Disclaimer:

Hey friends, the views of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views of Let's Talk Menopause. Let's Talk Menopause does not provide medical advice. The content in this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions that you may have. This episode of Hello Menopause was recorded live at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.

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Stacy (00:32)

Welcome to Hello Menopause. I'm your host, Stacy London. Hello Menopause is changing the conversation around menopause. In every episode, we explore the physical, emotional, and mental changes that women experience during this transformative stage in life. This season, we're so thankful to our sponsor, Versalie. The options for menopause care can be overwhelming, which is why they've done the research to help you navigate all of them. Versalie is a one-stop shop for expert advice, curated products, and access to virtual care. It's where menopause makes sense. Visit Versalie.com to learn more.

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Welcome to Hello Menopause at South by Southwest.

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Stacy (01:17)

We're thrilled to be recording this episode at She Media. That is true. I don't need to read that. And we want to thank She Media so much for hosting us. If you don't already listen to Hello Menopause, I am the host of the podcast. And it is produced by Let's Talk Menopause, a national non-profit that is invested in changing the conversation around menopause so women get the information they need and the health care they deserve.

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So before we get started, I would like to thank Versily, our sponsor, for this season of Hello, Manapaz. Versily is a one-stop shop. I was like, one-stop shop? That's going to mess up my lateral lisp. Of expert advice, curated products, and access to virtual care. Versily is the place where Manapaz makes sense. So today, our guest is the incredible Sophia Bush, who has been my friend since 2007. And we are here today to talk a little bit about menopause. But some of the things that happen in menopause, I consider myself like half a generation or a generation. I don't know, half a generation.

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Maybe half. Maybe half. A half a generation older. And Sophie and I have talked a lot about my perimenopause experience and my going into menopause and really struggling, struggling with confidence, struggling with the changes that I was going through. And I would call Sophie and just cry. Like, I don't feel like myself. I don't look like myself. And the crazy reason that I call Sophie when I feel like unnerved by something is because she's truly the most competent and confident woman I have ever met and these are things that I strive to be and so I look to soap as a model for a lot of that now for somebody who has been how old were you when you first started enacting.

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Sophia (03:13)

When I did my first film role in Van Wilder, I was 18. And when I started on One Tree Hill, I'd been 21 for, I think, eight days and couldn't believe I could go into a bar without a fake ID. I was like, my God, it's happened.

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Stacy (03:31)

It's happened. Yeah, I mean I turned 21 in London. That was such a letdown.

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Sophia (03:37)

Okay, fair, but you were like, overseeing.

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Stacy (03:39)

The reason I ask is because you are somebody who has just an innate sense of confidence and self-composure. I would love to hear how you see yourself because a lot of the things that you've done in your life, right, that we're going to get to all of her accomplishments, but really are not the...road more traveled right it's the road less taken you have done this in almost every situation that I've known you in most actors who have had very successful careers are very happy with that and you have just gone in completely above and beyond just acting and I don't say just acting like acting isn't a big deal but to put all the other things in place in your life that you have done over what two decades.

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Sophia (04:31)

This is so nice for me, by the way.

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Stacy (04:34)

I want to talk about A, what gave you enough curiosity and hunger to take leaps that would allow you to fly instead of fail? And where does that come from inside you?

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Sophia (04:47)

Well, thank you. It's interesting because you used two terms. You said competent. Yes. I'm very competent. Yes. That I can own. Confident is always an interesting word to hear about myself because it is not the way that I feel. Really? And when you're like, you've done all these amazing things and you've won at all this stuff and what. I'm like, really? I sort of feel like I've just failed on the internet for 20 years. That's been great for my mental health. Super stupendous. Don't recommend it to anyone. something that struck me recently, and I actually talked about this morning on this panel on investing in women's sports, because weird world for an actor to go, maybe.

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Stacy (05:37)

I'm not, I'm going to say that's just not the route that most people take

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Sophia (05:41)

Well, and that's like, really want to be self-deprecating and be like, it's the ADHD. It might be, but also I am just curious about a lot of things.

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Stacy (05:47)

I mean, this woman takes online classes about string theory. Like, just want to be clear, I am not talking like, she's just curious what's playing at the theater down the block. This is the kind of curiosity that is like the stuff of life.

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Sophia (06:01)

But you're also the person I can text about a Carlo Rivelli book, and you've read it. Don't discount yourself here, sister. But I think for me, I had this conversation, and I'm very pro us talking about mental health. I'm very pro us being honest about things, which can kind of be a bummer when people ask me, like, what's your advice to aspiring actors? I'm like, well, the real advice is, you prepared to leave your life, your family, and everything you care about to make art? It's hard.

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You know, I don't want to, I don't want to prop up falsehoods or make things look easy when they aren't. And I think one of the best things we can do is be honest about the struggle as well as the success. I think it's important for us to talk about mental health. And I was talking this morning about how my therapist, who I feel like I've sort of won at life because now my therapist calls me dude, will be talking and he'll be like, dude, that's really intense. And I'm like, I've I've done it. We're friends.

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And then he's like, we can't hang out. And I'm like, I know your wife could come to a barbecue. Exactly. He's like, no, ethically, I can't do that. But anyway, he said to me, he said, you know, I struggle as your mental health practitioner because you always seem. He was like, you're very unflappable. And I was like, I'm so sorry. Are you talking about me? I'm a nightmare. I'm stressed all the time. By the way, the Internet is not a nice place to exist, but also trolls, like, bitch, please, no one's meaner to me than me. What are you talking about? Like, I'm unflappable. And I think what I realized is, you know, you've got to kind of figure out what you can be thankful for, even in the worst of things, even in the pain that you go through. And for better or worse, and some would say worse, I'm learning about the whole masking thing. I think I learned to do my job in some very unacceptable circumstances.

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So no matter what is going on around me, I can keep it pretty chill. Which can mean sometimes that I seem not stressed when I feel like I'm on the verge of sobbing. But if there is a crisis, I also was a camp counselor for many years. I'm a really good person to have around. If you need a tourniquet, if you need to take apart a car engine, like I'm your girl.

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Stacy (08:16)

which let me tell you this is why I call Sophia the most competent person in the world is because I dropped a rain down a seat belt like into the seat of a car like in the bowels in the back of the back seat. It was a really like old ring or something fancy I don't know and I was like I can't get it I can't get it. I watched so literally take apart the back of the car.

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Sophia (08:30)

A rental car. May have had a Leatherman in my carry-on bag. We were fine.

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Stacy (08:45)

I just watched, like, I mean, she's on all fours in the back, like, just getting this thing out. And I looked at her I was like, how do you do this? How do you just like jump forward? But it was important to me, yes. And I mean, that's love. But that's also like the kind of thought, the way that I see your mind work is you see what's coming down the pike, not just culturally, but really what's coming down the pike for you.

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Sophia (08:57)

It was important to you.

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Stacy (09:13)

Right. So this kind of transition from, as I say, just I'm using that in quotes acting to this multi dimensional career, you know, as an advocate, as a podcaster, as an investor. These are big lady pants that is very different from just right chaps today. That's exactly that requires a different kind of thinking altogether. And that's not something that I see many women in their 40s or 50s be able to do because especially when you go into perimenopause, there's so much self doubt. Granted, you're not there yet.

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Sophia (09:53)

Can't imagine it getting worse. Ask this question though, and know, people talk about it. They're like, sometime between 40 and 50. And I'm like, is that the metric for us? And then I called Stacy and I was like, well, how do you know? And she goes, if you're asking, how do you know? It's not happening yet. And then I called my doctor to be like, OK, well, but there has to be a way. Like, what do we need to prepare for as women? And my doctor was like, if you're asking if it's happening, it's not happening.

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Stacy (10:19)

Just like strength train, strength train.

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Sophia (10:22)

This is true. I'm just I'm a little bit of a Pilates girl. I have asthma. I don't like to raise my heart rate. But I like I don't run unless I'm being chased, which was hard being on a cop show for four years. But here we are. I think it's really weird that women are essentially told this is kind of how it goes for you. You know, whether at any stage in our lives, when you are falling in love, they're like Prince Charming or Princess, whatever you're into, its going to be great and you'll be happy forever. That's a lie. know, nobody's coming to save us with us, particularly, I think, when you are driven, when you have a career, you know, God forbid, you're the one that gets invited to, you know, the White House and then some guy who says he's your biggest fan, but is so jealous has to be your plus one. Not that I'm saying I know that by experience. Like, that's a weird thing to have to parse out, particularly because men are taught to sort of shine their accomplishments and be rewarded for them. And very often women are called ambitious, like it's a criticism. she's ambitious. She's one of those ambitious women. Fuck yeah, I'm an ambitious woman.

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You know, for me, I think what started to happen, you know, me and my friends, we were on TV really young and the show became a really big deal. But all we you know, all that happened out in the world was we got made fun of on the soup. We've talked about it with Joel McHale. He's very nice. Don't yell at him if you ever run into him. you know, he's a nice guy. He's a man in the cards. Yeah. But it was an interesting kind of push and pull where you got some piece of your dream, but you weren't really supposed to take it seriously. Yeah, you were doing a thing that's a really big deal, but not really that big of a deal. It's the constant push pull. You're too fat, you're too thin, you're too old, you're too young, you're too sexual, you're too frigid, you're too whatever. And I think what I started to find is that I didn't like being told what I could and couldn't be. And I really didn't like, you know, the...

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The criticism for me as an individual, I can internalize and then have sleepless nights trying to figure out how to be exactly the right impossible metric. But when someone told me, you can't do that in the world, you're on TV, you do need to pick a cause, but you go to a gala and you write a check and you take the photos and you keep your mouth shut, I was like, have you met me? Keep my mouth shut. What does the social science data say about this?

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This environmental issue, this oppression of women, systemic racism, systemic anything. And when it was for us, I really didn't like being told to be quiet. And so I think the the lesson of my career and my journey is that I showed up for us and eventually I could turn to enough of us in a crowd.

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Before I realized, I'd done like a complete circle, like a dog chasing its tail. And I was like, maybe I also need to acknowledge that I exist in the circle. And by loving other people, I had to learn to take that self-doubt and like take it out of the driver's seat and stick it in the back seat of the car. Sometimes I want to lock it in the trunk like a hostage, but I can't get rid of it, sadly. I can't leave it on the side of the road. I've tried. And I think eventually seeing the way my friends

speak to me and knowing the way I speak to you, knowing the way I speak to Nia, knowing the way I speak to the people I love, eventually I had to understand that if that's the way I love, I should speak to myself that way too. So it's actually been a long journey to, it makes me want to cry, like to even be willing to look at myself as deserving of the worthiness that I see in the women in my life. But I think eventually you have to own that you see it because you recognize it. And if you recognize it, it has to be in you. It’s taken a while, but here we are. I'm thrilled we're together. I'm very uncomfortable. I have to make a joke.

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Stacy (14:40)

The thing that you just said, right, is really quite important to me because of where it winds up. Where it winds up, and this was similar to what not to wear, right? I was great at being snarky because I was such a bitch to myself. And the more I saw people crumble over the fact that they thought they weren't worthy, that they didn't think they were deserving to look good and feel good, and I thought they were so wonderful, I was like, what is happening?

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If they think this way about themselves and I see how wonderful they are, I have to learn to see that in myself. So it really does start with you. think even to say, you need that circle when you go through menopause. This idea of community, true community, small community, not this thing where it's just a zillion people who say they're part of the same cause or community, but these smaller people who are able to really lift each other up, hold each other up, take care of each other, whether that's financial or emotional. These are things I think we're gonna start to see more of. But once you found that self-compassion, what made you confident enough to say, I'm gonna start a fund. I'm gonna start investing in shit that matters, not what we've been taught mostly as women, which is, we're philanthropists, we're not investors.

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We're to give our money away. How did you make that leap? mean, even the activism, just politics, I want you to run for president so bad.

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Sophia (16:19)

It's really interesting, because I've always been like, that sounds insane. I'm like, if we're electing people from TV who don't know the difference between domestic and foreign policy or transgenic versus transgender minds, what the fuck are we doing? No, it's so crazy to me. But I guess it's all of it, right? It's the way that women look at the world. It's the way that we know how to do more with less because we've historically been held out of the rooms where decisions are being made. We've historically been held out of the upper classes of wealth, of C suites, of all of these spaces.

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And here's like the gag. I don't hate men at all. I love nice men. Like my guy friends, anyone who follows me on Instagram, you know, like I die for them. They're like the yummiest, smushiest, most wonderful humans. What I hate is the toxicity of patriarchy that not only means that one in three of us is a victim of sexual assault by the age of 22, but also means that successful white men like the guys at the top of the patriarchy ladder are the highest victims of suicide in America, the system's not working for them either. So clearly we have to fix the whole thing. And for me, what really started to resonate was, you know, we were in certain rooms where things happened as young women in media, me on my first show at the time, Nia. One of our other best friends who's my business partner in life and the fund and everything, who was at the time the youngest ever executive at Viacom. Big deal for a woman, big deal for a black woman. Very proud, like to brag about my friend. I guess you do. And we realized there were all these spaces we'd be invited into, but then there'd be like the room in the room where the guys a little older than us would go and we wouldn't be invited into that room. And I was like, what are they doing in that room? I'm like, why aren't we going in that room? And I don't want to go in that room.

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Because I want one of these guys to assess where he thinks I lie on the fuckability scale. Sir, please don't. I'm not interested. I didn't ask. But how do we get invited into the room as peers, as business partners, as people whose ideas are valuable? And this is where I think this whole war on diversity is so crazy. Because the more of us who sit in a room to try to solve a problem with different experiences, different lenses on life,

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different connections to different communities, whether they be scientific, medical, local, educational, we solve problems better. It's like, if we have 50 % of the information and they have 50 % of the information, and I know this is very generalized and heteronormative, pardon me, but we're doing math. I think we want 100 % of the solutions. So it's not on us versus them. It's not any of that.

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Stacy (19:16)

Yes.

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Sophia (19:35)

As I started to just ask, well, what are you guys doing? And what's going on in there? And what do mean you're building a tech company? What do you mean you're launching a startup? What does that mean? This is almost 20 years ago. People answered my questions, maybe because I was being a pest. Sorry. Not sorry. And we started getting these opportunities to get in on these cap tables and grant it in really small ways.

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Stacy (20:05)

It starts small.

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Sophia (20:05)

It starts small and to be clear, whatever TV looks like it isn't. You know, when you get paid one fifth of what your male co-stars get paid for 20 years, you're working with less free capital, but you still hustle and you figure it out. And the really interesting thing is, as Nia and I were investing together and really diving deep on spaces and, you know, we'd invest in a biotech company or we'd get into something in the medical space or we'd invest in an amazing FemTech product that was solving a problem for women that really had amazing applications for veterans, for women in the military. We started to ask, well, what do their lives look like? And what does their pay look like? what does the ecosystem around all these people look like? And we realized a lot of other investors weren't asking those questions. And so then we started solving sort of ancillary support issues as well. And connecting companies and founders we were investing in with other people we knew who might be helpful to them with other resources.

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Stacy (21:12)

Yeah, mean it grew but that also requires collaboration over competition. It requires. we're good at that. Well, yes, we are. one, women have, you know, historically not been taught that. We had to figure that out for ourselves. Competing against your friend was never going to do anything for you. You know, if there was only one job or one person you wanted to date or one.

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Sophia (21:35)

Because we were brought into male spaces in such small percentages that we then had to act like they did. Instead of act, think, in our own nature.

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Stacy (21:46)

Right, which is more problem solving and more community building. I mean, that's what I find so fascinating. We already seem to operate in a different way. You already, right, as an actor, as an investor, as an activist, you are already built differently than 90 % of the politicians we see out there. guess, when you're saying we all need this,

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How do we integrate this idea of communities and connecting ecosystems, looking at the financial landscape of something that you are investing in? Because you're making the world better, right? And when something has more than one application, even better, right?

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Sophia (22:31)

Yeah, I think it's really about having the courage to widen your purview. And I want to be clear, we're not sitting on this stage because we figured it all out and because it's immensely easy and because we're just like, go girls, yay, and we never have jealousy or we never have fear. That's ridiculous and not realistic. It's just not realistic of the human experience. What I think it requires and I think particularly it's it's one of the I don't want to be like hyperbolic, but it does feel like a mission, particularly of our generation, is to undo those really harmful competitive lessons because we were brought up in that and we were all bullied and we all struggled and we all had to deal with the sort of ramifications of lowercase T to capital T trauma. And I think we've just gotten to a point where we're tired and fed up and we know there's a better way.

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And so what it requires is a couple of things. It requires shifting your perspective. It requires doing the work to heal your shit so you don't put it on other people. And it requires a consistent practice of self interrogation because we all get triggered. We all get scared when spaces are suddenly growing and they're so much more accessible and they're so much more inclusive. It's OK if there's a part of you that's like, this is scary. Now, instead of applying against five people, I'm applying against 500 people. OK, go be great. You're probably great. That's fine. You have to be OK to tell the truth about how you feel and also not let how you feel hijack your potential to be a human that lives in community. Because you hear all these people talk about like, cut this slash that.

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I don't know, oversight, you know what I'm talking about. And I'm like, OK, if that's what you want, go live off the grid somewhere and leave the rest of us alone. I want roads that are drivable and water I can drink. Like taxes are literally the bare minimum of what it is. So we can all do this. It's a community project. If you don't want to be in a community, see you later. And I think. I know that's there's a bit of like mental health work absolutely assigned here, but I think you have to be willing to do that to then be a good business partner, life partner, romantic partner, child, parent, whatever you are.

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Stacy (25:07)

Because I do see confidence as part of the mental health conversation, right? Because insecurity can lead to anxiety, depression, all the sorts of things that we already see happening in perimenopause as symptoms of losing estrogen, right? yeah, because you have estrogen receptors all over your body. So that's why the symptoms are so varied and so weird. So you could have heart palpitations and joint pain. You can have brain fog and insomnia. You can have

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Sophia (25:21)

Is that why that happens?

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Stacy (25:36)

…food allergies and skin rashes that come out of nowhere. But this was just my experience. don't want this. is the other thing. We don't know enough about women and research on women to really be able to pinpoint what is happening in the menopause experience. We can say, are the symptoms. You might get some of them. You might not get some of them. I mean, we don't know that yet.

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Sophia (25:57)

It's like they're just handing you a Yahtzee

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Stacy (26:00)

But you know, there are with that. We were doing this before I was on a panel earlier with Samson Fidel, whose book is coming out, How to Menopause. And what was so great about the book is that she has really narrowed down sections to talk about the ways in which life is affected. Really, truly like style, finance, sex, you know, what's happening, weight gain, all of the things that we in midlife are experiencing when we're sort of least physiologically able to handle all this stress, right? And what you're talking about in the work you're talking about, the earlier we do it, the better we're going to be in midlife. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, how do you keep up that strength? How do we keep up that strength as a community, facing the circumstances we are right now? Because this is the pendulum swung in a very, very different direction than where we've been.

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How do we maintain, that integrity? How do we keep community going? How does investing for you now look in terms of what ecosystems you're connecting? What are your investment interests? I'd be very curious to know. this idea of mental health being part of health, that is something that also has been a real shift for me. I, after menopause you really do come out the other side of it, right? And there are a lot of things that you learn. I say it's a reckoning to a Renaissance. And one of the things that I think is so important is that you do start to feel this confidence that I completely lost. Perimetapause and menopause, it just chipped away at me until I was like, I don't know what I like. I don't know what I want to do. I don't know what to do with my money. I don't know where I should live. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And there is a kind of, when you said you have to do this work, that allows you to have certainty to trust yourself. How do you feel about that now?

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Sophia (28:06)

I think about, and I got asked this question a long time ago, and I come back to it a lot. We all have bills to pay. We all have a society to participate in. But I got asked by someone whose opinion I really value, what do you do for free every day? And I was like, the amount of time I spend reading the news, the amount of time I spend translating the news, the community organizing I show up for, the democratic activism I show up for, the equity work that I do. A lot of the things I talk about are a nightmare for brands. let's be honest. They're like, please stop saying abortion. Please stop. And I'm like, no, no. And does that mean I've lost deals? Yes. But does that mean I sleep well at night? Yes. And I'm not going to shade anybody who doesn't want to say the thing with their full chest, but I can't not. I would feel like I was dying if I didn't speak it. And so that's specific to me. That's a calling to me. It's the kind of thing that gets me out of bed in the morning, you know, on a day off. And I've really gone back to that over and over again, because some of the things that I do for free, some of the things that motivate me to jump out of bed in the morning, change throughout life. But I'm excited to ask myself that question. So I think I've cultivated a really healthy sense of curiosity within myself where that self inventory is concerned. And then you've got to be willing to take feedback.

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Stacy (29:50)

Feedback, constructive feedback.

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Sophia (29:52)

Constructive feedback is important. And then the weird sort of other end of the pendulum there is you can't take the feedback of strangers. Because again, I mentioned the Internet's accessible. It's we're just not meant to live like this. so I think that is a I'm talking about my sort of micro experience, but it's macro, think, for all of us. And there are many ways in which that macrocosm is affecting how we live, it's affecting the world around us. We're not supposed to live in an algorithm. We're not supposed to live in a society that's for sale to the richest billionaire who's going to cut down all the trees in our public parks and remove women from any medical paperwork at the NIH. What are we talking about? This is crazy. And so we knew it was a problem before that only 3 % of health research funding went to studying anything about women, even though we're 51 % of the population. Now my question is, OK, if they're going to delete all these papers and if they're going to delete our government websites and if they're going to try to take the Constitution offline, what are we doing IRL? How are we gathering? How are we organizing? Who are we calling on? How are people getting over their shit? Because I got to be honest, everybody's allowed to have an opinion. But when your opinion reduces the civil rights of others, keep it to yourself.

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The attacks on trans people in this country are misogyny and racism combined in the ugliest and most obvious ways. And it makes me crazy. Trans women do not threaten my womanhood at all. Any of ours. And it's like, if we don't start to figure out how to build collective power, we're gonna lose it perhaps forever. And the crazy part is, is whether you are like defined

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Stacy (31:33)

Me not.

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Sophia (31:48)

You know, in a meme as like a super leftist liberal feminist or you're like an outdoorsman hunter nature guy. Actually, we have the same priorities. Clean air. Who knew? Like safe places for animals to reproduce and not be shot in helicopters. They approved that two weeks ago. If you missed it, terrible. Like everything is nuts. And if you spend too much time in a two dimensional digital world, you start to think that everyone is your enemy.

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And I'm telling you, I've lived in almost every state in this country, like huge cities to the tiniest one stoplight, amazing little town. We're great. Even if we don't think we agree, we we agree on more than we don't. People are pretty amazing. And I think I think part of the resistance now is going to be to check your ego and say, OK, no matter what I'm afraid of or no matter what I think I might lose, how can I show up and make sure we don't lose?

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And then who can I learn from and who can say something that I don't know about? And instead of getting testy, how can I follow that curiosity and maybe make a friend? Those are the ways I think we save us because nobody else is coming to do it.

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Stacy (33:03)

Exactly.

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Sophia (33:06)

And think that's true, by the way, for our health. It's true for our politics. I think it's true for our children. I think it's true for our future. The way to live in a healthier community is the kind of thing, not to use a tech phrase, but it's scalable. You can really apply it to any space. And when the math and the morals meet.

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Stacy (33:29)

That's what I was going to say. Can you combine capitalism and kindness? Yes. Can we do that in a way that is not with this huge wealth disparity? And exactly what you said, this does not just apply to politics. Right. The reason menopause became such a topic in the last few years is the community of women who got together and started saying no more shit. I want to know what's going on with me. Yeah.

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Sophia (33:56)

And look, it wouldn't be OK if it was a thing that happened to you at 80. And from 80 to 90, you had to deal with this crazy thing. Like, I'm so sorry, 40 to 50? Like, we're hot. We're young. We're out and about. we're not at home, tired. Like, we're doing shit. And we shouldn't. I don't know. It's crazy to me. Again, like I said at the beginning of this, that even my doctor's like, if you're asking if it's happening, it's not happening yet. I'm like, that's the metric? It's 2025. Isn't there better science for this? And so I think instead of, look, I'm pissed about a lot of things clearly, but I promise you that even more than I am frustrated, I am hopeful because I have seen the resilience of our communities again and again and again. I think of the people who got us here.

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I think about what they were up against. Think about the fact that my mom could not have leased an apartment by herself when she was my age or gotten a credit card without my dad to sign for it. Like, what? That's crazy. I think about what Gloria Steinem did, what Marsha P. Johnson did, what Audre Lorde did. We stand on the shoulders of these incredible giants. It's bad, but they've literally given us instruction manuals for how to build a more equitable society.

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And power doesn't want to gently relinquish itself. But again, the math and the morals meet here. So many issues, so many problems. But if we just talk about gender parity, and by the way, this is like an eight-year-old stat, the number's probably higher. But if right now in this room, I could snap my fingers and every woman in America was paid equitably to every man in America, America's GDP would raise by 12 points. Everyone would have more money.

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We wouldn't be taking the money from the men. We would just all have more money. And so I think it's really important for us to, yes, lean on each other, but also to pay attention to facts and science. Weird. It's real. Climate change. Real. Who would thought? Like, we can do this if we actually remember that we're in it together and that certain things really are true. And that if we lean on truth and we lean on each other,

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I think we come out the other side of this as a society like you said you did in your own journey.

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Stacy (36:21)

Yes, and you know, I mean, I think that's wonderful, incredible advice. I pride myself in this podcast about taking away actionable items. From your perspective, what are the two things that everybody here can go and do when they leave to start thinking about things that you're thinking about them to start thinking about things more equitably or start thinking about how am I going to deal with insecurity when I lose my confidence, how am I going to build myself back up, what do you recommend and what have you done in your own life.

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Sophia (36:57)

So I would recommend getting together with four or five of your friends and starting and saying, really want to have a vulnerable conversation. I want to admit something I'm afraid of that I hide. I want to ask what you're afraid of. Can I ask you for help? Can I help you? Those kinds of reciprocal conversations can be immensely healing. And I find that in those spaces.

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Women often solve incredible problems, not just personal ones, but often political ones as well. Agreed. On the political note, I would recommend that everyone go on a wonderful website called fivecalls.org. It will give you the literal play-by-play of how to call your elected officials. Be a pain in the ass. It is so empowering. I'm a fucking pain in the ass and I've never liked myself more. I call every week. It's on my calendar.

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They're like, we know, we understand. We heard you. If you can, like, literally show up at their offices. Do not go quietly. Do not comply in advance. And then I would suggest, honestly, whether you're a mom or not, get involved in your local school board. Because while the rest of us were out here trying to launch companies, Moms for Liberty took over our school boards, and they are the scariest group in America. So please be the antithesis of that.

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Can't wait to see the write-up I get on Breitbart later today. That'll be fun for me. The death threats will roll in, and I'll be like, cool. And I think in addition to that, start following organizations you care about. Follow the NRDC if you care about the environment. Follow the national parks. Follow the groups that are literally fighting back to defend science, to defend equity.

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If you are new to helping or political organizing, figure out where you can show up in your community and then go in a room and sit down, say hello and stop talking and listen to the people there who know so much. They will teach you. I spent a lot of times in the back of rooms with a notebook. It's how Nia and I became best friends. I taking notes at a conference and that was 20 years ago and here we are. I really, really believe that if we just start to show up for each other, everything changes.

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There's power in gathering. We're doing it here. There were rumblings about like, maybe we shouldn't be so political itself by the year is crazy and look where we are. We're saying all the things.

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Stacy (39:24)

We're saying all good things.

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Sophia (39:28)

There really are more of us than of them. So from the local to the federal level, just remember, they wouldn't be trying to take your power away so hard if they weren't so afraid of us. So that's my.

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Stacy (39:43)

Ladies and gentlemen, Sophia Bush.

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The one thing that I will say is that don't forget that part of yourself whether you are losing confidence whether you are feeling like you are going to a reckoning to a Renaissance. Take care of yourself so you can take care of others.

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Sophia (40:03)

Yeah. Thank Stacy London, everybody.

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Stacy (40:14)

Let's Talk Menopause is a national nonprofit organization invested in changing the conversation around menopause. So women get the information they need and the healthcare they deserve. Please visit letstalkmenopause.org for a wealth of menopause information, including a symptoms checklist, information about long-term health risks, how to navigate menopause at work, and interviews with health experts and so much more. This episode of Hello Menopause is sponsored by Versalie.

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Visit Versalie.cok for the info and products you need and the Menopause Care you've been searching for. Hello Menopause is a production from Let's Talk Menopause produced in partnership with Studio Kairos, produced by Kirsten Cluthe. I'm your host, Stacy London. Editing and mixing by Justin Thomas at revoice Media. Hello Menopause is available on Spotify, Apple, Google, and wherever you get your podcasts.