Healthy Women Heal the Planet

I deeply explored the women’s health space this past summer, earning a Mini-MBA in Women’s Health through the phenomenal organization In Women’s Health led by the amazing Jodi Neuhauser. I also immersed in women’s leadership and sustainability through a gathering led by Kristiana Stoyanova at the beautiful Altradimora, a feminist center in Italian wine country.

Here is what I firmly believe: healthy women heal the planet.

But here’s the catch: women aren’t healthy.

Extreme, yes. Of course there are healthy women on our planet. But much of women’s health has been neglected by medicine. Women were included in drug trials beginning in the 1990s. Wow. And women’s bodies have been held in secret - vagina is a word that is censored in social media. Further, climate change inordinately affects women negatively. What can be done? What can every human do?

It comes down to economics. I haven’t crunched the numbers (yet) but I wonder: what if women were healthier? what would our social/economic/environmental/political landscape look like if they were? would we be better off than we are now if women were thriving?

It’s worth exploring what’s possible if over 50% of the world’s population were healthier. I’m encouraged by the D4L work of Sheng-Hung Lee in the MIT AgeLab. Taking a life stage approach to all lives is an inspiring design approach. D4L is intriguing if we look at human life itself, in this case women’s lives.

My intent is not to radicalize the conversation to only focus on women’s lived experiences at the expense of other lived experiences. Instead, I think that there is value in considering what more we could be doing to save our planet if more humans were thriving. What if more healthy women would mean even more positive contributions to society?

How about we take steps to improve women’s health and see what happens?