| Christiane Northrup, MD, Board-certified OB/GYN physician and author of two New York Times best-selling books: Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom (Bantam 1998) and The Wisdom of Menopause (Bantam 2001); Director of Christiane Northrup, Inc.
For the past 5000 years, the female body and everything associated with it have been seen as inferior to the male standard. For this reason, both men and women have been taught that the processes of the female body (such as menstruation, childbirth, and menopause) are, at best, major inconveniences and, at worst, curses visited upon women because Eve ate the apple and thus brought evil to mankind. However, we have now entered an era characterized by the rising status of women — and a growing global awareness of how gender abuse in all its many guises hurts all of us. Along with this rise in feminine consciousness has come the need to revise our thinking about the female body and its processes. Far from being a source of pain and shame, women all over the world, along with many scientists, are discovering that a woman’s body is deeply connected to the cycles of the earth. When we learn to respect and consciously work with these cycles, we enter the realm of true wisdom. With this wisdom, we can improve not just our own health, but also come to a better understanding of our role on the planet. For millennia, the Earth has been seen as feminine — and many have pointed out that the fate of the Earth and that of women have much in common. There is no doubt that the healing of both is at hand. |