We need a change of attitude
ACHANGE is as good as a rest, they say. Except when it’s not ‘a’ change but THE change, and as many women of a certain age will tell you, when it comes to the menopause there is no rest. None at all.
Not from the symptoms, which make rest – at least of the night-time variety – a distant memory.
Nor from the mountain of information which must be waded through, digested, interrogated and compared only to result in you feeling less informed but marginally hotter than ever.
And certainly not from the realisation, which hits along with that first hot flush, that although it’s something half the world’s population will experience, the menopause is still a thing of mystery for many, a topic of myth and even acute embarrassment.
And although things have improved in recent years there’s still a long way to go until puberty’s evil older sister is talked about with the ease of some of her male friend’s ailments. Erectile dysfunction, anyone?
The problem, I reckon, is not so much that we aren’t discussing it, but
the way it’s being discussed.
We’re all ‘woke’ these days – for anyone reading who is over 30 that means being more aware – and you can’t move for articles on the menopause in newspapers and magazines, on telly and the radio.
Celebrities yadder on about it (look up Gwyneth Paltrow’s jade eggs – actually, on second thoughts, don’t) while showbiz doctors offer their white-toothed Hollywood advice and high-flying career women give interviews on how they cope with kids and jobs and brain fog (usually courtesy of a nanny.)
It’s all a long way from when our mums discussed their symptoms behind their hands in the Post Office queue.
But little of what’s out there relates to the ordinary woman in the street wondering whether she really does have all this free time or whether she’s simply forgotten to do stuff.
A great deal of this discourse is also contradictory.
Is there a link between HRT and breast cancer? Do herbal remedies work? Are fluctuating hormones a valid defence in a court of law?
Take the news this week about a revolutionary new procedure which medics claim can delay the menopause by 20 years. The idea is to take a sliver of healthy ovary from women in their twenties or thirties, freeze it and then re-implant decades later to off-set the worst effects of plummeting hormones. Cue lots of banner headlines and excited columnists. But the fact is this treatment has been trialled on just nine women and even if it does work and is made more widely available it will be hugely expensive, meaning most won’t have access to it.
I think we need to move the conversation away from how we ‘fix’ women and their inconvenient symptoms and more towards making the topic as easy to discuss as the price of petrol.
Relevant, practical help and easily accessible advice plus a society where the menopause is nothing to be ashamed of will be what get women through.
Not high tech ‘cures’ or celebrities trilling about their personal trainers and meditation retreats.