A gynecologist, Dr. Jen Gunter, is taking Gwyneth Paltrow to task for hawking yet more crap at inflated prices. In this case, it’s ‘jade eggs’, which are claimed to do so much more than provide exercises of the kegel kind, oh yes! Goodness, there’s an intuition factory down there, and it requires feeding and care. This nonsense made me think back decades ago to a joke Roseanne Barr did about men thinking a uterus was a magical tracking device.
I read the post on GOOP and all I can tell you is it is the biggest load of garbage I have read on your site since vaginal steaming. It’s even worse than claiming bras cause cancer. But hey, you aren’t one to let facts get in the way of profiting from snake oil.
My issue begins with the very start of your post on jade eggs specifically that “queens and concubines used them to stay in shape for emperors.” Nothing says female empowerment more than the only reason to do this is for your man! And then the claim that they can balance hormones is, quite simply, biologically impossible. Pelvic floor exercises can help with incontinence and even give stronger orgasms for some women, but they cannot change hormones. As for female energy? I’m a gynecologist and I don’t know what that is!? How does one test for it? Organically sourced, fair trade urine pH sticks coming soon to GOOP for $77 I presume?
Queens and concubines, eh? Why would a queen need (or want) to impress an emperor? Besides getting her political classes all mixed up, citing concubines is on the really fucked up side. Perhaps Ms. Paltrow’s friends could chip in and purchase a dictionary for her, or some history books.
From the blather about jade eggs on Goop:
practice – there was not as much information about it then as there is now. But it made intuitive sense to me: The word for our womb, yoni, translates as “sacred place”, and it is a sacred place – it’s where many women access their intuition, their power, and their wisdom.
:Stifles scream: Oh gods, I can’t even say how much I loathe this sort of nonsense. No. No, no, no. I have a uterus, yes. It is by no means sacred, there’s no little altar in there, and it is not possible to access intuition, power, or wisdom from it. Pushing this absolute bullshit is not helpful, it’s not empowering, it’s simply reducing women down to parts, and misogyny and sexism already do that well enough. Dr. Gunter wasn’t impressed, either:
If the word for womb is yoni I hate to break it to you, but the uterus and vagina are different structures. If you are using the Sanskrit, while I admit I am no language scholar, it seems that yoni means the entire female reproductive tract and you should say that. Terminology aside, the vulva, vagina, cervix, and uterus are not intuition repositories and neither are they sources of “power” or “wisdom.” If fact, I find that assertion insulting. Do you really mean a woman who does not have a uterus is less effective? Is a woman without a vagina less intelligent? Is a woman who had a vulvectomy due to cancer less creative?
Dr. Gunter also takes on some of the very real physical problems involved:
As for the recommendation that women sleep with a jade egg in their vaginas I would like to point out that jade is porous which could allow bacteria to get inside and so the egg could act like a fomite. This is not good, in case you were wondering. It could be a risk factor for bacterial vaginosis or even the potentially deadly toxic shock syndrome.
Regarding the suggestion to wear the jade egg while walking around, well, I would like to point out that your pelvic floor muscles are not meant to contract continuously. In fact, it is quite difficult to isolate your pelvic floor while walking so many women could actually clench other muscles to keep the egg inside. It is possible the pained expression of clenching your butt all day could be what is leading people to stare, not some energy glow.
Overenthusiastic Kegel exercises or incorrectly done Kegel exercises are a cause of pelvic pain and pain with sex in my practice. Imagine how your biceps muscle (and then your shoulders and then your back) might feel if you walked around all day flexed holding a barbell? Right, now imagine your pelvic floor muscles doing this.
Good advice, and people should keep in mind that Ms. Paltrow’s first concern is making money, regardless of what she says. She isn’t going to come rushing to the side of women who end up seriously ill because of the crap she hawks.
Dr. Gunter’s full post is here.
I guess Paltrow wasn’t making enough money doing movies.
The only intuition my uterus might possibly have is knowing when my next period is about to arrive, which it often transmits to me in the form of migraines. So it’s not exactly subtle about it, either, therefore ‘intuition’ is probably too mild a term.
And sleeping with a jade egg trapped in my vagina sounds annoying, uncomfortable and would probably contribute to me waking up grumpy and thus losing any and all female-energy glow I might have accumulated overnight.
Possible? Highly probable, I would say.
rq:
Mine didn’t even do that much. It’s been about as much use to me as an appendix. Christ, I hate all that “sacred womb” shit. I am not my uterus.
This, this, this, this. I can’t even say how much I loathe magical moon pussy uterus fauxminism. I got a uterus, it’s been useful to me, but if such a thing were feasible I would donate it in a whim. And I’d probably be a happier woman without the cramps and periods.
I never cease to be amazed at the human creativity. I mean the bullshit people are able to believe, it is really amazing. But not in a good way.
The mildly deranged penguin agrees, pointing out some people think peas are benign and even edible; that cheese comes from goats and cows and alligators and spray cans; and even that Atlantis only sank once. Carefully climbing over the edge and walking on the underside of the Earth (grappling hooks advised), you can even see the turtles down below, yet people, for some reason, close their eyes. Well, actually, hanging onto the underside of the Earth by a thin rope with a pile of turtles below you above your head is a bit frightening, so closing your eyes in that situation is perhaps understandable… albeit then you won’t be able to see the horses sneaking up on you…
Honestly, you’d think that, by this stage of evolution, uterus-having women would be a lot better at harnessing that inherent power and would long ago have abolished the patriarchy. Lies, I tell you!
OK, this is really very weird even by the standards of someone like Gwyneth Paltrow. This stuff is right up there with alien abduction conspiracy theories.
From the OP;
It is all extremely weird and rather creepy. As you say, the rendering down of women into body parts is a heinously toxic way of looking at things, and once again associating women with fluffy woo-woo mysticism and leaving hard science as the preserve of the blokes, even down to the level of physiology, is a very regressive and harmful position.
rq @ 7;
Now I am imagining assorted misogynists and MRAs fleeing in abject terror before the relentless firepower of massed, apocalyptically destructive uterus rays laying waste to all before them in best War of the Worlds fashion… ;-)
Gregory @ 9:
There’s a very good story in there. :D
REMEMBER TO RECHARGE YOUR JADEGG POWERS OVERNIGHT!!!
Gregory Greenwood (#8)
It sounds like the standard neo-pagan, new-agey, chakra-activating, goddess-invoking, paint-with-your-menstrual-blood bullshit I grew up with.
A. Noyd:
I did an image search for this post, and these things were all over the place, different names, different types of stone (jade, agate, rose quartz) and packaging, but all the same shit. And every single one with the neo-pagan, new-agey, ultra-woo garbage attached.
It’s not about the kegels, either. There are a number of kegel exercisers out there, all made of safe material, and designed to work correctly. Those items don’t have any cachet though, there’s no mystique. This is selling the same age old shit of “women are really truly different, better, superior, you just have stick this stone up your vagina, or chant, or become one with, or whatthefuckever.”
I loathe this stuff in particular, because it’s every bit as bad as garden variety misogyny, reducing women to parts, with an enlightened state of being found in becoming an enlightened uterus, oh joy, and the constant pushing of the idea that woman as mother and woman as fucktoy are the best and highest ways of being.
@Caine
Yeah, the backbone of woo is extreme reductionism. An extreme reductionism that accuses science and evidence-based medicine of reductionism, no less.
This kind of thing used to be a joke…