Sweetening the Pill book_cover

Tune in this week on Wednesday, December 5th at 9 am Pacific time to Holy Hormones Honey! for our show, “Are Women on the Pill Still Female?” with our guest Holly Grigg-Spall at  Catch this episode and others on demand everyday here!

Holly Grigg-Spall in her book, Sweetening the Pill or How We Got Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control states that the perfected body in our culture is not female – but male. She raises an interesting question: if the essential biological center of femaleness is suppressed with synthetic hormones, then can we say that women on the pill are still ‘female’?

Holly Grigg-Spall will be sharing her research and concerns about synthetic hormone use.

We should all be concerned. By 2015 over 200 million women will be on birth control. How many of us know how this drug works – how many are told about the potential side effects like migraines, dizziness depression, anxiety, panic attacks, blindness and even death. According to Holly – over 80% of women who pop the pill experience these symptoms over their life time.

What kind of bargain do women make with Mother Nature when we prevent nature from running its course?

 

About Holly Grigg-Spall:

Author of Sweetening the Pill Or How We Became Hooked on Hormonal Birth Control, Holly is a women’s health writer and activist whose blog documenting her personal transition off the pill gained international recognition from The BBC, The Washington Post, The Times (UK), and The Independent (UK).

Holly began writing a blog in 2009. When in London, England she had an article published in Easy Living on the side effects of the birth control pill. Her research was prompted by her own experience with Yasmin. After researching the pill Holly realized that after 10 years on synthetic hormone contraception, she needed to come off the pill completely. The blog became a place to document her transition and the steep learning curve that came with that choice.

Holly has contributed to Ms. Magazine’s blog, and she writes regularly for the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research blog re: Cycling. Holly has been interviewed on BBC Radio and now appears on Holy Hormones Honey!

 

Leslie Carol Botha

Leslie Carol Botha, host of Holy Hormones Honey! on the VoiceAmerica Health and Wellness Channel, is a Women’s Health Educator and Internationally Recognized Expert on Women’s Hormones and Behaviors. She is the co-author of the highly acclaimed Understanding Your Mind, Mood, and Hormone Cycle, the first in a menstrual health education series that provides women with the education they never received about how their hormone cycle affects not only their minds, and moods, but their personal and professional relationships and their overall health and happiness.

Botha is a member of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research, and an advisory board member for the Cycles Research Institute. In 2006, Botha received the Edward R. Dewey Award for her pioneering research on how women’s hormonal fluctuations affect their behaviors. The award was bequeathed by the Foundation for the Study of Cycles.

Her research is also featured in The World According to Cycles- How Recurring Forces Can Predict the Future and Change Your Life by Samuel A. Schreiner, Jr., published by Skyhorse Publishing, New York City. Schreiner has noted that Botha is “one of the most prominent twenty-first century natural cycle thinkers.”

Botha has been a radio broadcast journalist for over 30 years. Her message is loud and clear: it is time for women to reclaim their health, and her passion and drive is to provide information to assist women in making informed choices about their health and well-being.