Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky

Episode: Dr. Mary Claire Haver
Date: November 4, 2025
Host: Monica Lewinsky
Guest: Dr. Mary Claire Haver

Episode Overview

In this episode, Monica Lewinsky welcomes Dr. Mary Claire Haver, board-certified OBGYN, bestselling author, and digital health educator famously known as the "queen of menopause." Together, they dive deeply into women’s health, menopause, perimenopause, societal attitudes towards aging, and how the medical system often fails women — especially during pivotal health transitions. They also discuss Dr. Haver’s non-linear career journey, her use of nutrition in medicine, launching her podcast, and what it means to reclaim health, agency, and well-being as a woman in midlife.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Haver’s Journey to Menopause Advocacy

• Personal & Professional Pivot:
  • Started as a traditional OBGYN ("delivering babies, doing my thing") but did not anticipate her shift to menopause expertise.

    "At 35, no way in hell would I have thought I would have become a menopause specialist... It took experience, life changes, my patients kind of going through it with me..." (04:02)

• Life Crystallizing Moments:
  • Balancing rigorous work and family, living "in crisis mode" as a part-time solo parent led her to reassess her career.

    "I was working 100+ hour weeks, trying to raise these two kids... My husband was amazing, but I still managed all the traditional stuff..." (07:51; 08:54)

2. Culinary Medicine & Holistic Women’s Health

• Culinary Medical Certificate:
  • Dr. Haver pursued formal nutrition training upon recognizing the inadequacy of “calories in, calories out” for midlife women.

    "The only thing I'd been taught... was calories in, calories out... until, sadly, it happened to me." (05:19)
    "I was galvanized... I ran up to [Dr. Tim Harland]... He was offering the online version of the course for clinicians..." (06:04)

• Value of Late-Life Learning:
  • One of her most influential career steps: "I did it in my 40s, very late in life." (07:15)

3. Redefining Menopause: Medical Myths & Definitions

• Clarifying Terms:
  • Menopause is a one-day medical event: one year after the final period. Everything before: peri/ pre-menopause; after: post-menopause.

    "Menopause is medically defined as one day in your life... one year after your final menstrual period." (11:18)

• Demystifying "The Change":
  • Ovarian function: egg reserve, hormonal shifts, wide variation.

    "We are born with a set amount of egg supply... Genetically, there's an age at which you're... predetermined for that to run out..." (13:32)

Memorable Moment:
Monica connects evolution and reproductive biology

"Our eggs are expensive... that's what always stuck with me..." (15:01)

4. Women’s Health in Medical History

• Systemic Bias & Dismissal:
  • Dr. Haver recounts how women's health issues, especially menopause, have been dismissed as psychiatric or trivialized (“whiny woman” or “status Hispanicus”)

    "Women have been treated as small men... Anything different was 'she's crazy'..." (25:09)
    "I pull my first chart... a woman in her 40s... multiple vague complaints... He said, 'You got a W.W.?... That's a whiny woman.'" (40:42)

• Personal Stories:
  • Dr. Haver’s mother medicated with "beauty salt" (phenobarbital) for perimenopausal symptoms

    "They were sedating my mother through her perimenopause and calling it beauty salt." (21:07)

5. The Hormone Therapy Controversy

• Impact of the WHI Study:
  • Rapid retraction from HRT based on flawed/biased studies led to generational harm for women’s health

    "The bomb that dropped... probably the most deleterious effect on women's health in the history of medicine." (33:51)

  • Societal & familial ripple effects

    "I think about not just what this means for the individual woman, but what this means to her ecosystem..." (35:21)

6. Societal Conversation & Gen X Momentum

• Why Change Is Happening Now:
  • Gen X taking charge: "We're gonna fix it, we're gonna figure out what the fuck is wrong..." (36:39)
  • Uniting women across politics: "Menopause does not care who you voted for, what your politics are. She is coming for you." (37:27)
  • Memorable quote:

    "Menopause is inevitable, suffering is not." (39:19)

7. Community, Humor & Social Media

• Collective Validation:
  • Social media as catalyst for collective awareness and change

    "When I started talking about this on social media and getting thousands... of DMs... I realized this is bigger and we're just not talking about it." (45:09)

• Online Movement:
  • Describes the global “Menopausy” clinicians’ coalition and their published rebuttal to misguided menopause research

    "We write a rebuttal to the [Lancet] article... had over 250 signatures from some of the most established clinicians..." (51:35)

8. Public Voice, Fame, and Family Dynamics

• Navigating Sudden Recognition:
  • Dr. Haver discusses her viral TikTok success, her family’s adjustment, and the importance of modeling gracious, authentic public presence.

    "Every airport bathroom, someone walks up to me... My husband's like, if they're brave enough to come up to you, 10 people are not..." (57:46)

• Balancing Personal & Public Life:
  • Conversations with her daughters about newfound public life and legacy-building

9. Embracing Change & "Unpaused" Living

• Career Pivots & Empowerment:
  • Dr. Haver’s own academic journey (originally geology: “I had a full scholarship, a full ride...doing something I really love.” [62:09]), her willingness to take risks, and the importance of not staying stuck.
• New Projects:
  • Podcast Unpaused: Amplifying diverse voices on thriving in post-reproductive years
  • Book: Upcoming “The New Perimenopause” (April 2026)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Dismissal of Women’s Symptoms:

  "This is just what women go through at this age. We're not going to be able to help her. Tell her to work out more and eat less, and that's it." – Dr. Haver's chief resident (41:13)
  "You didn't have to be Hispanic to have this. There were terms used all over the country for the same constellation of symptoms." (42:09)

• On Systemic Gender Bias:

  "When a man comes in [with] low energy...immediately, I check his testosterone...a woman comes with the same complaint, it's an automatic psych referral." – Dr. Haver, citing colleague Dr. Vonda (25:24)

• On Social Media & Community:

  "We all had so much of this in commonality... now we can make it funny and we can, like, talk about it like girlfriends. And I just love that about the Internet." (45:09)

• On Hormone Therapy & WHI Study:

  "It was the number one medical News story of 2002: Estrogen causes breast cancer. That's all anyone saw." (33:00)
  "And then all the nuance that never got picked up by the popular press... women ended up with an epidemic 20 years later whose health is less than they deserve." (34:44)

• Monica’s Reflection:

  "I hadn't really thought about it that way...how big the blast radius is, how far it goes." (35:21)

• On Menopause Activism:

  "If we could galvanize women around the end of their life and their life after reproduction ends... I think we could really unite women over this topic because there's no debate here." (38:26)

• Dr. Haver’s Mantra:

  "Menopause is inevitable, suffering is not." (39:19)

Timestamps for Key Segments

| Time | Topic/Segment | |----------|-------------------| | 02:46 | Monica welcomes Dr. Haver | | 04:02 | Dr. Haver’s career shift, origins of menopause focus | | 06:04 | Pursuit of culinary medicine | | 10:29 | Definitions: perimenopause, menopause, post-menopause | | 13:41 | Biological egg supply and fertility explanations | | 18:25 | Historical dismissals in women’s health/medicine | | 19:13 | Institutionalization and psychiatric drugs for menopause | | 27:56 | Hormone therapy history, HRT vs. MHT terminology | | 28:21 | The Women's Health Initiative and hormone therapy myth origins | | 33:51 | Fallout and consequences from flawed studies | | 36:39 | Gen X attitude, reproductive rights | | 40:42 | "Whiny Woman" (W.W.) medical anecdote | | 45:09 | Social media as collective force for destigmatization | | 51:35 | Menopausy collective and global advocacy | | 54:35 | Viral fame, family reactions | | 59:03 | Dr. Haver's path: geology to medicine; value of pivoting | | 63:51 | The "Unpaused" podcast and new book | | 65:38 | What Dr. Haver is personally reclaiming: health, independence, and legacy |

Tone & Style

The episode is candid, empathetic, humorous, and direct, reflecting both Monica’s signature honesty and Dr. Haver’s mission-driven clarity. Monica’s style elicits both research and real-life stories, giving the subject both emotional resonance and practical relevance. Dr. Haver is approachable and unflinching in diagnosing the systemic problems — but always with an eye toward hope, change, and communal empowerment.

Conclusion

This conversation demystifies menopause, calls out medical bias, and delivers a bold call to action for women to reclaim agency over their health and life transitions. With expert clarity and personal candor, Dr. Haver and Monica Lewinsky model what it means to rewrite narratives and create real change for current and future generations of women.

For further information:

• Dr. Mary Claire Haver’s new book “The New Perimenopause” launches April 2026
• Unpaused podcast: stories and science for thriving post-reproduction
• Follow Dr. Haver on Instagram and TikTok for more resources and community