Over the past few weeks, there’s been a noticeable shift in the way women’s health is being talked about in mainstream media and hugely popular podcasts. Conversations about wellbeing, burnout, fertility, hormones and “modern womanhood” are everywhere, but many women are starting to feel a quiet discomfort. Not because these topics are being discussed, but because of how they’re being framed, and who is shaping the narrative.
More and more, complex women’s health issues are being distilled into neat soundbites: stress is framed as a mindset issue, fertility as a personal failure, exhaustion as a lack of resilience. Hormonal transitions like perimenopause are glossed over or misunderstood, and structural realities, caregiving, mental load, late motherhood, chronic stress, are often missing entirely. When health conversations are led without nuance, evidence, or lived female experience, women are left feeling unseen or, worse, subtly blamed.
This matters because media doesn’t just reflect culture, it actively shapes it. When millions of listeners hear repeated messages about what women should be doing with their bodies, their energy, or their lives, those ideas seep into GP appointments, workplace expectations, and even how women talk to themselves. We’ve already seen this with menopause, where decades of silence and misinformation delayed diagnosis and treatment for countless women. We’re now at risk of repeating the same pattern with perimenopause, hormonal health, ADHD, fertility challenges, and burnout.
There’s also a growing problem with confidence without qualification. Wellness conversations are increasingly dominated by people who speak very well, very convincingly, but without clinical training or accountability. That doesn’t make them malicious, but it does make their influence risky. Women’s bodies are not productivity projects, and hormones are not something you can “hack” with a morning routine and a cold plunge.
What’s often missing from these big conversations is context. Women today are having children later, working longer, carrying more cognitive load, and living in environments full of endocrine disruptors. Many are navigating perimenopause while raising young children or caring for ageing parents. To talk about women’s health without acknowledging this is not just incomplete, it’s misleading.
So what can we do as listeners, readers, and women trying to look after ourselves? First, we can stay curious but critical. Ask who is speaking, what their expertise is, and whose voices are absent. Second, we can demand better representation, more female clinicians, researchers, and lived experts leading these conversations. And finally, we can keep returning to evidence-based, women-centred spaces that prioritise education over judgement.
Women’s health isn’t a trend or a debate topic. It’s complex, cyclical, deeply biological, and shaped by society as much as individual choice. As the media spotlight grows brighter, we must ensure it illuminates the truth, not just the loudest voice in the room.
Be savvy about who you let in your head Mobsters
Love Leah, Founder and CEO of THOH
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