Gwyneth Paltrow's wellness and lifestyle brand Goop is now such a tried and tested example of something that's easy to ridicule that last night, at Greenwich Skeptics in the Pub at The Star of Greenwich, the mere mention of the name Goop made almost everybody in the room start laughing.
None, however, probably laughed as hard as Paltrow herself who is a millionaire several times over. Some of it, no doubt, from her acting (though she barely makes film these days) but most of it from Goop and its wonderful, consistently amusing, and hugely overpriced range of products. This Candle Smells Like My Orgasm being many people's favourite.
Dr Alice Howarth (an actual proper doctor who specialises in cancer research as well as being a long time skeptic with a side interest in the wellness movement and who it affects and exploits women) was in Greenwich to talk about Chasing Empowerment::The Hidden Cost of Wellness and though Paltrow wasn't intended as the main subject she did take up rather a lot of interesting talk. Goop started up in 2008 and in 2017 they launched the predictably expensive jade yoni egg.
You probably know what you're supposed to do with it and where you're supposed to put it but do you know all the various claims that Paltrow and her team have made for it. The yoni egg can, they say, regulate a woman's menstrual cycles, balance their hormones, increase bladder control, cultivate sexual energy, help improve orgasm, develop and clear chi pathways, improve one's skin, and even remove negativity.
All negativity? It's not clear. To use the yoni egg you have to follow four steps. (i) wash your yoni egg (ii) sterilise it with hot water (iii) let it cool down - that's quite important, that bit, and (iv) pop it in your vagina for up to four hours. Remember, also, to keep it 'charged' with good energy. Leaving it under a full moon should help.
All of its efficacy is reliant on the magical power of crystals which is, of course, bullshit. But suggestion is a powerful thing and I doubt Goop are continuing to make and market products if they're not selling (an egg will set you back around £50 at today's prices) and there are slightly more credible claims that by keeping a yoni egg up your bonne bouche for longer than it takes to watch The Godfather Part II helps tone muscles and improve clitoral arousal and erection.
Or does it? Not exactly. To tone muscles one needs to tense AND relax. With a crystal egg wedged up your cooter, there's not much chance to relax. It's mostly tensing - and that can cause pelvic pain. Crystal is porous too so there's an increased risk of bacterial infection in a place nobody really wants a bacterial infection.
There are far safer, and much cheaper, alternatives and since the yoni egg first appeared, Paltrow and Goop have backtracked, ever so slightly, on some of the more outlandish and outrageous claims for these products. Elsie Loehnen, the chief content officer of Goop, is on record as saying she wants people/women to feel empowered and to be free from shame (which is good) and believes that Goop provide the products that can help them do this.
Which is not quite so good. Goop aren't the only ones though. A company called Chakrubs make crystal dildos and buttplugs. They claim that these natural sex toys (and they deal in yoni eggs and 'crystal pleasure wands' too) help their users get over past relationship trauma, reboot their chakras, clarify decisions (so if you're not sure what to have for dinner tonight, get that buttplug in), and gives the user empowerment not just over their sex life but over their entire life.
I get that sex is fun and can give meaning and happiness to life but it's not everything. Is it? There are more insidious players than Goop and Chakrubs in the women's wellness industry. One company offer a 'womb detox' to tighten the vagina (with the explicit aim, it seems, of satisfying one's sexual partner rather than the owner of the vagina) and even make claims that they can return your virginity before going on to say that they can rid the user of vaginal odours that men, not all men - of course, find 'repulsive'.
There are vaginal 'tea bags' available that can remove 'black toxins' (in reality, they kill cells and what is removed are the dead cells) and these products, and others, are designed and marketed to play on, and amplify, women's insecurity about their own bodies. Both men and women can be insecure about their bodies but we live in a highly sexualised society in which women are judged, far more than men are, on their looks and their potential sexual availability.
Essentially, the wellness industry creates a problem that wasn't there (or was there but was relatively minor) and then finds a solution, an expensive solution, to that problem. Dr Howarth talked about how the global wellness industry (a huge many tentacled beast that incorporates beauty, health, nutrition, and sleep and sells people wellness apps and weight management programmes) is worth about five trillion dollars at the moment and continues to grow.
There has been progress in recent years but women still do the majority of the housework and the majority of child rearing while, at the same time, holding down full time and often stressful jobs and being judged more harshly on their appearance. It becomes harder to strike the much desired work-life balance than ever as companies put in place corporate social responsibility schemes so that they look good but fail to actually give their employees the time or resources to take advantage of these schemes. Have you ever found yourself struggling to manage your time because you've spent several hours in meetings discussing time management strategies? You won't be the only one.
What the wellness industry is saying is that you don't need to have time on your hands, you can just throw money at the problem(s). But where the money needs to be thrown is higher up. To those who create the conditions where women are overworked and overstressed and to start work to change the judgemental societal structures that make some women feel so insecure they invest in dangerous 'wellness' strategies and products.
I'm not a woman so I don't know how much this will ring true to any women who read this but Dr Alice Howarth is a woman and there were plenty of women in the audience and from what I could tell much of what Dr Howarth had to say struck an all too familiar note with them. In a talk that perhaps went on a little bit too long Dr Howarth ended up with some examples of health and medical bias and did her best to shatter some myths about those too.
For her, the idea that the Pope has more to do with how a woman takes the contraceptive pill than the woman's needs or her body's needs is a bit of a misdirection. By blaming the Pope (who, consistent with Catholic doctrine, is of course against all forms of contraception except, begrudgingly, the rhythm method) lets off those that pass the laws and write the guidelines regarding the pill.
Other myths about endometriosis (which affects 10% of all women) and vulvodynia ('depressed vagina') where also addressed but I've not written about them here because I've covered them before in my blog about Dr Howarth's Women,Wellness, and Woo talk for Skeptics in the Pub - Online back in April last year. Needless to say, the points she made remain as pertinent as ever and, sadly, the talk was still as relevant as ever.
Somehow, Dr Howarth made a talk about a subject which could have been a bit depressing quite fun so I was glad I'd popped down to Greenwich and glad I'd try to learn to look at things from a different angle than my own male perspective. Thanks to Jade, Dewi, David, and Paula for joining me, thanks to Goddard's Pie & Mash for tasty food (and a can of nice cold 7-Up) beforehand, thanks to The Star of Greenwich, thanks to Professor Chris French (as ever) for hosting, and thanks to Dr Alice Howarth for an improving, and interesting, talk. Now, where did I leave that crystal buttplug?
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