Jenny Dwork and Destigmatizing Sexual and Reproductive Health
Jenny Dwork, VP of Brand Marketing at Wisp. Jenny’s marketing and storytelling experience has been incredibly varied, from working as a producer for CNBC during the 2008 financial crisis to leading Aerosoles’ turnaround strategy. Wisp is, dare we say, democratizing the vagina, making it fast and easy to treat common issues that this amazing body part faces, from yeast infections to UTIs. We wanted to chat with Jenny to dig into our lack of access as women as well of the importance of destigmatization when it comes to sexual and reproductive health.
Published on October 2, 2023
Women's Health Mavericks _Jenny Dwork-Wisp: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix
Women's Health Mavericks _Jenny Dwork-Wisp: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Abby Mercado:
Hi, I'm Abby Mercado, Co-founder and CEO of Rescripted, former VC investor and ever entrepreneur, fierce advocate for women, and mom of IVF twins. Welcome to Women's Health Mavericks, a podcast dedicated to shining a light on the people who are moving the needle when it comes to women's health and wellness. From inspiring entrepreneurs and innovators to leaders of big brands defining culture to movers and shakers of biosciences companies dedicated to treating women. We'll introduce you to the people, the ideas, and the businesses that are changing the face of women's health in America and across the globe. With these changemakers on our side, the future of women's health is bright. Now let's get into it.
Abby Mercado:
Good morning, Women's Health Mavericks listeners. Today I'm so excited to introduce you to Jenny Dwork, the VP of Brand Marketing at Wisp. Jenny's marketing and storytelling experience has been incredibly varied. From working as a producer for CNBC during the 2008 financial crisis to leading Aerosoles' turnaround strategy. Wisp is, dare I say, democratizing the vagina? Making it fast and easy to treat common issues that this amazing body part faces. From yeast infections to UTIs. 1 in 3 women have bacterial vaginosis at any given time, and 60% of US counties don't have a gynecologist. I wanted to chat with Jenny to dig into our lack of access as women as well as the importance of destigmatization when it comes to sexual and reproductive health. I think you'll really enjoy my conversation with Jenny.
Abby Mercado:
I am so, so, so thrilled to welcome Jenny Dwork to the podcast, who is the VP of Brand Marketing at Wisp, Rescripted's wonderful partner. Welcome, Jenny. I'm so pumped to talk to you today.
Jenny Dwork:
I'm so pumped to talk to you today. Thanks, Abby.
Abby Mercado:
We've known each other for a while. But I would love for our listeners to get to know Jenny and, you know, tell us about who you are and how long you've been in your current role, what you did before Wisp, where you're strong, all the things please, tell them.
Jenny Dwork:
Totally. Yeah. So my name is Jenny. I live in Brooklyn, New York. I've been with Wisp, which is the largest sexual and reproductive telehealth company in the country for over two years now, and the company has grown a lot in that time. I think was about employee 15 and now we're closer to 60 people. So it's been super exciting to ride that wave and to continue to grow the brand, to reach more patients, and to work on really fun marketing activations, especially with amazing partners like Rescripted. But yeah, I can go a little bit into my background. I grew up outside of Boston, went to school, went to undergrad in D.C., and then came to New York where I started my career working as a television news producer in financial news. So I worked at CNBC and Bloomberg, right at the time of the financial crisis, which was kind of crazy. But I always say it was an amazing training ground for learning to really communicate and to be a strong marketer because you had to distil really complex ideas into really simple graphics or soundbites or whatever it was. And so, I learned a lot there. Then I went to business school and started kind of getting more involved in the world of startups and kind of found my way into digital marketing and into brand building. So I worked at the oldest subscription service in the country, which is Book of the Month. We were relaunching that company to acquire a new younger customer online, and we still were shipping out physical books. So we needed to figure out how to really create a community around those physical book lovers. I know you were one of them.
Abby Mercado:
Yeah, that's true. I am. And so is my co-founder, Krystin. She's a huge book nerd, So yeah.
Jenny Dwork:
Amazing. And then from there went to the wonderful world of shoes, where...
Abby Mercado:
It's wonderful and it was so uncomfortable until this one brand shout-out.
Jenny Dwork:
Yes, Aerosoles shoes near and dear to our hearts. We're just chatting about how we both have multiple pairs in our closet. Because if you're going to be out there trying to change the world of healthcare, you got to look cute and you got to be comfortable.
Abby Mercado:
Totally. We're conference girlies, you know, we got to do that thing and we got to be comfortable. It's true.
Jenny Dwork:
Absolutely, no shame in that game. So thank you, Aerosoles, for your comfort insoles and for really being an amazing training ground. Learning a lot about digital marketing and how to rebrand, build a brand, acquire a new customer while bringing along an older or existing customer. And that's all been really relevant here in the world of healthcare, which, you know, has its own special nuances. But I would say the common thread in all of those experiences is that these are all brands that I've been super passionate about, but I would say I've never been quite so passionate about the work that I get to do every day as I've been here at Wisp, and working really to increase access to sexual and reproductive healthcare.
Abby Mercado:
Okay, so super interesting kind of start to your career. I'd love to rewind back to CNBC. I did not know that you... I mean, I guess I look at your LinkedIn profile, and we do the math or whatever, but I didn't realize this was during the financial crisis. So I went into finance right after college, and I mean, it was really scary world. I loved the way that you qualified, like distilling complex thoughts and topics into just really digestible sound bites and graphics. Help us dive in a little bit more. Can you describe a really hard day and how you, I don't know, might have turned it around. You know, great marketing leadership.
Jenny Dwork:
Yeah. I remember, I think it was my second or third week Lehman Brothers collapsed and I was like, what, 22, 23-year-olds at the time. So I think what I've always done is ask questions. That's a very simple concept. But as a marketer, you're not supposed to be necessarily the subject matter expert. And I think you can see throughout my career I have not stayed to one industry. I'm really curious. I like learning about all different kinds of areas. That what has made me love my job as a marketer because whatever company or whatever industry I go into, I can just kind of soak it up and learn it all. And I think there it's really kind of knowing who does hold that information and becoming a real resource to that person. So at CNBC, I was trying to make the anchors look good, so I had to figure out, okay, who held the expertise and how can I extract that and then make our anchors look smart and look really good. And so what I did was I became really tight with the traders on the desk. We work with these stock traders, bond traders, who had all the insights, who would give me their take on a particular situation. Not to say that they knew everything, but they were certainly being, oh, I don't know, 30, 40 years my senior and experts in the field, and they loved getting their opinions out there. So I would get on a call with them. I'd be like, hey, like one I love, Guy Adami, We're still really tight.
Abby Mercado:
Oh yeah, I know, I know him. He's like famous.
Jenny Dwork:
Oh, he's like the best.
Abby Mercado:
I still watch CNBC all the time. Like, can't get enough financial news.
Jenny Dwork:
Well, he is a sweetheart. He always texts me on my birthday, which I just think is so nice.
Abby Mercado:
Darling.
Jenny Dwork:
And like, hey, Guy, like, what's going on here? Can I have you on this topic? Okay, What's your hot take? Okay, great. Write notes. There's also like a million analyst notes that were being published every day, as I'm sure you know, and like research reports. So I just get on those notes, and I would read, I think like I'm reading, it's really underestimated. And I would kind of take the notes. I would summarize for me and for my team, and for my anchor. What are the big takeaways on a particular subject? What are the big players in the room saying? What are our people saying? And then that makes a conversation, that makes a television show to pull out those points. And I think that's really applicable to what we're doing now. I really like speaking with our clinical operations team, who has a lot of the knowledge. Our nurses, who have a lot of the knowledge, our medical director, and Chief Health officer. And all of these folks who ultimately are the ones who are going to be helping our patients the most. What can I do to amplify their message? Because they are just sources of gold in terms of they've been through years and years of schooling. They are wealth of knowledge. So I try to really get that connection with them, make it easy for them to share their perspectives, their opinions, their knowledge, and then use that in our marketing materials. And I think that's been really successful for us at Wisp. So like, for example, last week we just launched DoxyPEP, which is an antibiotic for STD prevention and it is still being studied and doesn't quite have CDC guidelines attached to it yet. But our providers felt that there was, and there's still a lot of other organizations out there that are recommending that you do prescribe this preventatively in certain populations because the benefits really outweigh the risks. And so I felt like as a marketer, we needed to understand that, we needed to really attack that head-on, and give our patients all the information. Here's what we know, here's what we don't know, and here's who we're recommending this for. And to be able to be that resource for people who we might be able to help through this new medication. So I think really that's the approach that I've taken.
Abby Mercado:
Yeah, I love that. And it's also like working in a fast-paced financial environment. Must have informed the pace for the rest of your career, at least. I feel like that having worked in investment banking, I was like, Oh my gosh, everything SAP, BOB, like IOW before market open.
Jenny Dwork:
Oh my God. All the things, I would strongly recommend everyone get a crazy finance or TV job as their first job because those are just insane.
Abby Mercado:
You just do it fast.
Jenny Dwork:
And like every single day. It was really interesting, sometimes multiple times a day because I worked on a show, Fast Money, that was like we had a halftime show at noon and then we had the 5 p.m. closing bell. So, every single day we were putting out our product, our brand. So we had to reinvent the wheel every day pretty much. Of course, we had our flagship and Hallmark. I'm forgetting the buzzwords now, but our different series and our different elements of our show that we would use, but the content every day we would have to, like, really, reinvent. And so we needed to make sure that we had sound processes so that all the information we got out there was accurate, that it was timely, that we could make sure that we built a compelling show every single day. And so, I think that's been an amazing training ground for working at a fast-paced D2C healthcare telehealth company.
Abby Mercado:
Awesome. So a couple of quick things on your background. So, Book of the Month club, I feel like this was probably an exercise in maintaining customer loyalty. And we talked a little bit before we started recording about how Aerosoles was a bit of a turnaround, which I thought was just really cool. Any like thoughts or comments on both of those experiences and how you kind of carried that through Wisp?
Jenny Dwork:
Yeah. So I would say both of these brands have a lot of legacy, a lot of history, a lot of connotation that comes along with their brand names. So we kind of had to make that strategic decision up front, not only me, but with board members, investors, management team, what we want the future of the company to look like, and does that mean that we should bring along our existing customers? And with Book of the Month, what we decided was the Book of the Month brand has the most cachet, but the existing customer base. So our customers, our readers, we felt that our legacy customers at Book of the Month were best served, transitioning them into kind of different book clubs while keeping the Book of the Month Brand for this new chapter of the Book of Month brand that I was helping to build. And that new brand, that community, really lived on social media. We had a super strong Instagram, which the company still has. We worked with celebrity guest judges every month who would pick a book, and often they'd be promoting their own book, who would write some content with us and promote it on social. We had a whole bookstagram community of influencers and ambassadors, and so we quickly saw that there was a large audience and we could build up this super strong community in this new way while respecting the legacy of those older customers but moving them to a different product. So Book of the Month was really about contemporary fiction. There was a lot of thrillers, a lot of romance, historical fiction, some nonfiction, narrative memoirs, and there was a huge community. I'm sure you're in that. I'm in that of women.
Abby Mercado:
We're millennial females. What else are we supposed to do? Obviously.
Jenny Dwork:
Of course, celebrity memoirs, those sorts of things. And so that's kind of what we really built the new Book of the Month brand around. While with Aerosoles, we kind of didn't have that same approach. We knew the importance of that existing core audience, which was also just, I would say, the old Book of the Month audience had kind of lapsed. It was a bit older and dwindling while the Aerosoles community was still quite strong. So we wanted to keep them around and make sure in our new branding and in the new product that we were putting forth that they were top of mind. Certainly, we had certain core styles that we would do season after season, but that we were also mindful of being here for the next generation of Aerosoles customers who shop online who maybe go to different stores. So we got in Nordstrom Doors, which we had never been able to do before, and really acquire that new customer on social media and on newer platforms like CTB. And in those channels, we would lead with, you know, maybe flashier or trendier kind of styles, lots of animal prints. And so it was really interesting both of those companies to kind of see how to kind of cater to both sorts of audiences because you really you need both. We know it's hard out there. You need to, and you want to really cultivate and nurture both communities.
Abby Mercado:
Awesome. Well, thanks for going so in-depth on those two things and thing with you. So before we move on to Women's Health, I want to name two fun facts about Jenny. So she's a fraternal twin brother or sister. What would she then?
Jenny Dwork:
I have a brother.
Abby Mercado:
Wait, do I know them?
Jenny Dwork:
Probably not. A lot of people don't.
Abby Mercado:
Okay. Well, probably fairly obvious. I have fraternal twins. Boy-girl twins. Bear for it. You probably knew that. Anyway, we can go into more detail later, but like, yay, twins.
Jenny Dwork:
Yay, twins.
Abby Mercado:
So Jenny also has an 18-ton cat named Pedro, which is so fun. So also a crazy cat lady. And then my last question, did you attend the Eras tour?
Jenny Dwork:
Oh, Eras tour. Taylor Swift? Hell, yes.
Abby Mercado:
Okay, great. That's what I thought. So Jenny and her in the form that I asked her to fill out before we started recording. She said that she is just always. Taylor Swift, which I am too. So that's fine.
Jenny Dwork:
I mean marketing and just really like. Hitting the right lyric at the right time.
Abby Mercado:
So good. So good. How excited are you that August is tomorrow?
Jenny Dwork:
The best songs.
Abby Mercado:
So excited. Okay, well, let's talk about it. That's what we're here for. So when did you know that you wanted to support women's health and wellness through your career, and did you have an epiphany or how did all of this come about? How did you become passionate about women's health?
Jenny Dwork:
Well.
Abby Mercado:
Usually, it starts with a deep sigh.
Jenny Dwork:
I know, because and now I'm thinking about this in retrospect. I have always pushed for women being equal, being treated equally, being able to live their lives in a way that allows them to do just what they want to do, just like men can do. And I found it so many different various points, we just weren't treated equally. I think we've all had that own reckoning. I'm sure you saw it in finance. I really saw it in media. It's actually one of the big catalysts for me going back to business school because I was like, working in television is so not a meritocracy. It really is based on who you know and it's the boys club. And that was all blown up with MeToo movement. I'm sure it still exists, but that was kind of all validating for me. But I think what we all came to realize in the last year or so is if women cannot have equal access to healthcare, then how will they ever be able to become equal in other parts of their lives, with their career, with their earning, whatever it is? And so I don't think my head was really at that place just yet when I joined with. But I knew at the time it was still during COVID. I needed to do something where I was using my skill set in a way that was just doing something that's better for the world than putting shoes out there. Comfortable shoes. Um.
Abby Mercado:
And that meant a lot to me, Jenny.
Jenny Dwork:
It does. And I would always actually really tell myself that when I was working like this is a product for women who need it. It's accessibly priced, it's comfortable, it's cute, all those things. But during COVID, we just saw healthcare was so hard to access. Many people couldn't. Most people couldn't. And if you don't have those access to that basic kind of care, everything else stops. And so I was really thinking more about that and identified how healthcare was an industry. I definitely wanted to move into. Healthtech, I thought, was super interesting because, going back to our early conversation about fast-paced companies, I have to always work in a fast-paced environment. It's how I work. So healthtech seemed like a really great area, and like as I feel like I was just manifesting this, I had the company reached out to me, and it just was so clear to me that this was a huge need in the marketplace. And it was amazing to me how much they had done on such a small team. Little resources. And I just kind of also going back to being a marketer and being able to really shout from the rooftops important information. I felt like I could really help in that mission of gleaning out and like really kind of taking out what this does for people, which is to make them feel at ease, like they have a solution. They don't have to take off a day's work and lose their wages, potentially lose their job if they have something as common as a UTI. Yeah, like you should be able to just go online, answer a few questions, and get that prescription sent to you. If you are a low-risk patient. There are, of course, situations in which we advise our patients to go see a doctor, but for the most part I've been in that situation as well where it was like, why do I have to go and travel 45 minutes to get to, you know, wherever my doctor is when...
Abby Mercado:
Not being able to get an appointment. No way.
Jenny Dwork:
Yeah. So most of the time you have to go to urgent care, spend all this out of pocket and still takes forever and not safe. You know, when we had COVID, it was putting women at risk. So...
Abby Mercado:
And things like UTIs that like those can develop into things that are serious. But out of the gate they're extremely treatable. You know like all it takes is a, well, I won't tell you to put a website or go to Rescripted site where you can see what's next. Yeah.
Jenny Dwork:
But I think it's also like going back to wanting to arm our patients with as much information as possible as well. Like I've really loved the demystification of a lot of these medications. Like here's what we're taking, here's how we recommend that you take it. People talk a lot about antibiotic resistance. Yeah, of course, that's a serious threat. Here's all that we know. You need to make the best decision for you, and our providers will help advise you. But we think that the democratization of information of access is really important because we trust that our patients it's really taking the control back into their hands.
Abby Mercado:
Yeah, just keep going back to just that notion of parity. So obviously, we know that there's a lack of parity in the United States around the world. We know that. We know that, like women work hard every single day to make that not a reality. And the very basis is our healthcare. And I remember, you know, in college, for instance, I would have a UTI, and I couldn't put up with that. Like, try having to quit at 12 when you have to pee ten times in an hour. That sucks. The same thing goes for like going to work. That happens to women in America all day, every day. And until we have solutions that are equitable just for basic gynecological issues that don't that mean you don't have to go in to see a doctor, then there's no way we'll have parity.
Jenny Dwork:
Totally. And there's so much stigma and shame attached to it too. It's often embarrassing. You're just judged when you go to see your provider urgent care. And we also prescribe herpes is one of our largest categories. It's so common, there's so many misconceptions. People fall into depression sometimes when they're diagnosed with this thing that most of the population has. And so we are really passionate about destigmatizing really common sexual and reproductive health issues that there just should not be the same level of shame attached to it. And I think if we can get there, not even to mention abortion and the judgment and just the misinformation that is around that. So we're really proud to accelerate our medical abortion service. Last year after Roe v Wade was overturned, it was something that we were working on. And once that happened, we saw a huge surge in demand for emergency contraception. People were scared. They wanted to stock up. They absolutely should. But we also wanted to be able to provide this service in states where it's legal, which, unfortunately, it's not legal in all states.
Abby Mercado:
But at least us. So it's a super serious, like, you know, you mentioned herpes as one of your categories. Tell us more about your club category. What are women buying?
Jenny Dwork:
So our top categories are BV bacterial vaginosis, which is something that so many, I think it's 70% of women have experienced. It's often kind of a odor, a fishy odor. There's a lot of confusion. Is it BV? Is it yeast? And there is just no shame in it. It's so common. We have different prescriptions, we have different preventatives as well. For over-the-counter, if you are a chronic sufferer and we have had so many instances of our patients telling us, I've struggled with this for years, my doctor never believes me, or there is never any solution, or they thought it was a yeast infection. And that just happens all the time. And so we can provide resources for that and easy medication for that for pharmacy, same day pickup in two hours or less or delivery. So BV, yeast infections, obviously, there's a lot of over-the-counter stuff, but I just encountered this myself. I went to CVS for some yeast infection meds, and they were all out. I had to ask three people if they had anything, and it's just a broken process and so we can get you fluconazole so you don't have to deal with any of that. Also, UTIs, which we've talked about, herpes is really big. And then, on the reproductive care side, birth control online, of course, has gotten much more popular, which we're really happy to be able to provide to folks at a really accessible price. Also, we talked about emergency contraception, giving people options there with Plan B and Ella so that they can have emergency contraception on hand should anything happen. And then we have really been excited about new products that we've rolled out that help women take control of their reproductive health. So one is called Norethindrone. It's our delay your period drug. It's basically in the same family as birth control. But how we have the dosage, it allows you to skip your period if you are going on vacation or you're getting married or, for whatever reason, you want to have hot sex with someone. Great, go for it. Delay your period. And so that's been hugely popular, and we're looking to roll out more products in that category. And another product we're super proud of is our OMG cream. It is a prescription-strength female arousal cream. We use the same ingredient that's in Viagra, which is sildenafil, and it's a topical it's herpes safe, which we're really proud of, and it allows you to kind of put on a little dab before you want to get down or self-pleasure or whatever it is, and it allows you to have better orgasms. Really stimulating that area. And it's something it's been very popular, and it's awesome. And it's something else that we're really proud of to stand behind in destigmatizing pleasure for women. We know that it's also a big area that needs a lot of work. We're not allowed to advertise around pleasure to women on social media, on the subways, all the places, and to be wild. There's ED drugs everywhere.
Abby Mercado:
Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about that. What have we seen recently kind of in the industry on that? Obviously, I know, but...
Jenny Dwork:
Yeah. I mean, we encounter all different kinds of regulations and restrictions when it comes to advertising on different platforms. And, you know, there is a reason behind a lot of that, right? Like we don't want to just be out there irresponsibly selling medications to folks, which we are not. But it seems like a lot of the categories that we're advertising are unfairly treated for men's versus women's products. So, for example, ED, advertisements, you know, you've seen hims ads all over the subway, all over social media get targeted. If I'm talking about this or the men in my life get targeted, we know they're allowed to run those ads, whereas we try to put up an ad for our OMG cream talking about pleasure or orgasms or climax, and those ads get immediately shut down. Meta is one that we work with some amazing organizations. I believe you do too, like the Center for Intimacy Justice, which actually has a complaint in with the FTC on these policies. And they published a report last year on equal treatment of women's versus men's ads, and we provide a lot of data to them. So I think we all work together here in this industry, which I really love it truly, we need each other. And so we've been working with them a lot on that. We've been working with different vendors. We had an ad that we tried to run in Times Square that said We Love Healthy Vaginas. This was last fall or the end of last year, and the vendor told us, you can't do that because vaginas, that word is not family-friendly. And meanwhile, we're looking at lots of ads of violent video games, a very sexually explicit, you know, whatever it is, alcohol companies. But we're not allowed to say that we love healthy vaginas. We did have a win there. We went back to them. Eric Adams, the New York City mayor, he explicitly said he thinks that New York should become more of a safe haven for women's sexual and reproductive health companies and that we need to start saying the word vagina more. And we used his words, and we finally got that approved. That's amazing. This spring, which was great. And like those small wins that we have, give us the energy to keep going. The confidence that, like, hey, if we all do this together, we really can accomplish change.
Abby Mercado:
That sounds like a huge win. Oh, my goodness. I am so excited. I'm going to make a trip to New York just for that. Well, so we've talked a lot about stigma. And at Rescripted, we believe, and I'm pretty sure you believe this too, like reducing the stigma. Ending the stigma starts with education. Education is delivered in a very effective way via content. So we'd love to just hear a little bit more about the role that content marketing plays in this industry and not just literally you're selling with pharmaceuticals by getting the word out about these disease states that are very curable with, you know, simple solutions. So it's more about your content marketing strategy and why it's important specifically to this industry.
Jenny Dwork:
Yeah. So we can't put up an ad, which is, okay, fine. Like that was never going to be like the thing that is going to really explain the full with brand. So our blog is really important to us. We are allowed to say things that obviously are safe and medically reviewed, and all of that on our own blog. And those get a lot of traffic. People are searching for this kind of information. One of our top blog posts is can I masturbate with a yeast infection? People want to know these things. The people want to know yeast infections are common. So is masturbation. And nobody talks about that.
Abby Mercado:
And let's put some numbers to that. So like you guys are a huge company, like you are a leader in this space. Thousands of people have read that. Tens of thousands, a million like insane. These are big numbers. Like people are very serious about it.
Jenny Dwork:
Yes. They are curious about all of these common vaginal infections. I mean, think about it. Did you know really anything about what BV or yeast or an orgasm? Like really? Anything about that until you started working in this industry?
Abby Mercado:
Of course not. I had never even heard of BV until like a couple of years ago, and I was like, did I just, like, have a bunch of yeast infections? And they were actually and why they didn't go away because they weren't treated correctly or like I was self-diagnosing and I didn't have the. It's just a mess. Like, no, there's no knowledge.
Jenny Dwork:
We're not taught. And it's, again, heavily stigmatized. And so you're not supposed to talk about it. And so we talk about these things on our vlog, in our email, where again, if you subscribe, you are opting in that you want to receive this kind of information, and we go there. And so those are really big channels for us. On organic social, we are always monitoring. It does seem like sometimes we're shadow-banned, so it does feel like our content is not pushed out the way that maybe it should be. But we do have these other channels, and we're always working with creators and influencers and trying to find ways to get around it to say the things that we want to say and then invite people to our site where we will say all of it. I think events has been another great channel for us where we're allowed to say what we want to say in most forums and working. Yeah, with partners like you guys and with other know, we work a lot with Plan C, we will work a lot with sex ed for social change. We have lots of amazing partners who we come up with great events for people to come, and it's a safe space to talk about these things.
Abby Mercado:
Amazing, love a good event talking about vaginas widely because like we should be able to. So we have talked a little bit in the past about just making the conversation around women's health and wellness just bigger and better. And one thought that you put out there that I wanted to dig into a little bit more and we've talked a lot about content and whatnot and you are both passionate about. So you mentioned partnering with male and non-female allies. So I want to dig into that a little bit more and what that means to Jenny and also what that means to list.
Jenny Dwork:
Yeah, totally. Well, on a personal level, what it means to me is that as I started working in this industry and also having men in my life who I'm close with, whether it's like my boyfriend or friends, and talking to them about these things, they don't know if we don't know these things about how a woman's body works or how unfairly we're being treated when it comes to healthcare or whatever it is, then I don't think we should expect men to know. And so I think coming at it from a place of education and not anger and totally like it's hard to do that because everything makes me angry. Um, but like bringing people in and equipping them with the information. So my boyfriend's at a dinner, like, with his friends, he can say, Yeah, did you know X, Y, Z? And then he can tell his friends, and we can all work to, like, make it something that we all need to work on. It's not just on us. And so I think that to me has been a real kind of eye opener from a personal level and then from a whisper brand. We serve men when it comes to our herpes category, and we really are focused on what products we can roll out, targeting more men because we do want to bring them into our community. And we do think that sexual reproductive health is not just for women. It is for all people, and it's for couples as well. And so talking about DoxyPEP, which we launched last weekend or last week, I should say, it's actually we've seen about 60% of males have purchased doxy. And so we're really excited about this. It's again preventative for STDs and STIs, which have been on the rise in this country. And you're kind of dubbing it like a morning-after pill for STDs. It reduces their risk up to two-thirds after having unprotected sex. And so I think the more that we can educate, bring our male allies into this, it's not just a women's issue. The better off we'll all be.
Abby Mercado:
Yeah, I love that. True words right there. Well, so Jenny, we are wrapping up a question I always ask our guests. We talked about a lot of things that we might rescript about women's health and wellness, but what's your number one if you had to rescript one thing about women's health and wellness, what would it be and why?
Jenny Dwork:
Well, at this point, for me, abortion - access to abortion care is really top of mind, and it just seems like it, at least for me, so quickly changed. I know for those working in the industry, it's been years and years in the making, but it's something I'm super passionate about so that we can make sure all of our children's generations are not having to go through the incredible troubles that we have to go to as women to get. Access to this care.
Abby Mercado:
Yeah, it was a shock to the system for sure. And I think important to acknowledge that, you know, a lot of people saw this coming for years, but most people did not and it was quite a shock. But now we're in there fighting it together every day. Well, Jenny, where can people find you and where can people learn more about Wisp?
Jenny Dwork:
Yes, Wisp is hellowisp.com. You can also follow us on Instagram, TikTok @HelloWisp. And I'm Jennifer Dwork on LinkedIn. And so you can find me there and on the Rescripted website as well. We are up on the pharmacy shop, which is awesome. Yeah.
Abby Mercado:
Well, amazing. This is like such a fantastic conversation. Thank you for educating us. Thank you for, you know, it's all about getting the word out and women on their health and wellness. And I think we're doing a fabulous job. So thank you again. And I'm sure we'll talk soon.
Jenny Dwork:
Thank you, Abby.
Abby Mercado:
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