Meet Daan (She/Her)

Daan Borrel – Journalist and Writer

“For me, feminism is about building a network, helping each other. And hopefully, in the future, even being able to keep each other’s vaginal microbiomes healthy.” 

Daan Borrel lives her work: inspired by personal experiences and stories, Daan explores societal issues such as sexuality, women’s health, and relationships. Her work centers on the question what is needed to create equality and she encourages us to think about what a feminist future could look like. 

She is a journalist for various platforms and created the podcast Met z’n allen achter de Kinderwagen (Together Behind the Stroller), about inclusive parenting (a.o. on Spotify and Apple). Additionally, she has written several books on topics like the relationship between women, maternity care, and intimacy, and her recently released debut novel De Dragers (The Carriers) was selected for the Libris Literature Prize Longlist. 

For Yoni, Daan immersed herself last year into the fascinating world of the Vaginal Microbiome, about which she wrote several blogs and created the podcast Van Vrouwen Voor Vrouwen (By Women for Women). In this podcast, she explores how the vaginal microbiome can help in reducing vaginal issues and how we, as women, can keep each other’s vaginas healthy in the future (available on Spotify and Apple).

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Let’s start with a personal question: do you remember your first period? 

I was ten and had joined a friend to her badminton class. I can still remember the bathroom in that gym so clearly. In the bathroom, I discovered dark blood in my underwear and thought I had pooped my pants! Because I was so young, I wasn’t very familiar with menstruation, so I was quite shocked. At home, my mom explained it to me and was very sweet; I got a cool glitter pen and a cheerful card from my aunt. As I got older, I suffered a lot from PMS, also briefly from PCOS, and saw also with my mom that menstruation and menopause aren’t always easy. 

In 2020, for one month you shared personal photos about your menstrual cycle on Instagram. How does your menstrual cycle affect your daily life? 

Before I had a child, I paid close attention to my cycle with regard to my work. This was manageable for me as a I’m a freelancer and writer. I planned the creative part of my work in the spring and summer (the weeks leading up to and around my ovulation) of my cycle. In the fall (the week before my period), I did less brainstorming for new ideas and focused more on executing planned tasks or reviewing my work. I also noticed that when I actually make room for my more negative emotions and fatigue, which I experience during my fall and menstruation, it can lead to very special insights. 

And how do you see the influence of the menstrual cycle on society in general? 

Our Western society is not structured around the cycles in women’s lives, such as the menstrual cycle, pregnancies (but also miscarriages and abortions), and menopause. Unlike women, whose hormone levels vary throughout the month, men have a relatively constant testosterone level every day: production begins in the morning and decreases in the evening, just like how our workdays are structured. Our society is linear and focused on constant productivity, while, for example, Taoism suggests that women work better in the summer and should rest much more in the winter, a little bit in line with the seasons of the menstrual cycle. 

And more specific: most women work in sectors such as education and healthcare, where they have limited autonomy. For example, if you’re going through menopause and experiencing hot flashes or have a heavy period, it’s difficult to make space for that. It’s hard to open the window when you’re a nurse or go home earlier when you’re teaching a class. Men, on the other hand, are often in autonomous professions, like managers, and have more freedom to do this. When you look at a woman’s life, there’s actually more demand for such autonomy. 

The common thread in your work is feminism. Where does your drive for feminism come from? 

Many of the topics I write about are inspired by my own experiences, such as sexual desires in my book Soms is liefde dit (Sometimes love is this). I recognized that I had different desires in myself than those I was taught or saw in books and films. And then I start to investigate that. Feminism has meant a lot for me in this regard, because I discovered that I’m not the only one who experiences these desires, and so that I’m not crazy. 

In my work, I often look for others who also struggle with experiences that I personally find challenging. This, of course, led me to the statistics and experiences of women who don’t have as many privileges as I do. I realized that if I’m not free, others aren’t either and so we all need to work on that together. Because as long as there are people who aren’t free, none of us will be.  

In your work, you explore various feminist topics, from sexuality and women’s health to female historical figures. But at its core, your work is about intimacy. Can you explain what you mean by this? 

Intimacy, to me, means ‘being who you are in that moment’, with another person. The Belgian psychiatrist Paul Verhaeghe says, ‘For intimacy, you need to feel good in your own skin.’ It’s that simple. But there are many factors preventing women from feeling this way, and that’s what I try to write about. Because it actually obstructs the level of intimacy in our society. 

For example, when you look at female sexuality, there are still many obstacles in the way. Many women often view themselves from a sort of helicopter perspective during sex with another person. They think: “Does the other person think I’m too fat? Do I look good?” This focus on yourself blocks the connection with the other person because then you’re not really looking at them. And you’re not focused on, “What do I want? Or what turns me on about another body?” You’re essentially dissociating from your own feelings. 

Also during childbirth, I think that many women can’t be themselves. More than half of all women experience care during pregnancy or labor as disrespectful, intrusive, or even violent. This is even twice as high among women with a non-Western migration background. So here too, it’s about how those with a uterus are hindered to feel ‘comfortable in their own skin,’ which in turn is in the way of intimacy. 

There are many ways in which women are made to feel bad about themselves. Some are visible, others more invisible. This is what my work is about: creating more intimacy between people by helping women feel good in their own skin. 

For Yoni, you immersed yourself last year into the vaginal microbiome and the role that the lactic acid bacteria Lactobacillus Crispatus plays in it. You wrote several blogs about this and created a podcast on vaginal health (available on Spotify and Apple). 

What sparked your interest in women’s- and vaginal health? 

There is still so much inequality in scientific research; there are thousands of studies on sperm, but only a handful on menstrual blood. Thousands on male impotence, but few on menstrual issues. However, if you look at how many women suffer from yeast infections, it’s essential to further investigate how the microbiome, and specifically crispatus, can help prevent them. But there’s too little funding for this research, so that does make me wonder: do we even want to solve it? This limited research means that women live fewer years in good health but also have less knowledge about their own bodies. I find that unfair, because if you don’t have this knowledge, you also can’t live by it.  

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is: “For all women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment”. Last year, your book Baren Buiten de Box (Birthing Outside the Box) was published, which you wrote together with midwife Bahareh Goodarzi. The book is an appeal for equality in maternity care. An important aspect in this is the influence of socio-economic factors. Can you tell us more about that? 

In healthcare, there are still many prejudices about people of color or refugees. For example, the stereotype that Black women experience less pain. For a long time, and in some places still, it was assumed in medicine that a white person’s pelvis was better suited for childbirth. Absolutely crazy, of course. And still, people with a marginalized migration background in the Netherlands are three times more likely to die themselves or lose their child during childbirth. 

Socio-economic factors have a strong influence on health, but they are not easy to change. Poverty, for example, can lead to preterm birth or low birth weight. And, in turn, children born with challenging pregnancy outcomes tend to perform worse in school later on. It’s a shame that not more energy and money is being invested in improving unequal socioeconomic situations, because so much could be solved and prevented with that. 

You have already done a lot of research on (vaginal) health. How do you view the current developments in this area? 

Knowledge about the female body is growing and becoming more accessible, which I welcome, especially with the rise of femtech. But at the same time, it is immediately embedded in capitalist structures. For example, period apps provide insight into the influence of your cycle, but sometimes also recommend expensive yoga classes or intensive workout sessions during certain times of the month. As a result, female health remains mostly accessible only to the happy few. 

In addition, there are many scientific challenges. New products and tests for women are emerging, but their effectiveness sometimes cannot yet be scientifically substantiated. For example, you can use a test to see which lactic acid bacteria are present in your vagina, but you can’t say that someone without the lactic acid bacteria crispatus is necessarily less healthy. It’s about the individual balance in the microbiome it’s a very complex interaction. Science sometimes lags behind market developments, and I do find that concerning. In the end, it seems to come down to getting women to buy things rather than actually improving their health. 

What’s the most striking that you learned in your research into L. Crispatus? (read the blogs or listen to the podcast on Spotify and Apple) 

What I found truly amazing is that researchers from the ISALA project have discovered that microbiome analysis can help gather evidence for sexual assault. They examined women’s underwear and demonstrated that, even when someone changes their underwear and takes a shower, sperm can still be detected in the underwear up to 34 hours later. Additionally, they found that microbiome changes can still be visible in underwear after 72 hours, which is longer than with a vaginal swab. This timeframe is crucial when a victim doesn’t report immediately after a rape. 

You write on your website, “I call myself a feminist, and I try in all my work to formulate a future that hasn’t yet been.” What does the ideal future look like to you? 

I believe the future of feminism is about women supporting each other and functioning as a network. Bonobos, for example, live in a more egalitarian group because the females form alliances with each other. As a result, they are collectively stronger than the males. This kind of collaboration is difficult in our Western, individualistic society. As a result, women as a collective are weakened. Another example is the response to danger. Traditionally, it is said that there are three primary responses: freeze, flight, fight. But when this research was conducted with only women, a fourth option emerged: creating a network, which makes you stand stronger in dangerous situations. 

This is what I find so beautiful about the Van Vrouwen Voor Vrouwen research: the entire study is for women, by women, and shows how we can support each other and, hopefully in the future, even keep each other’s vaginas healthy. 

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Visit Daan’s website for an overview of her work and follow Daan on Instagram for more.