WHY ARE WOMEN STILL APOLOGISING FOR THEIR BODIES?

There’s something strange about being a woman.

You can spend decades living quite happily inside your body, and then one day it changes the rules without consulting you.

Sometimes gradually.

Sometimes spectacularly.

Sometimes with a mucus plug that looks like someone has dropped a particularly enthusiastic globule of snot into your knickers.

And suddenly you’re standing in the bathroom thinking:

What the actual fuck happened here?

Pregnancy can do this.

Your body expands. Your boobs become enormous. Your stomach becomes someone else’s temporary accommodation. Your nipples change colour. Your bladder becomes an unreliable acquaintance.

Then there’s birth.

And postpartum.

Oh, postpartum.

There is a very specific period after having a baby when you’re not entirely sure which bit of your body needs padding up first.

Your knickers.

Your boobs.

Your stomach.

Your perineum.

Possibly the entire bathroom.

You’ve got pads in places you didn’t know required pads, breasts bigger than your baby’s head, leaking milk, leaking everything else, stitches, swelling, night sweats and a body that feels less like something you inhabit and more like a building site that forgot to put the signs up.

And yet somehow the cultural expectation remains:

Don’t make anyone uncomfortable.

Cover it up.

Tidy it away.

Call it “beautiful”.

Smile.

Say you’re “loving every minute”.

Please don’t mention the haemorrhoids.

Then, eventually, your hormones have another little meeting and decide they’ve got plans.

Menopause.

The body that once ran on a relatively predictable operating system starts doing things you did not authorise.

Hot flushes.

Dryness.

Changes in skin.

Sleep disappearing at 3am for absolutely no reason.

And the vulva?

She may become considerably less interested in your usual arrangements.

Itching.

Irritation.

Dryness.

Things feeling different.

Again, women are expected to somehow manage all of this quietly, discreetly and preferably without making a fuss.

Then there’s ageing.

Skin wrinkles.

Bodies soften.

Breasts change.

Things that once sat approximately where you left them begin exploring new geographical territory.

Breasts can start looking less like the pert things you remember and more like tennis balls in socks.

And you know what?

Fine.

Bodies do that.

Bodies change.

They stretch.

They swell.

They leak.

They scar.

They wrinkle.

They sag.

They grow hair.

They lose hair.

They produce discharge.

They make noises.

They smell.

They sweat.

They bleed.

They sometimes behave in ways that would make a Victorian faint into a chaise longue.

That doesn’t make them shameful.

It makes them bodies.

And Hannah and I are not remotely interested in women apologising for theirs.

Not for body hair.

Not for weight.

Not for stretch marks.

Not for scars.

Not for discharge.

Not for odour.

Not for sweating.

Not for breasts that have changed shape.

Not for skin that has changed texture.

Not for a stomach that has carried a baby.

Not for a vulva that has lived through childbirth.

Not for a body that has been through surgery.

Not for the fear that comes with noticing something unfamiliar.

Not for any of it.

Because somewhere along the way, we’ve confused body maintenance with body shame.

Of course we want women to be comfortable.

Of course we want women to have access to good information, proper healthcare and products that actually help.

Of course there are things worth checking when something changes.

But there is a huge difference between saying:

“Something has changed. Let’s work out what’s going on.”

and:

“Something has changed. Oh God. How embarrassing.”

We want the first one.

We want women to be able to say:

“My vulva is really itchy.”

“My boobs have changed.”

“I smell different.”

“I’m bleeding.”

“I’m leaking.”

“I’ve gained weight.”

“My skin looks different.”

“My body doesn’t feel like mine.”

“I’m scared.”

Without immediately adding:

“Sorry.”

Because that little word gets everywhere.

Sorry for taking up space.

Sorry for being too big.

Sorry for being too hairy.

Sorry for sweating.

Sorry for ageing.

Sorry for having a body that doesn’t look like it did twenty years ago.

Sorry for needing help.

Sorry for talking about something uncomfortable.

Sorry for making someone else uncomfortable.

Enough.

Your body does not need to be aesthetically convenient for everyone else.

It does not need to remain frozen at 27.

It does not need to bounce back after having a baby.

It does not need to smell like a Jo Malone candle.

It does not need to look airbrushed.

It does not need to behave itself.

And it certainly does not need to come with an apology note.

Because the thing we’ve learned from spending our careers sitting alongside women through birth, cancer, menopause, grief, surgery and all the other messy chapters life throws at us is this:

Women’s bodies are not the problem.

The shame is.

The silence is.

The ridiculous expectation that we should somehow make the messy, leaky, hairy, ageing, changing reality of being human look effortless.

We’re not here for that.

We’re here for the real body.

The pregnant body.

The postpartum body.

The menopausal body.

The scarred body.

The tired body.

The grieving body.

The ageing body.

The body that has survived some shit.

And if it needs a pad, a cream, a bra, a hot water bottle, a laugh, a cry or someone saying, “Yep. That can happen”?

Fine.

Let’s get it.

No shame.

No euphemisms.

No apology required.

Just care for the body you’re actually living in.

Because frankly, she’s been through enough.