You've Got a Long Way to Go, Baby!

You’ve Got a Long Way to Go, Baby!

By Menopause Taylor 

Back in 1968, the phrase, “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” became very popular. It implies progress. And, even though it was an advertising slogan for Virginia Slim cigarettes rather than anything expressly political or social, it symbolized these long, slender cigarettes that were tailored for women, with their long slender fingers and such.

In a subtle way, it symbolized the empowerment of women.

It was timed for the women’s rights movement of the day.

Now, 50 years later, with so many of the women of 1968 in the menopausal portion of their lives, it seems as though all that progress has halted.

Back then, when I heard “You’ve come a long way, baby,” I thought it was the beginning of forward progress that would continue over the long term. But, somehow, in some area of life, that has not happened.

Menopause is one of those areas.

In 1968, women routinely started taking HRT when they became post-menopausal. It seemed only natural that they would replace estrogen deficiency with estrogen. It was really no different than replacing insulin deficiency as a result of diabetes or thyroid hormone deficiency as a result of hypothyroidism.

Today, these very women are the spry, vivacious 99- and 100-year-olds that amaze us all.

These women praised HRT for maintaining their femininity and their health. They viewed estrogen as their fountain of youth.

But, somewhere over the last 50 years or so, we’ve stagnated. Maybe we’ve even backpedaled.

Now, just 17 years after release of the false results of the flawed WHI study, women have stopped taking HRT. They’ve even come to fear it, believing that it causes heart attacks and cancers. Instead of embracing estrogen replacement as a means of avoiding the long list of symptoms of menopause and the diseases that result from loss of estrogen, women have demonized estrogen as the enemy.

Despite the fact that they felt great before they lost it and horrible after they lost it, they are convinced that it is bad for them. Despite the fact that both basic logic and scientific proof indicate that menopause is a deficiency state that warrants replacement therapy just like any other deficiency state, women are too terrified to take it.

Nowadays, friends don’t let friends take HRT. Even though they have no education with which to deliver such prohibitions, they never hesitate to tell their girlfriends that HRT will kill them.

So, despite the fact that way back in 1968, we’d come a long way, baby, now, we have a long way to go, baby.

Who knows when we’ll again be able to say, “You’ve come a long way, baby.” For now, we’re stuck with, “You've got a long way to go, baby.”