FFP 064 | Fertility Awareness, Feminism, and Reproductive Freedoms | Geraldine Matus

Geraldine is the founder of the Justisse Method - a comprehensive method of fertility awareness cycle charting that she founded in 1987. She is the CEO of Justisse Healthworks for Women, and she is the Academic Dean of the Justisse Training College. She has worked as a fertility awareness educator and a holistic reproductive health practitioner since 1977, and she has been active in the reproductive health freedoms movement since then.

If you didn’t get a chance to listen to the episode Geraldine and I recorded last year, you’ll want to go back and listen to episode 56 which I will link to this episode. In our previous episode, Geraldine talked in depth about the history of Fertility Awareness-Based Methods and how Justisse came about. She talked about the important role that she played in bringing this knowledge into the secular realm to allow free access to all women regardless of their marital status or religious affiliations.

In today’s show, we delve into the psycho-spiritual aspects of fertility awareness, the different ways that our bodies are commodified and mistreated within the standard medical system, and the implications these issues have for modern day feminists.

Topics discussed in today's episode

• Where does the Fertility Awareness Method fit in with modern day feminism?
• Why is our fertility treated as a "disease" that needs to be "treated" by modern medicine?
• Why are women still told that hormonal contraceptives do no harm to our reproductive systems?
• What is misogyny? And what does it have to do with the way women's bodies are treated in our medical system?
• The importance of calling it what it is - "birth control" vs. "contraceptive endocrine disruptor" vs. "temporary sterilization"
• The role of fear in the development of birth control methods
• The complicated relationship that women have with their bodies and their fertility
• Unplanned pregnancy, and why hormonal birth control is considered the only 'valid' birth control option
• The consequences of unplanned pregnancy, and the lack of support for mothers with newborn children
• The importance of proper attachment between mother and baby within the crucial first 2 years of life
• The role of breastfeeding in encouraging proper attachment between mother and child

Connect with Geraldine

You can connect with Geraldine on the Justisse website and on Facebook!

Resources mentioned

• Justisse Healthworks for Women | Geraldine Matus
• FFP 056 | The History of Fertility Awareness-Based Methods | The Justisse Method of Fertility Management | Learning and Teaching Fertility Awareness | Geraldine Matus
• FFP 063 | Lady-Comp & Daysy - Using Tech with Fertility Awareness | Holly Grigg-Spall
• The US needs paid family leave - for the sake of the future - TED Talk (youtube)
• Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice | Jack Holland (book)
• The Fear of the Feminine: And Other Essays on Feminine Psychology (book) | Erich Neumann
• The Denial of Death | Ernest Becker (book)
• Magical Child | Joseph Chilton Pearce (book)

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Music Credit: Intro/Outro music Produced by Sirc of (The Nock)