When Halle Berry stood up and challenged Governor Gavin Newsom, she wasn’t dabbling in a new lane, chasing headlines, or borrowing talking points. She
When Halle Berry stood up and challenged Governor Gavin Newsom, she wasn’t dabbling in a new lane, chasing headlines, or borrowing talking points. She was moving in familiar territory — territory she’s earned her way through with work, not just words.
In recent years, women have been coached — groomed, really — into believing that advocating for our own sex is selfish, outdated, or impolite. We were conditioned into the idea that speaking clearly about women’s needs somehow harms others.
That our needs
must
never take center stage.
That we should soften our language. That we should broaden our language. That we should invite everyone into our house — even when our house is on fire.
Meanwhile, the issues haven’t gone away:
- Women in midlife still struggle to get medical care taken seriously. (But them “blue pills” are a critical medical necessity?)
- Women’s pain is still minimized, questioned, or ignored.
- Women in prison — some of the most vulnerable among us — are now told to accept male bodies in confinement spaces meant for females.
- Women are still dealing disastrous and sometimes deadly maternal healthcare because the people with loud opinions didn’t have the expertise they thought they did. Pro-birth is not pro-life.
- Unemployment is hitting the darker hued women the hardest. (Well, that’s odd.)
- The global femicide crisis is rising and our leaders, who agree on little else, are united in their silence about it.
And when women object? We’re told to hush, to adjust, to be nicer about it.
So when Halle Berry said, in front of cameras and a sitting governor, that Gavin Newsom has repeatedly turned his back on women — that he denied much-needed menopause support twice — she did more than critique a bill.
She shook something loose. Pretty bold.
She shattered that quiet expectation that women must always make room for everyone else’s comfort before we dare ask for our own basic dignity. She refused to dilute her message. She didn’t say “women and…” She didn’t turn her own lived truth into a group project. She stood there, as a grown Black woman, and told the truth plainly:
Women do not have what WE need.
Not in healthcare. Not in employment. Not in policy. Not in safety. Not in our most intimate moments of bodily vulnerability. And certainly not when elected leaders can listen to us and still turn away twice.
That matters — not because celebrities are supposed to save us, but because silence from people with microphones has been deafening. Women have been fighting in corners alone, with very little public backup from those who have influence. It’s been everyday women carrying the burden, pushing the boulder uphill, explaining and re-explaining our own reality while everyone pretends not to hear.
Halle Berry used her voice not as a brand message, not as a performance, but as a declaration:
Half the population deserves to be heard.
A leader who does not listen to women is not a leader. He is simply a man with authority ignoring the people he governs. And when the women raising concerns are women in their mature years — women with wisdom, experience, and receipts — that dismissal is not only insulting. It is dangerous. The bill that was vetoed wasn’t vetoed once, but twice. TWICE! I don’t like when leaders are so casual about women’s health.
We are living in a time when telling the truth about women is treated like a radical act. Halle Berry did it anyway. She spoke
without flinching, and she reminded the world:
There is nothing selfish about women asking for what women need.
The selfishness is expecting us to survive without it.
And may this be the beginning — not the end — of celebrities, leaders, and everyday women refusing to shrink our voices any longer. Female health is critically important. Prioritize it.
*Find candidates who know that the US is made up both men AND women. Both are vital.
Find candidates who have been listening to women tell leaders this for the last few decades.
At this point, maybe Halle should run. People seem to like entertainers from CA. Definitely has the courage, and she’s a Mom.