For Women Who Refuse to Be Underestimated, Underpaid and Undervalued

For too long, women have been told to trust people who have never lived in a female body to explain what is happening inside ours. A few years ago, I had shoulder pain that would not go away. I was told it was a rotator cuff strain. I did six months of physical therapy. Nothing changed. Because it was not a rotator cuff strain. It was frozen shoulder, a condition that disproportionately affects women in midlife and is associated with the hormonal changes around menopause. What stayed with me was not just that the diagnosis was wrong. It was how much work it took to get to the right answer. I had the time to make another appointment. I could afford to keep pushing. I had enough confidence and medical literacy to say, “No. Something is still wrong.” A lot of women do not have all three. And yet, when women are dismissed by the medical system, the advice we give them is usually: advocate for yourself harder. But advocacy costs something. It costs time. It costs money. It costs another appointment, another copay, another day away from work, another round of insisting that you know your own body. That is not just a confidence problem. It is an access problem. This week’s guest on Takin’ Care of Lady Business, Dr. Florence Comite, has spent decades questioning the idea that “normal” automatically means healthy. She built one of the first women’s health practices in the country around individual data rather than population averages—and our conversation made me think differently about what it actually costs women to get believed.

With Love & Lady Business,
JJ 

In today’s edition:
1. Your Labs Are “Normal.” So Why Do You Still Feel Terrible? With Dr. Florence Comite
2. The Luxury Tax on Being Believed
3. TJD Power List
4. Lady Bits

1. Your Labs Are “Normal.” So Why Do You Still Feel Terrible? With Dr. Florence Comite

Dr. Florence Comite is a Yale-trained endocrinologist who has spent decades questioning one of the most frustrating things women hear in a doctor’s office: “Everything looks normal.” Her point is simple: population averages can tell you what is common. They cannot always tell you what is optimal for you.

Dr. Comite built one of the first women’s health practices in the country around that distinction. Her own family gave her a front-row seat to why it matters. She and her identical twin sister share the same DNA and the same family history of osteoporosis. One began managing that risk decades ago. The other did not. Same genetic blueprint. Very different outcomes. That is the premise behind her new book, Invincible: Defy Your Genetic Destiny to Live Better, Longer. This episode is for anyone who has ever been told her labs were fine and still knew something was off.

Dr. Comite and I get into:
 — Why she believes “normal” lab ranges can miss what is actually happening in an individual woman’s body
— The biomarkers she believes women should be asking their doctors about—and why some are still rarely tested
— The exact language she uses when a patient needs a doctor to look more closely, even when that doctor is not trained in a particular area
— Why she calls GLP-1 medications “the antibiotics of this century”—and what she means by that

This conversation is for information and education, not medical advice. Talk to your own doctor before making decisions about your health or treatment.

🎧 Listen here: Spotify | Apple | YouTube
Dr. Comite's book, Invincible: available here
Learn more about her practice: comitemd.com

2. The Luxury Tax on Being Believed

I pushed back on a lab result that two doctors told me was normal. I had the schedule flexibility, the resources, and enough medical literacy to say, “No. Run it again. That number is not fine.” Eventually, I got taken seriously. But I want to be honest about why: I could afford to keep pushing.

That is not a confidence story. It is a resource story, and those are different problems with different fixes. Confidence is something you are told to build from the inside. Access is something the system controls from the outside. No amount of self-belief buys you a second appointment when you are clocking out of a shift to make the first one. And the cost compounds. Getting believed can require another appointment. Another test. Another specialist. Another afternoon away from work. Another copay. Childcare. Transportation. The standing to keep saying, “Something is wrong.”

Research has found significant diagnostic delays between women and men across hundreds of diseases. But even without the statistic, the economics are obvious. Getting believed requires resources. This is where I want you to stop blaming yourself for not “advocating hard enough.” That framing puts the burden back on the person with the least power in the room. Instead, treat being believed like any other negotiation where the power is uneven.

1. Build the record before you need it.
Know your family history, your baseline numbers, and your prior results. Walk in with information, not just a feeling, so the burden of proof is not entirely verbal.

2. Price your own time honestly.
If a second opinion costs you a half day of unpaid work, that is a real cost of the system's slowness. It is not a personal failure to prioritize yourself.

3. Borrow leverage.
Bring someone with you. Ask questions in writing. If you request a test, referral, or follow-up and the answer is no, ask what would need to be true for the answer to become yes. You do not have to rely on memory or persuasion alone.

The system is not slow because women are bad patients. It is slow in ways that make persistence expensive, and women disproportionately absorb that cost.

REAL TALK
Getting believed should not require spare time, spare money, and spare patience.
That is not a confidence gap. It is an access gap.
Know a woman who has been told “everything looks normal” when she knew it was not? Send her this. Have a decision you're navigating and need a second set of eyes? Reach out to The Justice Dept.

3. TJD Power List: Ciarra Pardo

She Built the Machine Behind Fenty. Then She Built Her Own.

Ciarra Pardo helped build the creative infrastructure behind Fenty Beauty, Fenty Puma and Savage X Fenty from the beginning. Then she took what she learned and built her own agency, Mi Ojo, and helped rebuild LA Fashion Week.

There is a difference between being indispensable inside someone else’s machine and knowing how to build the machine yourself. Ciarra did both.

And that is why Ciarra Pardo lands on this week’s TJD Power List.

Follow her at @ciarrap

💋💋 Lady Bits

🩺 Women Say This Routine Procedure Was Worse Than Childbirth. So Why Is It Still Done With So Little Pain Relief? Read it

💼 Women Accounted for 100% of the Drop in the Labor Force in July. Yes, 100%. Read it

💰 There Was $289 Billion in Global VC Funding. Guess How Much Went to All-Female Founding Teams. Read it

🏀 This WNBA Expansion Team Is Now the Most Valuable Women’s Sports Team in the World. Read it

Hi, I’m JJ

Since starting the Justice Dept, we have increased women's wealth by over $100MM in just over 5 years. Want to know what inspires me to do this work, other than making women money? My clients' surprised reaction when we manage to get them much better terms for themselves and their companies, whether via talent agreements, employment, severance, partnerships, asset sales or investments. They often admit that they never thought they could get that result. Not even hoped. This blows my mind. As we know at The Justice Dept. you are all worth everything you ask for and more. Reach out and we’ll show you how!
x TJD