The Hormone Diaries Quotes

“I think one of the reasons we don’t hear much about PMDD or give sufferers permission to seek help is because we don’t take women’s pain seriously. It’s just a natural burden we’re supposed to bear for being women. It’s been reported that there is a pain bias in the medical industry. It’s unclear if it’s due to a gender bias in medical staff, lack of research on women or differences between how men and women interpret and communicate pain.”
― Hannah Witton, The Hormone Diaries: The Bloody Truth About Our Periods

“There’s a model of understanding the disabled community uses that I think can also be applied to other situations, including this one. It’s called the Social Model of Disability, and it states that it is not a person’s condition that disables them, but rather society through inaccessibility and stigma. So it is not PCOS that makes someone less of a woman, it’s society’s definition of ‘woman’ that might make someone feel that way.”
― Hannah Witton, The Hormone Diaries: The Bloody Truth About Our Periods

“Fun fact: at 33 weeks, the foetus weighs almost the same as a pineapple. I don’t know about you, but I do not like the sound of a pineapple coming out of my vagina. No thank you.”
― Hannah Witton, The Hormone Diaries: The Bloody Truth About Our Periods

“First off, when I say ‘male contraception’, we’re talking about birth control for folks with penises and testes. Not men. Just like how not all women have periods and not all menstruators are women, not everyone with a penis is a man and not all men have penises. Trans and non-binary folk exist!”
― Hannah Witton, The Hormone Diaries: The Bloody Truth About Our Periods

“In the animated film Megamind, released in 2010,the villain (Megamind) finally defeats the hero he’s spent his whole life fighting against. The hero is your stereotypical macho male and embodies the idealised superhero masculinity. He is ‘defeated’ (spoilers)because Megamind traps him in a room made of copper and copper weakens his powers so he can’t escape. Why is this relevant, Hannah, I hear you ask? Well, how do you think the IUD works without any hormones in it? COPPER IS TOXIC TO SPERM!
I would just really love to know if the writers of Megamind knew this and that’s why they chose copper to kill off the hyper-masculine character. Surely it can’t be a coincidence.”
― Hannah Witton, The Hormone Diaries: The Bloody Truth About Our Periods

“There’s also the assumption that once someone is on the pill there’s no further need to manage sexual health. How many times have you heard, ‘We didn’t use a condom because she was on the pill’? Too many to count. This stuff isn’t necessarily the pill’s fault though – it’s society’s. The culture we live in is non-consensual, sexist and full of double standards. But we’re changing that, right? We have to.”
― Hannah Witton, The Hormone Diaries: The Bloody Truth About Our Periods

“One thing’s for sure, there is a clear difference in how men and women are regarded and treated when it comes to pain.”
― Hannah Witton, The Hormone Diaries: The Bloody Truth About Our Periods