In Season 2, titled “Over the Moon?”, we feature the voices of second-generation immigrant Asian women on female health. We explore the creative sweet spot in between the traditional Asian kitchen table wisdom that they have inherited from their mothers and aunties, and their personal and professional experience in contemporary North America.

In this Episode two on “Attuning and Releasing,” we continue our conversation with Ramona Deonauth, a Chinese medicine practitioner of Indian heritage in San Diego who is finishing up a doctoral dissertation on menstrual education at Yo San University in Los Angeles.

Now we get to dig a little deeper into current menstrual education in the US: What are some missing pieces that traditional Asian cultural and medical paradigms might be able to provide? What is the effect of non-existent or harmful information on menstruation not just for menstruators but for their family members, partners, and society at large? How can we celebrate and elevate currently emerging young women’s intuitive voices and cross-cultural universal experiences to fundamentally change the way in which especially young women experience menstruation in a positive direction? And on the other hand, how can we address and prevent, instead of normalize, menstrual pain and provide much needed medical, emotional, and social support? We walk away with Ramona’s insistence that menstrual education must be improved for ALL humans, not just women, and Leo’s teaser for a future session that “fertility is not an on-or-off switch.”

Additional Information

• Channeling the Moon, A Translation and Discussion of Qí Zhòngfǔ's "Hundred Questions on Gynecology," Part One — Happy Goat Productions
• Traditional Chinese Gynecology
• Ramona Deonauth's bio and website
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• Imperial Tutor Mentorship by Dr. Wilms
• Leo Lok's courses - All Courses - Voices of Our Medical Ancestors