If you’re an independent thinker, lived and learned bit, and have never been partial to others defining who you are, Women Unbroken is for you...welcome!
I’m Mary Anne Graf, and I’ve been in women’s healthcare all this life and possibly others. By age four I knew I’d be a nurse, and both nursing and a wonderful period as certified nurse-midwife and women’s health nurse-practitioner jump-started my life-long interest in communications to achieve better health outcomes and healthier, happier women and families. That led to learning about effective marketing communications, writing a couple books, and the resultant good fortune to have business success as an international consultant and VP of a regional health system (with an extremely patient husband and two now-adult kids learning a lot about cooking!)
That interest in communicatiom then led to generations theory, my current research and speaking focus. But helping women improve their health and lives, and the lives of those we love and guide, remains my north star.
Women Unbroken will blend all of that with background information from economics, finance, politics, social studies, and multiple other disciplines…what’s behind the headlines. And we do it for you: you keep the good in this world happening. DM us about what you like, what we should do less of, and what’s missing in our content, and please suggest topics you’d like to hear more about!
The chaos out there
While our for-profit health system is working very well for insurance companies to the tune of $400B in profits in the last decade, it isn’t working well for providers or patients as recent events brought to the forefront. A system that rewards profits will work least well for women and children, the elderly, and the vulnerable. Not much profit there; just a lot of costs, which insurance companies actually categorize as “medical losses”—could-have-been profits degraded by having to pay for…you know…actual care.
What does “not working for us” look like? If you start with just the most basic accempted element of women’s health—pregnancy—the CIA Factbook lists 121 countries where your odds of living through it are better than here, despite our current national concerns about our plummeting birth rate. Countries like Iran, Syria and several ____stans, most about as anti-woman as you can get. 80% of maternal deaths are preventable, but the US maternal mortality rate is ranked worst among developed countries, and declined even more over the last two decades, full speed ahead in the wrong direction. And we aren’t at all concerned about one out of three births being a cesarean—all by itself a limiting factor for more births.
Gen Z or Millennial who can’t afford a home, let alone kids? Get a fourth job! One of five Gen X women who took a cold, hard look at where the world is headed and decided not to have children? How could you! Menopause? Live with it. Suddenly invisible when you hit 65? Not getting the right answers about healthcare for someone you love? Oh well.
And that was before “women” and “diversity” became banned words in Kennedy’s HHS. Women’s health research and healthcare—or simply support for the ‘free’ care we provide for everyone else—aren’t getting better anytime soon from traditional sources.
All this in supposedly the best healthcare system in the world. So, yes, this site recognizes the problem of prioritizing just about anything over the health and wellbeing of women and children—our future generations and leaders—and you’ll see echoes of that throughout.
Women Unbroken is about women and our lives: Our aging parents and grandparents, our spouses and partners, our kids and grands, and all those we love and guide at home, at work and in the community.
Dad was a journalist and then editor, so following the news is built into my genes. We haunt dozens of media every week for our popular Sunday Snippets, searching for the latest stories relevant to women’s health and lives. Snippets is released first to paid subscribers, then later to free subscribers, but most of our posts are free for everyone right from the start.
We’re always looking for expertise, thoughts, and opinions: welcome! And particularly if you’d like to write a guest piece, hurry and EM, please! Same thing if you see some news we’ve missed. We'll all thank you!
Why subscribe?
I’ve been in healthcare for decades. The company I founded and led has assisted healthcare and corporate clients from four continents, 10 countries and 48 states. I’ve been on all sides of women’s health care: as a patient, a women’s healthcare practitioner, a health system exec and international consultant. I’ve seen a lot, and, more than anything, found there’s seldom just one right way of doing things. That means you’ll get unusual context here. The other advantage Women Unbroken has is our nose for news and events affecting women’s health and lives.
Bottom line: between context and news hounding, you’ll find information here you won’t find elsewhere, for women of all generations and cultures.
TIA for letting us know you’re out there—whether a DM, a ❤️, share/restack, or a free or paid subscription!
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