You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman

I hope you have ALL seen the magnificent Ms Aretha Franklin‘s performance of Carole King‘s hit (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman.

https://www.facebook.com/musicretrobest/videos/375040846533147/

The Kennedy Center Honors recognizing Ms King’s artistic achievements gave us an absolutely stunning performance, a collaboration of genius, these two women combining forces to create a profoundly inspiring moment. I am so deeply moved, watching this performance. Find it here, and find your own magnificent womanhood reflected!

Since this performance, I am moved to adopt the concept, A Natural Woman, as more appropriate, more accurate and more inspiring than the Uncommon Woman concept I have so far been using to embed my PCOS work. By Uncommon Woman I have meant to declare and defend our inherent uniqueness, that is, to defend against the diagnostic labels that cannot accurately or usefully describe us. A Natural Woman is a phrase and a concept that more positively and more accurately describes each and every one of us. Despite the limited thinking and un-natural categorization convenient to reductionist medical science, we are each a unique and natural -that is, normal -version of what adult human females can be. All humans have strengths and vulnerabilities; all humans have conditions that need attention and care for optimal well being. We are each somewhere on the continuum of what humans can be.

A few years ago I got to make a presentation of this concept to my colleagues at a continuing education conference. In a TED talk-like format, I was able to describe to the physician audience how we have mistaken ‘different’ for ‘abnormal’. We talked about anthropological, psychological and social science research that supports understanding high androgen women with PCOS as normal human females living in a deteriorating physical environment. I asked them to change how they see and subsequently how they interact with their patients who have been assigned a diagnosis of PCOS. How we see ourselves can be influenced by how others perceive us; we give professionals an enormous amount of power to define a collective version of what is normal. Professionals are human first. Their world-view colors their perceptions and decisions and affects the way they ask research questions, and how they interpret the data they collect. Care needs to be taken in assessing the value of data that may be unconsciously biased. We are always working to do a better job with what we spend our time doing, including being alert to our personal biases.

A really powerful part of this talk are the photos that high androgen women with PCOS have shared with me, along with permission to use their images and bits of their stories to illustrate the endlessly diverse array of appearances high androgen women walk around in. I project on a screen these gorgeous images, flowing by.  (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman plays very quietly in the background. The audience become very curious, very interested in learning. It’s so inspiring, every time I get to share this.

Here’s the photo I use, of me and fabulous daughter Tassia, a couple of happy, healthy naturally high androgen women having a walk on a winter day.We’re looking forward to adding YOUR smiling face to the cast of extraordinary characters we are! Shine on, and share your natural light!