Hello haglets! A lot has happened since we last spoke and we want to celebrate a few good things: Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s LONG overdue release, the excellent Gender Pay Gap Bot putting companies on the spot on International Women’s Day, and Pixar’s Turning Red which, drumroll, actually mentions periods. Never before has a 3D-rendered box of sanitary pads ignited such joy in our dusty little hearts.
We also want to celebrate the fact our wombs are (mostly) safely in place and not in fact smothering our brains and making us hysterical. But throw us back into the pre-1960s and any one of us could have been diagnosed with ‘Wandering Womb Syndrome’.
Thank goddess men aren’t able to diagnose women with BS conditions anymore. Oh, wait. According to Dr Jess Taylor, many women are still being pathologised by the patriarchy to this day, particularly in the courtrooms. Seriously though, history is *literally* defined by men doing mad shit and they’re rarely accused of having a wandering organ smothering their brain and making them insane. GO FIGURE. Here at HEX towers we are far more interested in what causes male hysteria and fragile masculinity – suggestions on a postcard, please.
TIT BITS
Keeping abreast of the latest news, views, and research
Pass the wine
NICE has binned plans to automatically include a pregnant woman’s drinking habits on her child’s medical record. Anyone who has ever been pregnant is well aware of the paternalistic, patronising attitude society takes towards pregnant vessels women. We’re taking the backlash against this invasive, non-evidence-based nonsense as a win. Drinks and soft cheese all round!
Birth control is a mood
Hormonal birth control, aka ‘the pill’, may have liberated millions of women but it has also brought unwanted mood changes, anxiety and depression. This article focuses on the pill’s mental health side effects and examines why science has struggled to pin down its impact on mood.
On a related note, see Marie Fury’s fabulous piece ‘Sexual Anarchy: the pill at 60’. It’s a total pill. Seriously.
FEMINISTS RUIN EVERYTHING
Seeing red
Have you seen Turning Red yet? Pixar’s first feature film to be directed by a woman is a fabulous, funny and joyful coming of age story exploring the magic of friendship, the confusion of your first crush, the complexity of the mother-daughter daughter bond and the logistical challenges of occasionally turning into a massive red panda (that old chestnut).
Sadly, not everyone agrees. The film has received criticism for being “limited in scope” by focusing on a Chinese-Canadian girl (the reviewer in question has now rightly apologized). Other reviews have also slammed the film for being niche or inaccessible. We see their point – none of us here at HEX recall wanting to go to a concert and being told no, or railing against our mother’s expectations for us. But we DEFINITELY remember that time we were trash-compacting robots left behind when humanity abandoned earth and our best friend was a cockroach.
That’s not all people have found to complain about – the film is also being dragged for very briefly mentioning (please pause here and remove any children from the room) … PERIODS. The horror, the humanity, won’t someone think of the children, etc etc.
Cue parents being warned of the “adult themes” the film might expose their precious little angels to. Given that most girls get their first period between 10 and 15 years old, with an average age of 12, could someone please explain to us why this is being treated as an adult issue?
Kidding – if you think talking about menstruation is inappropriate or shameful this isn’t the newsletter for you. Kindly throw your opinion in the bin and climb in after it. Mei and her squad celebrate teenage girlhood in all its messy, cringeworthy, dorky glory; winged unscented maxipads and all.
Official HEX verdict: bloody brilliant.
More things flapping our maxipads this week:
Goblin mode | …and a disabled woman’s perspective on why goblin mode is a daily reality | It’s Endometriosis Action Month | For all the hags who have been interrupted
The HEX Science team
🧬Jean Splicer | ☢ Marie Fury | 🧠 Rorschach Tess | 🔬 Rosalind Frankly