THE WHEY WAY / THE WAY WAY (mark two)
(A menopausal ND woman’s dispatch from the frontline)
Context- THE WHEY WAY / THE WAY WAY (TWO) - emotional truth, the ND rhythm, the feminist fire, and the generational arc.
There’s the whey way — the way women were made to be made. Soft. Bendable. Quiet. Add a saying, add a meaning, add a moral. But the way itself was never ours.
Because the silent women before us — the ones who claimed nothing, served in silence, wore their suffering like a badge of honour — they were told that endurance was elegance. That coping was character. That disappearing was dignity.
Some of them were broken so young their younger selves wouldn’t recognise the woman they became. Misdiagnosed, dismissed, or not diagnosed at all. The 1980s loved a “hysterectomy”. No HRT. Full menopause overnight. My mum. Imagine taking testosterone from a man and replacing nothing. Imagine calling that “treatment”.
We ask these women, Why didn’t you shout? But how do you shout when the world has already decided your voice is optional?
The future generations
Now they panic about what’s coming. Social media is flooded — which is good, but it’s not checked, not validated, so truth and falsehood sit side by side like twins wearing the same dress.
We’re watching menowashing happen in real time — top “experts”, Harley Street gloss, selling solutions that shine more than they serve. Not all — but enough to muddy the water. Enough to make women doubt themselves again.
And then there’s me. Stuck with more knowledge than my GP surgery, arguing, pushing, asking: Why do you offer this when this is available? Why are women still expected to accept less?
AI should help. But it will also hinder. Because women have always been rated as the second sex, and every new system inherits the old bias unless someone like me — like us — stands in the doorway and says: Not anymore.
**The whey way is made.
But the way is being remade — by us.**
We are the generation who refuses silence. We are the ones who research dyslexically, learn sideways, fight uphill, and still arrive with more truth than the system ever expected.
Three Generations Cut Open
We are the daughters of women who were cut open without consent, dismissed without evidence, and abandoned without support. And I know it sounds dramatic — but my mum lived it.
She had a hysterectomy at twenty‑seven for cancerous cells, thrown into menopause overnight with no HRT, no aftercare, no explanation. Operation after operation followed — MS, fibromyalgia, gallbladder issues — all the knock‑on effects of a medical system that made one bad decision and then kept making more. She trusted what she was told. She knew nothing different. No one told her otherwise.
This shaped her mental health her bad choices and my childhood, she never had a chance.
And then there’s me. At twenty‑four, heavily pregnant, I went in for what I believed was a simple hernia repair and a possible vein removal — a “24‑hour day surgery”, they said. Instead, I woke up with two long incisions almost meeting across my pelvic bone — a C‑section‑sized wound six weeks before labour — and a week-long hospital stay. Only recently did I learn it wasn’t a hernia at all. No one explained. No one corrected the record. No one thought I needed to know, nor asked if it was OK, when it blatantly wasn't.
Two generations. Two women. Both altered by decisions made about our bodies without our full understanding or consent.
And now — my daughter. A third generation standing at the edge of a system that still hasn’t learned, still hasn’t listened, still hasn’t valued women’s bodies as fully human. A young woman who battled PMDD for years, pushed into a hysterectomy, and now lives with Hashimoto’s — all consequences shaped by the same pattern of poor care, late care, or no care at all.
Three generations. Three women. All carrying the cost of a system that was never built for us.
We are the mothers of girls who deserve better. We are the women who will not be quiet so the next generation doesn’t have to shout.
For my granddaughters
Comments
Post a Comment