How To Use Femininity For Fertility

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

Thank you so much for having me. I’m so happy to be here.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

Thank you for spending this time with us. Geeta, I always want to know when I start the interview. What is the one thing that you hope that the women, men, and humans of all genders listening to our voices right now will take away from the discussion that we’re about to have?

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

The most life-changing thing is knowing your power and how incredibly powerful we are, which we constantly give away to other people without knowing that we’re doing it because we don’t understand how much power we hold within us. That’s the most important thing.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

Where do we learn to give away our power, Geeta?

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

There are two or three different things that, I attribute this to. One of them is like the core thing that everybody has: entrainment. It’s pulling into a system that already exists. It takes a lot of energy to fight an existing system. Not only energy—physical energy—but also emotional and mental energy. A lot of the time, we don’t have those energies because we’re so busy trying to do our everyday lives. It’s like the way women dress and look. For us, it’s such a subliminal thing, like, don’t be too much, don’t be too loud, and don’t ask for too much. That’s one. The second thing is that, especially for women, we’re taught external motivation. We are taught to look for approval. We are taught that looking for approval is incredibly important for us, and it becomes a survival mechanism after a while when we think. I’ve got to look for approval because if I’m looking for approval and you approve of me, then I’m going to be safe and it’s going to be good, and we’re good. That is the second thing. Because you are going to look at this, you’re going to think I need to be approved of; I need to follow what the culture needs of me. The third version of this is that I always think of it as a babushka doll. The three dolls that the Russians have. My version of this is that femininity is given a very negative view of the world. Women are emotional, or they’re weak, and if you say to anyone, let’s take 50% of the world and make them feel like they’re not good enough. 50% of the world, you would think, well, that’s outrageous, but it happens to us. It happens to us every day because our normal is masculine.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

That’s right.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

Therefore, the feminine has to fit around the masculine and adapt and shape itself, which we’re not very good at because it’s not our job to do that. That’s where that comes from.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

Geeta, you said so many important things, so you want everyone who’s listening to our voices right now to be able to take away the understanding of just how powerful they are. When we think about fertility, one of the most potent things that we could ever do is step into our full, fertile power and self-authority and step fully into an identity of fertile as opposed to an identity of struggle or fearfulness around fertility, which is normal to have if you’ve been struggling or you’re afraid you will because of age or a diagnosis like PCOS or some other thing. But the moment we shift our identity, a lot starts to open up and change for us. You talked about how we’re all giving away our power without even realizing it day in and day out, and that this is probably a human condition, but especially a female human condition, because of entrainment, because of being taught to be externally intrinsically motivated and seek approval, and then because our femininity isn’t valued and masculinity is the norm or the normal, and we have to try to fit into that. To me, these things are so powerful because one of the things that I observe in our practice at the Fertility and Pregnancy Institute, and we also see evidence of this in the data, is that there are certain aspects of ways of being or personality characteristics that might be considered more masculine, like a type A personality being that is time-pressured, driven, hostile, and easy to anger because you feel the pressure. You’ve got to run, you’ve got to do, you’ve got to be, and you’ve got to achieve. These things can be linked to having more difficulties with fertility and men. But what’s so fascinating is that of you. You mentioned that it can be offensive to somebody to think; does that mean that we’re placing blame on somebody for having those personality characteristics or not? But first of all, it’s not. But also, this is an adaptive but trauma response, but an adaptive response to the world that we live in today. In many ways, we’ve been given no choice but to have these characteristics and, to some degree, to be able to not only survive but succeed in the world.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

It’s very simple. Let’s take the blame out of it. It’s like saying, Would you blame somebody who’s Japanese for not speaking German? You wouldn’t. But if you take Japanese and put them in the middle of Germany and say, You like to eat fish and you eat sauerkraut and eat all that stuff, Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to start eating bread and cheese. I want you to speak in a different language, behave differently, and start going, whatever. Freshwater, ice, and cold swimming. Because the Germans love them dearly. But the way they like it, they do this stuff. This person would end up with gastric issues. They would not sleep well, and they would gain weight. They would hate their lives for a while, and they would feel stupid and difficult. That’s what we do to women. We say to women: enter this male environment, learn the language, learn the behaviors, learn how to adapt, and learn how to succeed. But we are imitating men to do that because it has traditionally been specifically run by men, but whatever it’s been, the infrastructure has been created by men and for men. By doing that, your body doesn’t need to have a baby because you’re a man. Is that offensive? No. Is it judgmental? No. It’s a fact.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

I have such goosebumps. Can you say that one more time?

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

Because when you take a man and you think like a man, and you act like you don’t look like when you act like a guy and you think like a guy and you behave like a guy, the body doesn’t need to have a baby because it’s a guy.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

It’s incredible. By the way, research historically has been based on men. Then translated to women by treating them just like little men. Smaller versions of men.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

Of the number of mice that we test for new products, drugs, and solutions, 75% of them are male mice. We test women’s products on male mice. 

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

This is a fascinating conversation because nobody’s talking about it. I’m thankful that we’re talking about this. How do we reclaim our femininity and still survive and succeed in the world? Because I’m going to tell you that as the first woman in history, a woman of color, and a scientist in history, on the tenure track at the UC Davis School in 2010, I made history. That wasn’t that long ago. It’s a bit shocking. That I was the first woman of color. I’m going to tell you, I was told my voice is too feminine; I look too feminine. My body’s too feminine. I smile too much. I’m very happy. It looks frivolous. I can’t possibly be as smart as everybody else because I’m too happy and not serious enough. I’m not grumpy-looking enough because most of my colleagues were very grumpy-looking. No offense, but true. most of them. That’s a big battle to fight. I fought it primemestering. I fought it pregnant, and I fought it postpartum with two toddlers and an infant. How do you do it? Because most people would be like, it’s just easier to be trained.

As you said, it takes a lot of energy to fight the system.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

It does. What happened is that I worked out that I had a huge event happen in my life, which is usually the way. You’ve got a plan, and then God comes and knocks you off to the left and laughs along the way. I realize that being a good girl didn’t save me from this event; I didn’t have anyone help me with it, and I’m like, What the hell am I being good for? Screw being good. I took it well, and I was like, We’re done. We’re not being good anymore. Then I said, the problem was that I didn’t know who I was anymore. If I wasn’t being good, if I wasn’t looking for approval, if I wasn’t just going along with questioning, then who the heck was I? That was the hardest thing for me to work on. It’s and it’s what I coach now all the time because of how hard it is because I didn’t know. For me, what happened was that I had to learn again: Who tells you what a powerful woman looks like? Who tells you how powerful a woman is? Who tells you this? Because the people that we have telling us this work are terrifying. We don’t want to look like them. I had to recreate myself, step by step: sell by sell. I got myself to a place where now I’m a very powerful woman, and I liked you.

I like how feminine I am with that because of my power. It took me a very long time to understand. But my power comes from my femininity. Power came from everything else. it. You saw all of that away, and you are left just naked. You, as a woman, then you’re like, well, who am I? What do I want? What do I say? That’s why women become so much more powerful after perimenopause, because somehow society has no value for them. Watch this. Then you go stand up. We can get there much earlier if we think that what we want and need is the most important thing in the world. That’s what I did. I was like, I had to bring up three kids on my own, and I was like, I have to make money doing this. I have to feed them. I want to not get married. I want to not rely on anyone else. How do I do this? That’s what I did. I imagined what being a woman was, and I reimagined who being a woman was, and I reimagined what that woman would do, how she would do it, who she would be, down to, and the damn underwear she would wear. I remade myself.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

I am so in love with this. I love how you said I rebuilt myself, sell by sell.  I reimagined who being a woman is and what being a woman is down to. I reimagined her down to the underwear she would wear. Mamas, dadas, and humans are listening. This is available to you to help you reimagine what a woman looks and feels like to you—the woman you want to be. What does a super fertile woman look and feel like to you? What a super fertile man! She looks and feels like a super-sexy, fertile, non-binary human looks like to you. What is so beautiful is that you talked about stepping fully into your power, finding your power, and recreating yourself from a place of embracing who you are in your femininity and loving yourself more, not fighting who you are. Sometimes we have this idea that being powerful means knuckling our way through our limitations or the limitations around us.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

You want power.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

Beautiful. Geeta, I love that so much. Tell us about the incredible work that you’re doing and that took you to the United Nations recently because it is all woman-focused. I want you to share that.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

Thank you. Let me first say that none of this is anti-man rhetoric. You will never find me saying men are terrible. I don’t like my ex-husband. But that’s because he’s an asshole that’s because he’s male or white, or he’s specifically a dick, just him. Once we move past that, everything that I do is never to be combative because if I have to fight you, I have to justify myself against you. I’m not interested in that. I want you to justify me against me. Have you had something happen to you where you read something or heard something and you stopped dead and couldn’t move forward? Did that ever happen to you? It happened to me in April last year. There I am, happily along. I’ve got three kids. I’ve been a single parent my whole life. Finally, the children are up in the house, more or less. They came to live here, but I never saw them. They cost me a huge amount of money. But I’m making so much money that I’m coaching, which I love. I’m so happy. then, and it says that there was this man who was sexually assaulting all the women who worked for him.

They had been trying for 11 years to take this guy to court, and every time I went to court, it was Harvey Weinstein. They would smack him on the wrist. If they go, he’d be okay. He’d go off and do it to someone else, and finally, they got him in court, and I was reading the court transcripts. The woman, the receptionist on the top floor, said when he was going down the stairs, we were doing the receptionist on the ground floor. They had enough time to hide behind a locked door.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

Do you imagine having to work in that environment in this day and age, like what in the world?

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

Just imagine that these women had no choice. They had to stay in that job. That’s why they were there. Just imagine that they had no one to turn to, and just imagine they couldn’t stop it and no one was listening. 

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

I can’t believe that.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

It was so terrible. That’s what happens to women. That’s where there are three steps I was telling you about when it comes to a train of approval and the dismissal of femininity having value. As I stopped dead, I could not move forward. This is awful. Somebody has to do something. Then,  nobody came flying in with their cake to do something, which was rude because I was waiting for them. then I was like, shit, that’s me. That I like to do. I decided to do research. It took me about five to six months. I reached out to Forbes because they had some data. We’d done some work, and I was like, Can I please have this data that we’re like? We had 21,000 women’s data. They had 75,000 women’s data. We put together 96,000 women’s data on what makes a safe, supportive workplace for women to succeed in.

We created the criteria for that. If you, as a woman, can’t ask for this, I can. I’ll do it for you. This certification is called W-Corp. And the thing with W-Corp is that we certify all workplaces. Whether you have a workplace with one person or a workplace with 65,000 people, we will certify and tell you how successful you are at keeping women safe. that they can succeed and flourish in your workplace.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

Many institutions need this certification deeply. 

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

It took me like six months last year to think about it. Then in January of this year, I was like, Universe, I’ll do it. I didn’t want to. I was like, I promise you, I didn’t want it. We launched it on, like, the eighth of January. Then I was like, How do I do this? I hate startups. Then, about three weeks in, this woman rang and came on my podcast, and she said, and I was looking at her notes, and I was like, She had built a global network in 145 countries. I was like, How can you teach me how to build a global network? I don’t know how to do it. She’s amazing. She’s built an organization called Days for Girls reusable period pads. Her name is Celeste Mergens. She’s fabulous.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

She was wonderful.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

Mentor me. I was like, so I would say to people, I don’t know how to set up a global movement, but let’s just go try. She got me to speak at the UN on the 20th of March, and then we did that. It was the most terrifying thing. Terrifying.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

But you did it on behalf of women to make going to work safer and more dignified for women. I needed that so much when I was a young professor at USC. Every day I walked through those arches and those double doors into the Davis School. My heart just sank. I loved the research I was doing. I loved teaching my classes to my graduate students. I loved my lab; the research assistants were bright and amazing. But the socio-political context of walking through those doors each day was so crushing.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

The reason for that, babe, and you said it so well, is because it wasn’t a level playing field for you. It was a level playing field for a man. Again, not to say it’s good or bad, but when you’re white, you understand white. When you’re brown, you understand brown. It is just what it is. I don’t care about making people bad for this or guilty. I want to do this and say, Look, as women, let’s, and as humans, let’s just say all of this is our responsibility, even though it’s not our fault.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

It is our responsibility. My husband says my son has the superpower of being the fastest boy on the pitch and the only thing, and he’s one and usually the strongest, even when they’re playing several age groups up. The only answer that the other team has for him is to trip him, play dirty, and foul him to stop him. He will get so upset because he plays fair. He’s tough, but he plays fair. My husband said, Nobody cares, Lux, or I’m sorry. You’re going to have to accept that you’re in your career. The answer that people are going to have for you is to foul you, and you’ve got to get over it. It’s your responsibility to get over it, accept it, and stay focused. Then play against it. That’s what you’re saying. It’s not our fault, but it’s our responsibility to cope with it and change it because we can’t wait for someone to come and save us and change it for us.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

I’m trying. I was waiting. I was with my dad, but it never happened. I was like,? I was like, Well, screw it, I’ll bring it. I’ll come without the cape, but I’m coming. Then I set it up, and then we started. five businesses, and here we are, so beautiful.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

I’m so proud of you. By the way, the Fertility and Pregnancy Institute and Superbaby Nutraceuticals are doing their W-Corp certification. We’re very excited.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

We’re so proud to have you.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

Thank you. We honor and love what you’re doing here. Geeta, tell us. If you could tell somebody one thing, To take care of their future fertility and the health of their future super babies, what would that one thing be? You’re thinking about this because you have young adult daughters and you want to make sure they get to have the most beautiful fertility experience, and you’ve seen too many people in the world having difficult fertility experiences, which is terrible.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

The world is not able to have babies because, and so we have this conversation with my daughters, like I’m like, when you were 26, if you aren’t pregnant, we’re making the baby freeze.  They’re like, Who says that? What I find is that there are two things. One, treat your body like it’s the only one you have. Because cortisol will constantly stop you from getting to a place of health. If you treat not just your body as the only one you have, but your heart in your mind as the most important thing that you do have, stress is emotional and mental. If you look at your person, it’s an emotional cost he’s paying. They’re not even so much that he recovers from the trip. It’s the hurt that he can’t recover from.  For women, because we’re brought up to be externally validated, it is so difficult to find out who you are and how you want to be. It’s the biggest piece towards your fertility because it’s the biggest piece of your power. If you grant yourself your power and permit yourself to have it, then your world will go better.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

If you grant yourself your power and your permission—your permission to have it—your world will go better. Those are words to live by. You said something so important. You said I started to treat my needs and wants as if they were the most important thing in the world, and that this is something that we are not only not taught as females, but we’re taught the opposite of overriding your needs and what your body’s telling you so you can keep working, keep doing, and keep people pleasing. It’s interesting because I’ve seen data on how the stress of pleasing people likely impacts our fertility. When you talk about treating your body like it’s the only one you have in your heart and your mind like they’re the only things you have, they’re the most important things in the world. Your life changes and opens up for you in such a beautiful way. Also, what an incredible legacy to pass down the super babies you’re making and raising.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

They will only do what you do. They will never do what you say. What’s your message to it? It’s the only way to learn anything.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

That I showed you. The only thing to do is.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

You do not.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

What do you say? I love that so, so much. Tell me, Geeta, what does Super Baby feel like? What does Super Baby feel like to you when you hear that term? What is it? What does it mean to you? What does it feel like to you? What do you see? What does it invoke in you?

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

I  see the concept of a baby that’s very awake. It’s a baby that’s born in love, power, confidence, and joy, and that knows that and soaks that in because babies soak in everything that you give them. If you’re the super parent, then you’re having the super babies on you. That’s the goal behind this; it’s so much the goal behind what you do, isn’t it?

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

It is. I love that so much. I always say that it takes a village to make, grow, and raise our super babies, and it takes a village to make, grow, and raise us as super parents as well. You’re right, it is about us being super parents so that we create our super babies, and this is awakening in us. What a beautiful awakening and foundation of awakening it creates for them. Then they get to just soak up all the goodness, and love is so beautiful. I love that picture that you’ve painted so much. Geeta, thank you so much for being here with us today. This has been incredible. What an honor and a gift to have you here! Thank you for the gift of W-Corp and what you’re doing for women everywhere. Thank you for going on about your life, which is all in order and comfortable, and being willing to stop in your tracks and start all over again with a start-up and build that global community. Thank you for the honor of getting to be part of it and for coming here to share with us all.

Geeta Sidhu-Robb

Such an honor and a pleasure. Thank you.

Cleopatra Kamperveen, PhD

Thank you. for your listening. I hope you have laughed, been inspired, and learned some incredible things that you can take away from your heart and your soul, and that are very practical for yourself as a super parent and for your future super babies. I will see you back here for the next interview. Join me there for The Super Fertility Summit. I’ll see you again shortly.