Sex, Lies, and Menopause: The Shocking Truth about Hormone Replacement Therapy [Hardcover]

The book repeatedly exclaims that it is all about biology, not about politics. Then, it goes on to make numerous unsupported and extravagant claims. There are repeated anti-feminist rants (nearly every chapter), blunt statements that gay men are maternally inclined (designed by nature to take care of orphans in a stressed society) and "more creative" than the rest of us. (I will say that I was surprised and troubled to learn that Margaret Sanger was likely a eugenicist, though I still admire her efforts at making birth control legal and available).

Without knowing the religion of the author, I would offer that the book presents the Catholic (or protestant fundamentalist) line on sex, birth control and feminism as scientific fact, citing studies that, while providing relevant evidence on hormone replacement, have nothing to do with the social commentary. For example, Wiley repeatedly states the world does not have an overpopulation problem, yet women everywhere are having fewer children. Not everyone would agree there is no population problem; certainly not anyone (like me) who has been to (or even flown over) massive population centers like Mexico City, Seoul, Tokyo, or parts of Southern California. In one paragraph she castigates population demographers for predicting crises that have not occurred (yet). Two paragraphs later, she is citing U.N. population predictions to "prove" a pet theory.

Ms. Wiley falls into the intellectual fallacy of citing scientific studies and then making hypothetical leaps to unrelated situations. For example, the author cites a study reporting that women unconsciously use their sense of smell (picking up on male pheromones) to help identify and reject partners who are genetically incompatible (i.e., with whom she cannot reproduce ideally). The study also showed that birth control pills disrupt this inborn ability to choose the right mate. I read the same study and so far, the author cites the serious conclusions accurately. But, she then goes on, without any scientific support, to pin a global rise in infertility on the use of the Pill to avoid pregnancy, because it supposedly wreaks havoc with this female ability to choose a proper mate. She neglects, however, to consider that throughout recorded history, in most of the world and even in many parts of the world today, a human female has not been permitted to choose her own mate. Women were (and still are) sold, traded, or married off by fathers (or by families, in more "enlightened" environs) for political or financial gain. It could be said (with the same level of scientific support - i.e., none) that the infertility rise has its deeper roots in patriarchal religions that mandate male control over female reproduction. The book is full of similarly faulty logic.

There is truth, however, in the author's assertions that nature favors those individuals at the peak of the reproductive prime. In both sexes, these are blessed with the best health, are the most alluring, the quickest and the strongest. Cycling hormones create the blueprint that nature reads to identify her favored ones. For that reason, I buy the assertion that reproducing the natural hormonal cycle, using substances as genetically close to those naturally occurring in humans as possible, can perhaps fool nature into bestowing some of the vigor of youth. And no, of course it can't keep us from death, but it can possibly improve the last half of our lives (the part that nature never intended us to have.) I agree too, that there is nothing romantic in "natural menopause." In my mind, it is simply decay. From nature's point of view, if we can't procreate, we're simply taking up space. So, I'm trying the natural hormone replacement protocol, but working closely with my nurse-practitioner to monitor the effects.

I believe, also, that the author is also on terra firma when detailing how the unholy trinity of the pharmaceutical companies, doctors and insurers do not always (or even generally) promote effective remedies for wellness, especially for women. Wiley is not the first (nor most articulate) to describe their male-dominated and obsessive "pathologizing" of the female body and its functions in pursuit of power and profit.

Ms. Wiley is absolutely correct when she asserts that true women's rights can't be addressed without considering the context of motherhood. What passes for "women's rights" in the US today, is simply a pretense to squeeze increased production out of the working population. We all must have "real" jobs to earn our keep because the work and benefits of childrearing are invisible to the global capitalist system. True women's rights must include not only the rights of education, physical autonomy and reproductive choice for women, but also the right to raise and care for our children in the healthiest manner possible.