Menopause, Misogyny and the Medical System: Dr Sharon Malone Sets the Record Straight

Dr. Sharon Malone has spent decades fighting for women to get the healthcare they deserve, and she's not slowing down. As Chief Medical Advisor at Alloy Women's Health, host of "The Second Opinion" podcast, and author of the New York Times bestseller "Grown Woman Talk," Dr. Malone joins Dr. Mary Claire Haver in this episode to talk about reshaping how we think about menopause, aging, and women's health advocacy.

For too long, women have been told to accept suffering as normal. Hot flashes, brain fog, joint pain, sleep problems, the complete unraveling of quality of life during perimenopause and menopause? Dr. Malone talks about being done with that narrative. In this conversation, she explains how the medical system has systematically failed women, from keeping them out of research studies to applying male-centric data to female bodies, from dismissing their menopause symptoms to perpetuating dangerous myths about estrogen and hormone therapy that have left an entire generation undertreated.

She breaks down the Women's Health Initiative, the deeply flawed study that scared women away from hormone replacement therapy (HRT). She explains exactly what went wrong, why the study enrolled women who were too old to answer the questions it claimed to address, and why doctors are still getting it wrong today, decades after the original findings were walked back. The cost? A generation of women suffering unnecessarily while billions in research dollars went elsewhere.

Dr. Malone also tackles the intersection of gender and racial bias in medicine, explaining why your zip code matters more than your genetic code when it comes to health outcomes. From her own journey navigating medical school as a Black woman in the 1980s to losing her mother to cancer at just 12, she points out the healthcare disparities from both sides of the exam table.

At 66, Dr. Malone is proof that midlife isn't about decline. It's about stepping into your power. And she shares a clear message that women have accepted suffering for far too long, and it's time to demand better.

Guest links:

• Dr. Sharon Malone
• Dr. Sharon Malone (Alloy)
• Dr. Sharon Malone (Instagram)
  
• Dr. Sharon Malone (X/Twitter)
  
• Dr. Sharon Malone (Threads)
  
• Dr. Sharon Malone (Facebook)
  
• Dr. Sharon Malone (Alloy/YouTube)
  
• Dr. Sharon Malone (LinkedIn)
  
• The Second Opinion with Dr. Sharon

Books:

• “Grown Woman Talk: Your Guide to Getting and Staying Healthy,” by Dr. Sharon Malone
• “The New Perimenopause: An Evidence-Based Guide to Surviving the Zone of Chaos and Feeling Like Yourself Again,” by Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Articles:

• History of colonoscopy and technological advances: a narrative review (Translational Gastroenterology and Hepatology)
• Estrogens and progestins: background and history, trends in use, and guidelines and regimens approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (American Journal of Medicine)
• Risks and Benefits of Estrogen Plus Progestin in Healthy Postmenopausal Women Principal Results From the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Trial (JAMA)
• Racial and Ethnic Variation in Dementia Prevalence in a Diverse Cohort of Adults with Hip Fracture (Journal of General Internal Medicine)
• Lifetime risk and projected burden of dementia (Nature Medicine)
• Racial, Ethnic, and Socioeconomic Inequities in Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonist Use Among Patients With Diabetes in the US (JAMA Health Forum)
  

Other Resources:

• Alloy Women's Health
• American College of OBGYN
• About WHI
  
• James A. Simon, M.D.
  
• ACGME
  
• NIH Fact Sheets on Women’s Health Research
  
• Budget - NIH
  
• Just Being Melani (Instagram)