“6 Crazy Things People Used to Believe About Vaginas" - from HuffPost

Whenever I get frustrated about the lack of knowledge in our society regarding female anatomy, or the poor care that is so prevalent regarding women's health, I need to be reminded of stuff like this. Seriously? Educating women would harm her reproductive organs? Vaginas have TEETH? Women can't get pregnant via rape? Are you kidding me?

The insanity of this misinformation could only come out of a very sick society.

This underscores for me the importance of supporting women's rights and women's health across the board, nationally and internationally.

Many facets of women's lives have improved dramatically in only a few generations, at least in Europe and the United States - enough so that feminism is sometimes seen as passé, a battle that was fought and won in the 70's - but don't let them fool ya. We still have so much farther to go.

Despite the fact that most women and mothers are in the paid workforce today, they still do more household chores and childcare than men and fathers. The US still hasn't had a female president. In the US women only earn 66% of what men are paid for the same job... The list of inequalities goes on, and touches every aspect of our lives.

Is it any wonder that we receive poor health care?

The lack of research and knowledge about women's health is part of a much broader problem of deeply ingrained sexism and misogyny (and rascism, homophobia, rising income inequality, class divisions, the rich world's poor treatment of refugees and immigrants...) across the world.

All of humankind has a lot of work to do to make our world a place where all people are valued.

Hopefully women and men will continue to work for gender parity, and the gains we make professionally, politically, and personally will influence the world of medicine as well.

Until then...? Well, I'm feeling a lot like the angry face at the top of this post.