The 10,000 Paper Cuts That Teach Women Not to Trust Themselves, with Melinda French Gates

Good Inside with Dr. Becky

In this episode of Good Inside with Dr. Becky, guest Melinda French Gates explores how women systematically learn to override their own instincts through childhood conditioning, workplace dynamics, and

Key takeaways

• Melinda French Gates experienced chronic insomnia and severe anxiety in her 40s despite being at the peak of her career, eventually receiving a perimenopause diagnosis after multiple doctors dismissed her symptoms.
• Pivotal Ventures partnered with Gallup to survey 5,000 adults, revealing that half of respondents who had been pregnant struggled with their mental health during or after pregnancy.

Main topics

• Women's self-trust and internal validation
• Perimenopause symptoms and medical dismissal

Notable quotes

"I'm good enough. I know myself enough. I'm worthy as I am."

Conclusion

The episode provides a powerful framework for listeners to validate their own bodily and emotional experiences

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) After my first baby was born, I treated my own recovery like a complete afterthought. If the baby needed something, I showed up immediately. If I needed something, well, it would wait. But research shows that when parents have the support they need, they're better able to care for their children. Taking care of yourself isn't separate from parenting. It's a huge part of parenting. That's why I love Frida's mission, to prepare women for the realities of pregnancy, postpartum, recovery, and feeding. Frida creates solutions for the moments that often catch moms off guard. The Postpartum Essentials Kit and Breastfeeding Survival Kit help women feel more prepared for those early weeks of motherhood. Be motherhood prepared and shop Frida at Amazon, Target, and Walmart today. Speaker 2 (0:43) I'm good enough. I'm good enough. I Speaker 1 (0:45) know Speaker 2 (0:45) myself enough. I'm worthy as I am. And I'm never going to accept somebody else's. worth put on top of me. I'm worthy as I Speaker 1 (1:00) am. Speaker 1 (1:03) I've been thinking a lot about how women learn to trust themselves or don't or how we start out trusting ourselves and then end up as adults not even knowing what that means to trust ourselves. Think about some of the things we hear growing up. You're fine. Don't be so sensitive. You're so dramatic. It's not that bad. You make a big deal out of things that are just so small. None of these things are necessarily life-changing on their own. We've all said these things here or there. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when you hear this over and over again, because then any kid would start to think, I guess I'm someone who overreacts. I guess I'm someone who doesn't read things in the right way. I guess other people are better at knowing how I feel than I am. Now, what happens to that girl when she grows up? Well, maybe she's sitting in a doctor's office and something doesn't feel right. The doctor says everything is normal or minimizes her story. And she thinks, well, I guess that makes sense. I've never been a good estimator of my own feelings. Or maybe she just had a baby and she's thinking, I don't really think I'm okay. But everyone around her is saying, well, of course you're exhausted. This is what having a newborn is like. And again, she invalidates her own story because that's what she's learned. My guest today has spent decades thinking about women's lives and women's power and women's health. Melinda French Gates is the founder of Pivotal Ventures. And Pivotal recently released new research with Gallup about women's health in America. I want to talk to Melinda about what they found, but also I want to put a lens on it, around trust and how that all relates to being a mom and raising daughters and getting older and whether we figure out how to trust ourselves more. And if we do get there, how? Because I kind of think that's the journey all of us are on. What happens when women learn to trust themselves? Speaker 1 (3:05) I want to start with your sharing the story of your oldest daughter, Jen, meeting you at the door after work. I Speaker 2 (3:11) want to hear it, you Speaker 1 (3:12) know, your voice refresh us all. Speaker 2 (3:14) Sure, sure. I'd driven into the garage, got out of the car, went in the back door, and I was still in my business suit from the day. And I walked in the back door, and she didn't like that the first time this happened. She just Speaker 1 (3:28) gave me the Speaker 2 (3:29) cold shoulder. and really gave me the cold shoulder for several hours. Like I was kind of crushed. And so I learned the next time, any time I came back from a business meeting where I'd been on stage and I, you know, thought I'd done something, whatever, wonderful, it wasn't about me. And I learned I needed to put my yoga pants on and a pair of tennis shoes before I came home. And she would meet me by the back door with the caregiver with a book. And I would literally sit down on the mudroom floor and read her book. I needed to be in her world. She taught me that. Speaker 1 (4:06) And Speaker 2 (4:06) she was Speaker 1 (4:07) little, little, like four. Wow. She kind of sees you and says, in some ways, you're in work mode. Yes. Okay. That kind of happens away from me. I want to connect to you, not with work mom, but with at-home mom. Speaker 2 (4:23) Absolutely. And do you know, it's funny that you say that, work mom. My youngest daughter said to me one time, mom, stop using your work voice. I don't want you to use your work voice. Right? Yeah. And so, boy, do kids, I mean, you talk about this, I think, a lot. They tune into where we are. And I think as I've learned even more as I watch my... daughter now, parent, she's 30 and she has two little girls. I watch her parent. Speaker 1 (4:53) She's really tuning into where they are. Yeah. Talk to me about that. What's the difference between coming home and, okay, I got to read a book to Jen. I've then got to make dinner versus getting in your yoga pants. Was it not just an alpha change, but was it like a mindset change? It Speaker 2 (5:10) was a mindset and it was a slow down change. I think I will say about myself, when I'm in Speaker 1 (5:15) work mode, I am very goal oriented. I'm very checklist. I'm getting Speaker 2 (5:19) this done. I'm doing that done. Maybe I'm a little short with the person, you know, and even this morning, right? But when you're with a young child or any child, you need to actually slow down to understand what's going on for them. Speaker 1 (5:38) Yeah. Yeah. Right. You know, one of the things I think about, and it just is on the tip of my tongue. as we're talking about this is how efficiency and relationship building are often in opposition. And Speaker 2 (5:51) I Speaker 1 (5:53) don't know about for you, but a whole day in work mode, I get a lot of praise and endorphins from an efficiency mode. But relationship building mode, which is what happens when you read a book that you've read. 14 times, right? The children's book, 14 times in the last week, is it's inefficient by nature, but it's all about the relationship building. Speaker 2 (6:16) And just slow down. Just slow down and try to be where you are with that child. I mean, I think so many of my mistakes in parenting, there were many, we all have mistakes in parenting, and Speaker 1 (6:33) we Speaker 2 (6:33) need to say it's okay. to have mistakes. We're all learning. But when I was like in that efficiency mode, let's go, let's go, let's go. I literally learned with my younger two because they were then in the same school. Jen was then my older one in a different school. But I learned with them. I had a little rhyme and a sing-song voice when we would go out the door to load them in the car. And we had to get, we lived in a hill. And so we had to get a certain amount up the hill before I could really engage with them. So I literally learned to say to them, mommy's in a transition time. Because I get anxious in transitions. I finally realized I'm in transition mode. So please wait until we get up the hill. And so they would literally say, are Speaker 1 (7:19) we done with transition mode from the backseat? What a gift to them. I'm just thinking about. and I know now they are adults and in relationships, the idea of when my partner, when my roommate. walks in the door from work. That version of them isn't necessarily representative of the friend or partner they are. This might be transition, like they might be in a transition time. And often when someone we care about is in a transition time, the best thing to do is nothing, is to just be quiet. And Speaker 2 (7:50) I think one thing that I really am so in awe of. is the generation that you're in or my daughter who's 30 and is parenting now and her husband, two young girls, ages three and a half and two, is they are this generation where you all are talking about your feelings more and expressing it and it's allowing everybody else to express their feelings. And then consequently, I think they're more in tune with their girl. In my case, I literally witnessed them being more in tune with their girl's feelings and where they are. Speaker 1 (8:24) Yes. Yes. This generation. Right. More in tune with feelings. They care more about feelings. I think we know the importance of feelings. Right. I think we're trying to be careful not to overcorrect to feelings dictating. Oh, for sure. Right. For sure. All of that nuance. But I'm also thinking about research. Right. You found that half of women still say they struggle with their mental health during pregnancy and in that first year after having a baby. Talk to me about that. Speaker 2 (8:53) Yes. I just worked with the Gallup organization this summer to do a survey of 5,000 adults across the United States because we've been hearing so much. I know you're hearing it with the work that you do of these stories of women saying, I struggled in this way, I'm struggling in that way during the pregnancy, after the pregnancy. And I thought, I want to see this data to see, is this widespread? And so we did this survey. And in fact, Half of the respondents said half they struggled with their mental health either during pregnancy or afterwards. That is staggering. Half. Yeah. And so we do need to tune to that as a society. And to me, it says we can't put that burden just on the women or the parents. We need to make sure the health care system is tuned to that, which it is not today. And that. for me, was the importance of doing a survey as the data points to us about where the gaps Speaker 1 (9:55) are and what we need to do. So here's what I was thinking about, and I'm curious how you think about this. Gestational diabetes. Okay, let me just be clear. Very important. We have a whole system around it. I think I read it affects about 8 % to 10 % of women. Now, I just want to go on record. Dr. Becky does not think we should undo all the screening we do for gestational diabetes. I should stay. As you say, multiple things can be true. Keep it. Eight to 10 percent. Serious health consequences. Very. And so what we've done as a system and say so serious, significant percentage. We need to look out for the signs before the woman would even know it's happening. Speaker 1 (10:39) completely different from how we think about mental health, even though it affects half of that same population. Speaker 2 (10:46) Absolutely. Why aren't we saying, okay, so we know now half of the women will face this. What can we do to make sure we help them catch it so their partner knows as soon as they see the sign or their primary care doctor or their OBGYN? I was in an amazing clinic earlier this year in Alabama and I met a woman named Asia Brooks and she was not screened for her mental health with her first child and had a terrible experience. With her second child, she walked into the clinic and the first thing they do in that clinic for every single woman that walks in the door, every woman, they screen for mental health and they make sure they're tuning to that. before they do all the testing and everything else they need to do for the pregnancy, right? Yeah. Why aren't we doing that? We can. I mean, I think the other thing to say is now that we know this, we have a responsibility to do something because we can do things. We should be doing many, many, many things for women's health. And Speaker 1 (11:51) if I think about my own journey, my first, at least, let's think my pregnancy and then my first, nobody prepared me. And this goes back to our... probably joint perfectionistic tendencies. Speaker 1 (12:03) All the