Maybe this will spark something in you too.

With ❤️ Amy :)

1️⃣ Women’s health = public health.

Many conditions are stereotyped to be “women’s issues”.

• While women are 2.5x more likely to be diagnosed with an eating disorder, men account for 25% of anorexia cases and 40% of binge-eating disorder cases.
• While 1 in 3 women over 50 will experience osteoporotic fractures, 1 in 5 men will also suffer from such fractures.

So in researching women’s health, we don’t just fix bias — we also create better systems for everyone.

2️⃣ It’s dirty. Don’t touch it.

I grew up in a very traditionally Asian household.

Banned words: puberty, contraception (= condoms, birth controls, etc), menstruation (= period, pads, tampons, etc), menopause (= heat waves, brain fog, etc).

Let’s face it. These are the exact topics girls/women get targeted for in their lives.

Puberty: Girls walk with hunched backs, afraid to reveal the growing curve of their breasts. Contraception: Girls bear the brunt of societal judgment if they become pregnant in their teenage years. Menstruation: Just ask any girl — every single one has a story of how her period publicly humiliated her at least once + caused them to miss school/work. Menopause: Women are dismissed as “too much” or “irrational” when they speak up about their experiences with menopause.

My teenage years collided with my mom’s menopause. As ignorant as we were, we all thought she was just being difficult. Turns out, we were the ones who failed her—too blind to recognize the very real struggles she was going through.

When my sister showed signs of postpartum depression after having my nephew, we brushed it off. Told her to stop overthinking, that it was just “the hormones.” But we didn’t see that she was in pain. That she was going through something real.

So just because this is how “things have been” does not justify its continuation.

I want to study what’s been silenced. To build what’s been ignored.

3️⃣ Social media warps the meaning of feminism.

Social media is powerful. A little too powerful. It’s turned feminism, a movement for gender equity, into a war ground of hot takes, identity gatekeeping, and performative activism.

Instead of rewarding the most nuanced discussions, it rewards the most extreme and polarized ideologies:

Man-hating. Following the recent thewizardliz & Landon scandal.

Stay-at-home mom = “playing into the patriarchy”.

Trans-woman → erasing “real” women.