Photo Courtesy of Jill Angelo and GenneveVaginal dryness is a taboo topic few talk about but one in three women experience. It doesn’t matter if you’re going through menopause or if you’re a breastfeeding young mom, vaginal dryness can happen to women of any age and is often caused by decreased levels of estrogen.
And since vaginal wellness is not the go-to topic, many women are left feeling embarrassed. Instead of having conversations about your concerns, you’re often left to retreat to your laptop and peruse through countless pages of WebMD, Mayo Clinic – the works.
However, Jill Angelo, the “Chief Vaginal Officer” of Genneve, has a cure for that; she wants to “make America moist again.” As CVO of a women’s health company, she created a product and online community to bring women together for open, honest conversations about their bodies.
Genneve was the big winner at a recent Women’s Founders Network “Shark Tank”-style Fast Pitch competition, winning $30,000 in funding. But hers was by no means the only woman-run company to impress the audience of investors and business insiders.
Other new projects from female entrepreneurs included NailSnaps, which allows you to turn a photo of anything into art for your nails and Tot Squad, which installs and maintains children’s car seats and offers other baby gear services. Other projects to impress included City Moms, an app that makes life easier for busy parents by helping them find and schedule activities and classes for their kids and Gate College, a system that helps you get into your dream college without going bankrupt.
Jill Angelo, however, is going after the most private aspects of women’s health.
“If we want to have women feeling the best versions of themselves and feeling amazing in their bodies, we’re going to have to go after the taboos associated,” says Jill Angelo.
Because vaginal dryness isn’t something women openly talk about, many of Angelo’s customers were either “suffering in shame” or were simply unaware of the problem. But as the CVO says, “We tend to be apologetic in so many aspects of our lives. You don’t need to be sorry about how you feel or what you’re going through because it could be completely normal.”
But although her product aims to heal vaginal dryness, Jill Angelo’s biggest goal is to communicate the message that a woman’s private health should fit into her overall heath, and to do this, she needs other women.
In an effort to relay this message, she also founded the website “The G Spot,” an online resource for women to get information, ask questions and take part in an open community. “It’s definitely aimed at starting the dialogue around topics that don’t typically get talked about in ‘real women speak,’” she says. “We’re not WebMD. We’re for real women.”
From HPV vaccinations to pelvic strengthening to healthy eating, Angelo hopes to start discussions about every aspect of a woman’s well-being. And one of the ways she’s doing this by playing into our current culture of euphemisms. Not only is her website called “The G Spot,” she’s also been referred to as the “vagina whisperer” or “the cougar luber.”
“When you’re tackling a topic that is a hard one to talk about, you’ve got to add a little bit of humor to it so that people get comfortable with it,” Angelo says.
Regardless of how you talk about it, Angelo is taking a step towards destigmatizing women’s health. “Women want to be beautiful, confident and assured of themselves,” Angelo adds. “And they’re definitely not sitting back, ready to get old. They are moms, career women, starting businesses at the age of 50 or 60 – these are women who want to do.”
