Is it possible that women are experiencing “Election Womb” as a stress response to Trump’s policies?
“I think the majority of us will go into this Tuesday knowing that no matter what the actual electoral college says who wins, that doesn’t mean the next few months won’t be worth it,” Clancy said. scared anymore,” Clancy said. . “So we’ve had to endure many months of stress, but we also have the immediate stress of having to look into the future over the next few months and not knowing what that will bring.”
Cecile Richards, former president of Planned Parenthood who continues to advocate for reproductive freedom as co-founder Abortion in America and co-founder of the abortion access bot Charleycalled the election “a long fight.”
“There is too much at stake in this election,” she wrote in an email VF. “So, yes, millions of women—and their family members, doctors, and community members—are extremely worried about the outcome of this election. Because it is deeply personal.”
“When women recognize what some of the symptoms are and they can connect it to election stress or anxiety, that’s also helpful to say, ‘Okay, I’m not crazy,’” Rohr-Kirchgraber says. ‘”. “When Trump started running, there was division, anger, hatred, hostility, I had never seen before. The stress they were under.”
Time and time again, I see people move from skepticism to awareness when we talk about this phenomenon. I have repeatedly heard the word “crazy” used as a self-description when connecting physical symptoms to their emotional state, a self-destructive tendency with deep historical roots. After all, the word “hysteria” has its origin in the female womb: It comes from Greek hystericalmeans “suffering in the womb”.
Hart expressed concern that the continued blows to public health, including disputed elections, restrictive policies and the impact of COVID-19, will be something people never expected. can now fully recover.
“I don’t know if things will get better, if things will calm down, if things will actually improve, I don’t know,” she said. “Or have we really broken people in a way that we can’t get back?”
“[I’m] Surely these changes compared to last year are just more anxiety, more fear and even this week, these last days, people seem to be waiting with bated breath,” she said.
Rohr-Kirchgraber also expressed frustration with legal restrictions on the care she can provide, which “first and foremost, does no harm,” facing the risk of losing her medical license. or face jail time.
“I feel like [politicians are] stand in my exam room and tell you what to do. And they didn’t go to medical school, [they’re not in] health care,” she said. “Why are they here with me? I don’t need them and neither do my patients. They need to be able to make the right decisions that work for them, and I need to be able to get them the care they need.”
“I feel like part of my joy and my optimism has been destroyed” by the results of the past two elections, said Katie, whose mother suffered a ruptured ovarian cyst. “I couldn’t imagine it getting worse, which is probably why my uterus decided to explode every time there was a chance it could get worse.”
