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Why Women’s Health Is Talking About Politics

Being a woman in the United States is complicated. Some of us, like Hillary, can smash glass ceilings and ascend to the highest offices, and yet, at the same time, all of us must continue to fight for our basic rights.

This nuance isn’t lost on us here at Women’s Health. That’s why, despite being a brand which traditionally focuses on fitness, beauty, lifestyle, and wellness, we’re increasingly invested in creating content that’s more political. When 100,000 women in Texas are trying to perform abortions on themselves and new mothers are forced back to work way too soon after giving birth, with a name like Women’s Health, it would be irresponsible of us not to.

Sign up for Women’s Health’s new newsletter, So This Happened, to get the day’s trending stories and health studies.

We still care immensely about—and will continue to cover—fitness, beauty, lifestyle, and wellness, but we also find it important to draw the connection between our shared desire to be healthy and happy and the social issues and politics that often dictate our ability to achieve that health and happiness to begin with.

Your ability to be happy and healthy is directly correlated to your ability to take time off if you get ill or to care for a newborn. Your ability to be happy and healthy means that you need the freedom to take control of your own reproductive choices—whether that means getting an annual pap smear or having an abortion. It means knowing the water you drink is safe and the air you breathe is clean. It means that if you’re training to run a 5k and you slip and fall, you have the healthcare you need to get back up and running again.

So yeah, we’ve gotten more political. We started the podcast Uninterrupted, which has featured guests like Gloria Steinem, Margaret Cho, Renee Bracey Sherman, and Emma Sulkowicz.


There’s a new episode every Monday on Soundcloud and iTunes, and you should definitely check it out.

We’ve also been covering more LGBTQ stories, as well as issues like the wage gap, paid leave, and gender discrimination in the work place. We’ll be weighing in on the 2016 election, which has and will continue to be historic for women, no matter which candidates win the nominations or the popular vote in November. 

And yes, we’ve been talking a lot about abortion. In the past it might have been taboo for us to discuss such a divisive issue, but at a time when it’s easier for a domestic abuser to buy a gun than it is for a woman to make a responsible choice about her own body, there’s much less room for objectivity. 

We welcome your opinions, your praise, and your criticisms. Being a woman is inherently political, and no matter where you stand on the issues, we can probably all agree that listening to and learning from each other is an essential part of healthy living.