The Dictatorship
Florence Pugh’s surprise diagnosis highlights the downsides of a patriarchal health system
A recent account from Oscar-winning actress Florence Pugh is a sober reminder that even with exceptional levels of fame and resources, women overwhelmingly lack basic tools to understand our own bodies, and overall health.
After experiencing some difficult to place symptoms, Pugh visited a doctor, who suggested she undergo an egg count test — an unusual recommendation for someone who is only 27. The test ultimately led to a diagnosis of both polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis. Pugh reportedly was shocked, but also relieved — it finally made sense, she told her physician Dr. Thaïs Aliabadi on the “SHE MD” podcast that Aliabadi hosts with Mary Alice Haney. For years, Pugh had dealt with symptoms like unusual hair growth and acne, which she had attributed to “being a woman” with a “slightly stressful life.” As it turned out, it wasn’t all in her head.
Suddenly, she was forced to think about her future and her fertility, something she had assumed she had nearly a decade to consider.
In the same podcast episode, Pugh described the diagnosis as a “mind-boggling realization.” Suddenly, she was forced to think about her future and her fertility, something she had assumed she had nearly a decade to consider. Advised to freeze her eggs, she followed through and is now sharing her story to encourage other women to take charge of their reproductive health and lives.
When I froze my eggs and documented the process for Armchair Expert’s “Race to 35,” I was struck by how difficult it was to get clear answers about my own body and how much of the responsibility fell on me to figure it all out. I was sent home with a collection of hormones and needles and expected to adhere to a rigorous regimen and mixing schedule, with the warning that a mistake could ruin the entire process. The mental strain of the entire ordeal felt more taxing than the physical toll it was taking to inject myself everyday and get blood tests and transvaginal ultrasounds every 72 hours.
I remember thinking that if men had to freeze their eggs, the service would include a personal nurse, a therapist, a chef, a driver, and probably a life coach. The potential for errors, and the high stakes attached, was staggering, especially given the often prohibitive cost of the procedure. Why are women expected to know so much with so little support?
Part of it is social conditioning. Women are so often seen as caretakers, not the ones who need to be cared for. The data reflects this patriarchal misconception. Women are more likely to be misdiagnosed than menand their ailments receive less research funding. Endometriosis, the condition affecting Pugh and an estimated 1 in 10 women globallyis a stark example of gender disparities in medical research. A McKinsey report found that erectile dysfunction, despite being far less common, receives six times more research funding than endometriosis. From 2019 to 2023, erectile dysfunction was allocated $1.24 billion, while endometriosis received $44 million. It’s infuriating given that endometriosis has far more life-threatening impacts (it can cause ectopic pregnancies, bowel obstruction and even cancer) and that it impacts a larger portion of the population. Simply put, our priorities don’t reflect our needs.
And let’s be clear — the issue isn’t men; it’s the patriarchy. Women’s symptoms are disproportionately dismissed as psychosomatic, leading to a systemic lack of belief and trust in their own accounts of their health. This bias isn’t confined to male doctors; female doctors can also perpetuate it. Pugh, for instance, said she faced dismissal from a female doctor in the U.K. when she brought up her diagnosis. While studies show women are less likely to die under the care of female doctorsthe reality is that even women in medicine can underestimate or overlook female painreflecting the broader cultural tendency to belittle it. And this is far worse for women of colorwhose pain is ignored at even greater rates and can lead to far graver consequences for them.
So how do we solve this?
According to Dr. Elizabeth Comen, an Associate Professor of Medicine at NYU Langone and author of the book “All in Her Head: The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women’s Bodies and Why It Matters Today,” the most important step women can take is to find a buddy. “I don’t care if you’re Einstein; you need to have somebody with you to advocate for you,” she told me over the phone. “When you’re worried and anxious, you need that support to help filter the information in context.”
Dr. Comen also emphasized the need to shed the specific, yet universal, shame women often feel about not knowing how to advocate for themselves, despite often being so skilled at advocating for others. “Whether it’s homeless women, royalty, or the heads of hedge funds, every woman has that story. Women can find sisterhood in that shared experience,” she said. “This work cannot happen alone.”
If it happened to Florence Pugh, it can happen to anyone. As we wait for our culture and medical establishment to catch up, women leaning on each other isn’t just support; it’s a quiet revolution.
The U.S. military on Wednesday carried out new strikes in Iran, shooting down four attack drones and targeting a ground control station. The military stated both the drones and ground facility posed a threat to the Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. official said in a statement to MS NOW.
The official said the ceasefire agreement remains in effect and described the U.S. military actions as intended to maintain the ceasefire.
“Today, U.S. Central Command forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. forces also struck an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone. These actions were measured, purely defensive, and intended to maintain the ceasefire,” the official said in the statement.
At least three explosions were heard east of Bandar Abbas, a port city in Iran along the Strait of Hormuz, The New York Times and CNN reported, both citing Iranian state media. The explosions briefly activated Bandar Abbas’ air defense systems, Fars News Agency, a media outlet affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported early Thursday local time.
The latest strikes come amid an unstable ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran.
Speaking at a Cabinet meeting at the White House earlier Wednesday, President Donald Trump said Iran wants “very much to make a deal” but “they haven’t gotten there,” adding that Iran was “negotiating on fumes.”
“We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be,” Trump said. “Either that or we’ll have to just finish the job. Their navy is gone … their air force is gone, everything’s gone. And they’re negotiating on fumes. But we’ll see what happens. Maybe we have to go back and finish it, maybe we don’t.”
On MondayU.S. Central Command said in a statement that the U.S. carried out “self-defense” strikes on missile launch sites and boats in southern Iran in order “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.” That same day, Trump said in a Truth Social post that negotiations with Iran were “proceeding nicely!”
Julia Jester covers politics for MS NOW and is based in Washington, D.C.
Carla Herreria is an editor for MS NOW’s breaking news and liveblog team. She was previously a senior assignment editor at HuffPost.
President Donald Trump’s racist policy of welcoming white South Africans while excluding refugees from other countries is back in the spotlight after his administration raised its refugee ceiling — to bring in more white people.
Trump increased the refugee admissions ceiling by 10,000 for this year to allow more white South Africans to come into the country, a signed presidential determination reviewed by Reuters showed.
The document, dated May 21, said white South Africans of Afrikaner ethnicity face an emergency situation due to the “incitement of racially motivated violence” by the government and political parties in the majority-Black country.
The document, found herecites an “unforeseen emergency refugee situation” that doesn’t actually exist. Trump and his allies have pushed false claims that a “white genocide” is occurring, but South Africa’s government — and even advocacy groups representing the country’s white Afrikaner minority — have rejected the claim.
Reuters reported that the increased refugee limit is now 17,500 — and that only three non-South African refugees have been admitted into the U.S. this fiscal year. Reuters previously reported that the administration wanted to bring in 4,500 white South Africans immigrants per montha number that I noted mirrors the number of white German refugees the Ku Klux Klan wanted to welcome to the United States a century ago — when its members were popularizing xenophobic slogans like “America First” and launching campaigns of racist terror against people of color.
It’s noteworthy here that white supremacists have latched on to racist conspiracy theories, such as the “replacement theory,” saying that there is some kind of plot to replace white Americans with nonwhite people, particularly foreigners. In reality, what’s actually underway is the exact opposite: a government effort to deport nonwhite people in America — including people who have lived in the U.S. for years — while Trump’s regime takes steps to import white people, and as some conservatives fret over white birth rates.
It’s hard to imagine the klan itself wouldn’t approve of this policy.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
Amid the Republican Party’s ongoing assault on Black peopleDemocrats are borrowing a tactic from 20th-century civil rights activists and putting corporate America on notice.
On Tuesday, the Congressional Black Caucus said it sent a letter to more than 200 companies and business organizations, urging them to oppose the GOP’s push to eliminate majority-Black districts after the Supreme Court’s Callais v. Louisiana decision, which effectively permitted racist gerrymandering.
In 2021, the companies sent a letter to Congress in support of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, saying the legislation was needed to guard against racial discrimination and voter suppression. Signees on that letter included AppleDell and Googlewhose executives have since aligned themselves with President Donald Trump’s regime.
“Many corporations spoke clearly during that moment about the importance of protecting democratic participation, defending civil rights, and advancing racial equity,” the CBC’s letter reads. “Today, those commitments are being tested.”
The letter presses the companies to issue statements condemning the GOP’s push to dilute Black voters’ power, as well as information on corporate political spending. The pressure campaign follows the CBC’s public call for student-athletes to boycott public universities in states where Republicans have taken action against majority-Black voting districts.
Meanwhile, 16 Democratic state attorneys general sent a letter last week to three donor-advised funds urging them to lift restrictions on donations to the Southern Poverty Law Centeran anti-racist organization known for helping law enforcement officials take down white supremacist extremist groups. The charity-based arms of Fidelity and Vanguard, as well as a company called Donor Advised Charitable Giving, imposed the restrictions after the Trump administration’s baseless indictment of the SPLC. I recently wrote about how Trump allies have used these charges to downplay and outright deny the existence of racist extremismas well as spread lies about liberals being responsible for groups like the Ku Klux Klan.
This scrutiny of corporate America and its acquiescence to the MAGA movement has me thinking of a conversation I had with the Rev. Al Sharpton and the “Morning Joe” crew last week. During our chat, Sharpton warned that companies that align themselves with Trump’s war on diversity do so at their own risk, because Democrats could take steps in the future to hold these companies to account.
These letters show a strong interest among Democrats in pressuring companies that appear to be propping up, or placating, the rise of what many people see as Jim Crow 2.0.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
- Gretchen Whitmer says she won’t run for president in 2028
- U.S. military carries out new strikes in Iran, says ceasefire continues
- Trump’s plan for white South Africans is straight out of the KKK’s playbook
- Democrats warn companies against aligning with Trump’s Jim Crow resurgence
- Trump named five goals for Iran war but has achieved only one. Is Iran winning?
- Kavanaugh stands alone in claiming interest in the NFL’s race discrimination appeal
- MAGA CLAIMS ANOTHER SCALP
- MAGA CLAIMS ANOTHER SCALP
- Donald Trump’s revenge tour might not end in 2026
- Andy Kim responds to Mullin on ICE facility protest: ‘This was never about me’
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship9 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words