Mason jars. Glass bottles with corkscrew caps. Colorful herbs and plants. Essential oils. Mortars and pestles. These attractive and fragrant things compose the basis of one’s home apothecary, an Instagram-worthy alternative to a trip to the pharmacy — and traditional medicine in general.

Alternative medicine, an umbrella term encompassing nontraditional practices such as homeopathy, is a modern revival of medical practices more appropriate for the middle ages than the twenty-first century. But across social media platforms from Pinterest to Twitter, you’ll find people sharing homemade treatments they swear by.

One so-called remedy involving a potato for warding off a nighttime cough went viral last year: “When [the child] woke up the next morning the potato turned black, which believers think is because the toxins have left the body in the night and been absorbed by the spud. [Her mother] said: ‘She isn’t congested anymore, still has a bit of runny nose and a bit of a cough but like I said it doesn’t take it all away just helps to get rid of it quicker.’”

Why is it that alternative medicine is experiencing a trendy resurgence? An estimated 5 million people in the United States rely on homeopathic remedies, and Pew Research found that half of all adults in the country have at least tried it. Today, the lingo is shifting from “alternative” to “integrated” medicine in an attempt to make homeopathy appear as though it has a rightful place alongside science-supported medicine. The result is a growing movement I call “alt-medicine”.

It’s important to note that homeopathic remedies, which involves the dilution of natural substances, may seem innocent — but the purpose is to provide an alternative to science-based medicine. It’s the insidious idea that doctors and medicine are not to be trusted with our health. It’s the reason people decide not to vaccinate their kids and we are now seeing outbreaks of preventable diseases like measles. Children and adults have lost their lives to these diseases, and from ineffective and potentially dangerous home remedies.

The lie is that natural remedies done at home are somehow better than traditional medicine because you’re doing them yourself. The lie is that the body will heal itself with a little guidance. Women, especially mothers, are the vulnerable audience of this lie, sold on the aesthetic of alt-medicine through social media.

Alt-Medicine is Putting Women At Risk

Images of natural remedies on Pinterest, a popular resource for homeopathic practitioners: “Learn Herbalism”

In her blog post “Great Women of Homeopathy — and You’re One of Them!”, Joette Calabrese tells her readers that “all women of homeopathy are great women of homeopathy! Throughout history, maintaining the health and integrity of the family has fallen to the women: mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters. It’s a hugely important job.”

Calabrese is employing a strategy common when discussing natural medicine: the image of the empowered woman, the female healer. Problematically, this image rests on a solid foundation of truth — women were long abused by the institution of traditional medicine, and competent female healers in the past were overshadowed by male doctors. Doctors didn’t — and sometimes still don’t — believe women. For too long, traditional medicine barred women from obtaining medical degrees. To be a healer was to defy the idea that men dictated women’s bodies and health.

This may have been the case in the nineteenth century. But today, women are an integral part of traditional medicine — and they are still working hard to reform it. Women hold medical degrees and own their own practices. Although sexism, harassment, and discrimination still exist, they are a part of every field and rooted in much larger problem than one confined only to medicine.

Science made medicine possible. When we act as though natural medicine is a part of a body of knowledge empowering to women, we ignore the fact that pseudoscience, false information, and reliance on alternative medicine actually harms more than it helps.

Let’s consider the disclaimer Calabrese’s blog offers: “Joette [Calabrese] is not a physician and the relationship between Calabrese and her clients is not of prescriber and patient, but as educator and client,” she writes. “Homeopathy doesn’t ‘treat’ an illness; it addresses the entire person as a matter of wholeness that is an educational process, not a medical one.”

To a discerning reader, it’s clear that this woman does not have the education or credentials to be sharing medical advice. But she peddles natural medicine as a way for women to feel good about themselves: “Perhaps most attractive of all, homeopathy allowed women to take care of their families and friends themselves, without relying on doctors,” she writes. “While the traditional medical system hawks drugs and questionable vaccines, mothers search for better alternatives and the autonomy to make health choices for their families.”

The rhetoric here is clear— the medical field is being established as incompatible with motherhood. This could easily be interpreted to mean good mothers make the right health choices for their families by choosing homeopathy as opposed to “drugs and questionable vaccines.” Again, the rhetoric of posts like these is carefully curated to leave the reader with the message that doctors can’t be trusted, and you don’t have control over you or your family’s health unless you ascribe to alternative medicine.

How the Empowerment Masks Insidious Pseudoscience

Homeopathy and natural medicine are robed in an aesthetic of female empowerment, natural beauty, and responsible motherhood for a reason. The purpose of this aesthetic is to draw women away from the “toxic chemicals” and “drugs” prescribed by traditional medicine and give them a sense of control over their family’s health and their own. In a world where women have little control over their government and other aspects of their lives, homeopathy provides an easy way for them to believe they are reclaiming their bodies and their power while protecting their children from harm.

This is a dangerous notion, because alt-medicine is rooted in pseudoscience often peddled by snake-oil salesmen. Instead of finding a truly empowering method of wellness, the natural medicine movement pretends to educate women while offering them little in the way of real, verified medical knowledge supported by science.

It’s important to keep in mind that homeopathy seeks to address actual problems women are dealing with every day. For example, look at this article that discusses why women should have their own remedy kit. The writer pitches her idea to women who own businesses because they have less time on their hands, and if homeopathic remedies can save them from a day at home taking care of sick kids, what working woman wouldn’t want that?

But the writer doesn’t mention the preventative methods of taking your kids to get their flu shots, or teaching them to wash their hands and their toys, or what a basic first aid kit should contain. Instead, her kit contains various vitamins and supplements. The writer also neglects to address that women who take charge of the health of their family are taking on substantially more labor than women who entrust the complexity of diagnosis and treatment to trained healthcare practitioners.

By encouraging women to own their health and the health of their family, to essentially be the “family doctor” as a homeopathic healer, women are taking on yet another burden of unpaid labor. Worse, the rhetoric of the natural medicine movement emphasizes that good mothers don’t trust the health of their children with doctors and vaccines. Good mothers accept the burden of practicing homeopathy and embrace it wholeheartedly — the best ones even start their own homeopathic businesses and blogs.

It’s all about playing to the mommy guilt. With social media, women who want to practice homeopathy suddenly have the additional pressure of making “natural living” look beautiful and appealing, which draws more followers to the cult of alt-medicine.

Social media is an ideal outlet for curating a homeopathic aesthetic and disseminating natural remedies.

Replacing science-supported medicine with supplements is a huge issue, especially when supplements are making companies a lot of money and aren’t FDA regulated. Keep in mind, the FDA regularly puts out warnings regarding supplements that are contaminated, ineffective, falsely advertised as medicine, and inaccurately labeled. Buying supplements is like going to a restaurant that doesn’t get inspected for health code violations — you might have a decent meal, or you might get food poisoning. Most likely, you’ll just be wasting your money.

The Real Issues With Science-Based Medicine

Ultimately, the issue with the alt-medicine movement isn’t just its lack of evidence and scientific support. It’s that in order to survive, the movement is manipulating the idea of female empowerment to address real problems with poor solutions. A real problem is that doctors need to believe women. A real problem is that patients aren’t feeling like they’re being heard, and it’s important that they can ask questions and feel supported by their healthcare providers. A real problem is the idea that women can only be good mothers if they are the healers of their families.

Shaming women who choose alternative medicine is not the answer. We must remember that practicing natural medicine at home is alluring because it allows women to be in charge of their family’s health and their own. It affords them a sense of control and safety that they are uncomfortable relinquishing to doctors and the medical field. It’s also readily accessible in a country where healthcare and insurance is expensive and difficult to navigate.

Perhaps it’s time we address these issues so we can connect with and help the women who are falling victim to the pseudoscientific alt-medicine movement that is clearly preying on them.