Director, Oscar-winning actress, and Re-Spin Founder Halle Berry recently took the stage at Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity to talk about deconstructing harmful taboos around sensitive topics like women's health, sexuality and mental health. The pharmaceutical brand Bayer sponsored the panel as part of their work shining a light on stereotypes, breaking down taboos, and empowering women to take charge of their health without shame or embarrassment. Afterward, Berry sat down with WH Editor-in-Chief Liz Plosser to discuss what it really means to own your age and sexuality.
We can make talking about women’s health issues less taboo by daring to talk about it. I learned that while I've been here in Cannes. If you start the conversation, most women will follow. Do you know why? Because it's something that we're dying to do. It's something that we've been deprived of, and it's something that we want to share with one another. We just need the permission to do it.
Community is the entrée into understanding. We're all going through it. And we learn from one another when we talk about it, when we become curious, and when we share with each other what we're going through. We educate each other and we give each other ideas. We understand how to manage things better.
I am challenging everything I thought I knew about menopause.
The most important thing about owning your sexuality as a woman is accepting the station you're at—and embracing that. And I say that because I'm smack dab in the middle of menopause.
And I am challenging everything I thought I knew about menopause. Things like: “Your life is over.” “You are disposable.” “Society no longer has a place for you.” “You should retire.” “You should pack it up.”
I'm challenging all those stereotypes about how you have to look a certain way or feel a certain way. I'm my best self now that I reached 56 years old. I have the most to offer. I have zero blanks to give anymore. I'm solidly in my womanhood. I finally realize what I have to say is valuable, even if no one else agrees.
Here’s what I tell women: Own wherever you are.
That's where I'm at.
If you're in your twenties, own that. Own the era of exploration. Earn the era of real curiosity. Earn the era of trying to figure out who you are. Take your time and figure yourself out. You don't have to be rushed, you don't have to be forced. It's not a race.
If you're in your mid-thirties, don't be bogged down by the idea that you have to have children by a certain age. You decide.
And if you want to have children, you don't have to be defined by those old ideologies that this is what women “have” to do. Do it only if you want to, because you give up a lot of your personal life to growing those other lives. And maybe you're not a woman who wants to do that. No harm, no foul, no judgment.
Be clear about who you are and how you wanna live your life because it's yours and yours alone to live.
I'll never go back to being the person I was before I became a director.
You cannot go back to just being the dancing bear. It's impossible. I've done several productions since directing Bruised. And I realize I always have my director hat on.
You need a solid “why” to ask me to do something. Today, I challenge every script. I ask, “What's the female point of view?” Because so many of these scripts today are still written by men. Men are writing roles for women. They're writing roles for characters that they do not understand.
If you don't know what the female POV is because you're a man, then open your mind, expand your reality, and hear my point of view. And take that into consideration.
And that's the greatest role I've been playing lately, is forcing people to think outside the box of what they wrote and really consider our point of view.
As someone who owns a fitness company, I make sure to focus on strength and fun.
I try to always desexualize it. I make it about health and wellness.
As women, it's really important that we stay in touch with our bodies. That we stay active, that we put importance on working out. And so I always try to find the fun in it.
When we're working out, it's not for a look. It's for a feeling, right? It's for a health benefit. And by feeling good and having those health benefits, the byproduct is okay, you also look good.
But looking good is never the motivation. It's always about a feeling and about a health benefit.
For more real talk and inspiration, follow Berry's journey on her personal IG page and with her fitness and wellness company, re•spin.
