the study of women and healthy pregnancies. Due to the recent mandates this information has been taken down and is no longer accessible. This is happening while the US has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the industrialized world.
Roe v Wade was reversed in 2022 a setback for women and their right to their own bodies. If the goal is to have more pregnancies, ok but then don’t stop the research that helps to make those same pregnancies safer. Also, including contraception in the “flagged” word list seems counterproductive.
And DEI isn’t just for minorities and women it also encompasses, people from rural communities, people with disabilities, couples seeking IVF, Veterans as well as individuals from the LBGTQ community.
The NIH on their website state that their mission is to:
…seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life and reduce illness and disability.
These new mandates leave out half of the population by banning any research on issues related to women. The only research that can be reliably done is research that contains words that have not been flagged. Words like male, men, men’s health.
I am waiting to wake up from this nightmare. In the meantime, I will keep myself as informed as I can while continuing to live my life. I will offer my support in small ways. I will spend my money at businesses that have kept their DEI programs in place. And when I am terrified and losing it, I will take the best care of myself that I can. I am a woman; I have women’s health issues, and I am not going away.
I know, It is all so unbelievable. Thanks for reading and supporting me. Annie
Dear Annie,
Oh my! Thank you for enlightening me...I will make a point to listen to last week's Science Friday episode. So unbelievably terrible, yet it is the times we're living in.
I appreciate your voice so much!
Ruth