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W<\/span>omen, a warning from Instagram: \u201cYou really need to be a bitch or you\u2019re going to develop an autoimmune disease. It\u2019s that simple.\u201d Versions of this scientifically dubious statement have caught the imagination of a corner of the internet, getting algorithmically nudged my way multiple times (a TikTok to this effect has 40,000 likes; a Threads post 26,000). Sometimes, it\u2019s set to music; sometimes, it\u2019s the basis for earnest discussion of cortisol and inflammation. Sometimes, it\u2019s evangelical. One woman claims that, \u201cBeing a bitch healed my autoimmune disease,\u201d adding: \u201cBeing the \u2018love and light\u2019 spiritual girlie is probably the reason why you feel depressed and you have IBS.\u201d A Substack evokes the need to break the \u201cgood girl contract\u201d, talking about those for whom \u201csetting boundaries, getting ferocious about protecting their own bodies, minds, souls \u2026 sometimes allowed the nervous system to settle enough that the body\u2019s natural self-healing mechanisms could kick in and heal\u201d.<\/p>\n As a woman with an autoimmune condition (alopecia), this resonates on a woo-woo level: my hair fell out when I was trying and failing to reconcile incompatible demands; to make everyone happy. It\u2019s also, I recognise, deeply silly. For a start, \u201cwomen\u201d \u2013 yes, all of us \u2013 needing to do something, or be a certain way, is a wild generalisation. It\u2019s also definitively not \u201cthat simple\u201d, and I would hate to upset a whole community of intellectually rigorous immunologists. I imagine them rhythmically banging their heads against their keyboards, muttering about there being no peer-reviewed cohort studies interrogating the relationship between \u201cbeing the love and light spiritual girlie\u201d, or putting too many exclamation markers and conciliatory qualifiers in emails, and autoimmune disease.<\/p>\n What is<\/em> true is that women have far higher rates of autoimmune conditions than men. In the US, \u201cfour of every five people diagnosed with an autoimmune disease are female\u201d, so women are disproportionately concerned by the how and why of chronic disease. It\u2019s also true that bodies probably keep the score; stress and autoimmune disease seem to be correlated. \u201cA clinical diagnosis of stress-related disorders was significantly associated with an increased risk of autoimmune disease,\u201d one study found in 2018. Another study, in 2020, found PTSD sufferers are 58% more likely to have some autoimmune conditions.<\/p>\n Mostly, though, I think it\u2019s interesting that the idea that women are making themselves sick by being too nice is resonating. Women have probably been pissed off at playing nice since Eve, and certainly since the earliest articulations of feminism. But it feels as if a new wave of fed-upness started to build a decade ago, starting with pussy hat marches and #MeToo, and intensifying as inequities deepened during the pandemic. I wonder if it\u2019s cresting? Think of the fascination with the Korean 4B movement, rejecting motherhood, marriage and straight sex. Or with economist Corinne Low crunching the data, looking at the decline in women\u2019s happiness over the past 20 years, and deciding to date only women \u2013 joking that she\u2019s not physically repulsed by men, just \u201csocially and politically repulsed\u201d. There\u2019s deep disgust at the Epstein files and the manosphere monetising dangerous contempt for women; weariness about women still bearing the domestic and emotional load; and anger at medical misogyny, meaning our pain gets dismissed. We\u2019re also experiencing \u201cepidemic\u201d levels of violence against women and girls. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s melodramatic to suggest that being nice, saying yes and smoothing over jagged edges has been \u2013 and still is \u2013 not just social conditioning, but a strategy for women to stay safe. It\u2019s also not that fanciful to imagine it comes at a cost.<\/p>\n As we watch terrible men in power (yes, there are many more good men \u2013 they\u2019re probably getting autoimmune conditions, too) start wars, I bet I\u2019m not the only woman whose mind occasionally wanders to a 2018 viral tweet from journalist Erin Keane. \u201cEvery woman I know has been storing anger for years in her body,\u201d Keane wrote, \u201cand it\u2019s starting to feel like bees are going to pour out of all of our mouths at the same time.\u201d The bees still haven\u2019t swarmed \u2013 and, thinking about it, a body full of bees seems like a thing that could make you sick \u2013 but they\u2019re trickling out. This daft meme is a factually dubious, solitary self-care bee, not a deadly stinger. But it\u2019s definitely a bee.<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n