Menopause Manifesto Quotes

what the patriarchy thinks of menopause is irrelevant. Men do not get to define the value of women at any age.

Women are gaslit into believing that their bodies - the very thing that allows them to hack the big brain-small pelvis equation - are problematic and that consequently they themselves are problematic. We're dirty, silly, fat, gross, weak, or we're simply complainers. We are forced to make do with a medical system largely designed around the needs of men and we have our medical concerns dismissed as "not that bad" or we are told they are fabricated.

Women who are generally fit with no limiting health conditions should consider the exercise goals already discussed in previous chapters—at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (e.g., brisk walking) or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity (e.g., jogging or running) every week and strength training two or more days a week.

Another group of researchers compared women ages forty-five to fifty-five with men of the same age and found that women performed better than men with memory tasks before menopause, but during the menopause transition and afterward that advantage became less apparent. This point feels important enough to emphasize. Yes, there is a temporary change, but even with that change women still out-performed men.

There's a myth that with age the vagina risks a "use it or lose it" scenario - meaning without the potency of a penis the vagina may shrink permanently. It's simply shocking (imagine my voice dripping in sarcasm) that there's no similar myth that the penis can avoid shrinkage with regular vaginal contact. The "use it or lose it" theory was based on lower quality data that wouldn't be accepted today. Loss of estrogen and age related changes are what affect a vagina: it's not a lament for the touch of a man.

Fortunately, the pendulum has swung away from the disease model and in the 2020s we’re back to the concept of menopause as a phase or change of life that can be helped with preventative care and may or may not require medical intervention

When I’m sixty it will feel ridiculous to describe my health based on my last menstrual period. It feels ridiculous now at fifty-four, especially given the final last menstrual period is only of significance regarding the ability to get pregnant and in evaluating abnormal menstrual bleeding.

The term menopause came to be before science knew hormones existed. It was never meant to signify a pause. It was invented by a man who felt women should cover their arms and not wear blush—whose book on the subject contributed nothing valuable to the body of knowledge except it left a term that ties women forever to menstruation. The word menopause was then weaponized by the pharmaceutical industry and transformed from troublesome phase of life into a lifelong disease that affected every woman. And not just any disease, the worst kind of disease—one that made women undesirable to men. It’s not a great origin story. The word menopause is due for an update.

Sometimes it can seem as if your body is a car with a new and completely different warning light that appears each day. An unwelcome exercise in, “Oh what now?

While this seems like a lot of time devoted to exercises (about forty-five to sixty minutes a day), it doesn’t have to be all at once.

The United States has one of the highest rates of milk consumption in the world and one of the highest rates of hip fracture. There is even data that links milk consumption with an increased risk of fractures, possibly due to the increase in height for milk drinkers because longer bones have a greater fracture risk.

Women ages nineteen to fifty need 1,000 mg of calcium a day, and women fifty-one years and older should get 1,200 mg.

For women who can’t get enough from their diet, a calcium supplement is recommended, and in this situation it is best to take a combined calcium and vitamin D supplement as vitamin D helps the body absorb the calcium.

Remember, the idea of a supplement is to get you to the recommended intake, not to over shoot. Calcium supplements aren’t benign; they increase the risk of kidney stones (all that extra calcium in the urine).

The term menopause came to be before science knew hormones existed. It was never meant to signify a pause. It was invented by a man who felt women should cover their arms and not wear blush—whose book on the subject contributed nothing valuable to the body of knowledge except it left a term that ties women forever to menstruation.

However, the false idea that the ovaries were dead after menopause also came from the long-standing belief that a woman’s main value lay in her reproductive ability and so the end of fertility meant women were hanging around in the Grim Reaper’s lounge waiting for their callout.

When menopause is discussed in Western society, it’s often viewed negatively, as a cruel joke or even as a disease. This stems from the harmful belief that women lose value once they are no long able to reproduce and the false hypothesis that menopause is a biological flaw as there is no equivalent for men who can make sperm into their old age. But if we looked at that argument from another angle we might as well say that men are biologically flawed because they can’t get pregnant or because they develop heart disease earlier than women.

For women to navigate menopause, they need facts because empowerment requires accurate information—but they also need feminism because our bodies, our medical care, and even our thoughts have been colonized by the patriarchy.

Women are so much more than just their ovaries, so it’s important to sit back and look at the whole picture for perspective.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) are excellent resources for this information. Enter “CDC” or “WHO” and “medical eligibility criteria for contraception” into your search engine of choice to get to the relevant site.

Perhaps we are wired for collective storytelling as this would facilitate passing on vital information about finding food and water. If women were the primary foragers the ability to gather information this way would have been of supreme importance.

Menopause is like being sent on a canoe trip with no guide book and only a vague idea where you are headed—although the expectation is it's awful. There will be no advice on how to get there or how to manage any of the obstacles, such as rapids. That is if any exist. Who knows? Have fun figuring it out! Good times. Oh, and don't write. No one wants to hear about your journey or what it is like when you arrive.

Apparently there is nothing of lower value than an aging woman’s body, and many in our society treat menopause not as

Women themselves may ignore their pain as "not that bad," because for them the pain may really not be that bad. For example, for many women the pain of menstrual cramps is worse than the pain of a heart attack—after all, the force generated by the uterus during menstrual cramps is the same as the force generated during the second stage of labor. Yet, women with menstrual cramps are somehow viewed as weak and complainers. It's systemic gaslighting and it makes me want to scream.

In addition, some medications can directly affect desire or they can lead to difficulties achieving orgasm, which is a problem in itself and may also in turn reduce desire. These medications include (but are not limited to) many antidepressants, spironolactone, beta blockers, trazodone (a sleep aid), and opioids.

After all, lesbians report more orgasms during sex than heterosexual women.

IF MENOPAUSE WERE ON YELP it would have one star.

Now imagine a world where we said men were in erectopause?

These are important questions as a recent study that followed over 52,000 women for eight years linked three glasses of milk a day with an 80 percent increased risk of breast cancer. Even one glass a day was associated with a 50 percent increased risk. This is a scary sounding statistic, but it doesn’t mean 80 percent of women who drink three glasses of milk a day will get breast cancer. For example, at the age of fifty if a woman has approximately a 1 in 42 or 2.4 percent risk of breast cancer in the next ten years, with an 80 percent increased risk means her risk is now 4.3 percent. That’s still a big jump and needs further attention, but it’s critical to have the right perspective. This association with breast cancer wasn’t seen with cheese or yogurt in this study.

If we applied that same tone to erectile dysfunction, we’d expect textbooks to declare that the penis is worn out. In medicine, men get to age with gentle euphemisms and women get exiled to Not Hotsville.

The importance of omega-3 fatty acids

Vitamin B12 is important for making red blood cells, a functioning nervous system, as well as a variety of metabolic processes

African American women tend to have lower levels of vitamin D but they also have a lower rate of osteoporosis, so levels may only tell part of the story.

African American women tend to have a longer menopause transition, although their age of menopause is the same.

In medicine, men get to age with gentle euphemisms and women get exiled to Not Hotsville. Generations of medical professionals were trained

FLAT: Estradiol levels start lower with less decrease. The most common pattern for African American women.

When a woman starts skipping two menstrual periods in a row there is a 95 percent chance her final menstrual period will be within the next four years.

Psychologists talk about two different types of intelligence, fluid and crystalized. Fluid intelligence includes thinking quickly, rapid recall, and multitasking, and peaks in our twenties and thirties. As we approach middle age, crystallized intelligence develops, which is how we use what we have learned and the practical application of that knowledge.

The best/worst example of this is OB/GYNs—largely women—getting paid less to do a vulvar biopsy than urologists—largely men—receive for doing a scrotal biopsy. Same procedure, same equipment, same pain level, same sexual consequences. Different reimbursement.

Even though menopause is a universal experience for every person with ovaries who lives long enough, unlike puberty menopause is shrouded in secrecy. There is no menopause curriculum in schools, and providers rarely discuss it in advance. Typically it’s only after a woman has mentioned concerns that the It might be menopause conversation is raised.

When menopause is discussed in Western society, it’s often viewed negatively, as a cruel joke or even as a disease.

What Is Menopause? The word has nothing to do with men. It was conceived in 1812 by Dr. Charles De Gardanne, a French physician, who started with the word ménèpausie, a combination of menes, from the Greek for month, and pausie, from the Greek for cessation (a common term for this phase of life). In 1821 De Gardanne updated the term to ménopause, and then somewhere along the way the accent was dropped in the medical literature.

Has anyone ever in the history of medicine ever uttered these words? “Through good sanitation and health care, men are now living long enough to develop erectile dysfunction?” Doubtful.

This idea that there was a window of safety for starting MHT—meaning starting hormones closer to the final menstrual period is different risk-wise from starting later—was born and is now supported by an increasing amount of data.

I proclaim that we must stop viewing menopause as a disease, because that means being a woman is a disease and I reject that shoddily constructed hypothesis. I also declare that what the patriarchy thinks of menopause is irrelevant. Men do not get to define the value of women at any age.

(although as an aside it’s important to note that having menstrual periods does not magically transform a girl into a woman).

and menopause is no more a disease than being a man is a disease.

removing the ovaries before menopause leads to more hot flushes and more severe symptoms than the more meandering drop in hormones typical of menopause.

It’s important to remember that nothing is experienced until your brain tells you it’s experienced.

Humans couldn’t have evolved to this point without the strength of women in menopause.

For example, in response to a hot flush I might think, “My brain feels like the antechamber of hell,” and “This is never going to end.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) a waist circumference of ≥88 centimeters (35 inches) for a woman is abdominal obesity. Each 1 cm (0.4 inch) increase in waist circumference over 88 cm (35 inches) increases the risk of cardiovascular disease by 2 percent.

For women with a waist circumference ≥88 cm (35 inches), a reduction of 5 cm (2 inches) lowers the risk of heart disease by 15 percent. Waist circumference may not be as reliable for Asian women and for women who are much shorter or taller than average, so more research is needed to help quantify risk of abdominal obesity for these groups.

Then one day I was sitting on the toilet and I couldn’t get up without holding the wall. Three years before I had run a half-marathon. So I got back into it. I was shocked at the difference just a few years made, and devastated after my first few runs. But I did what I tell my own patients—start with a ridiculously little amount of exercise, just keep at it every other day.

It’s also misogynistic to tie a description for one-third or possibly even one-half of a woman’s life to the function of her uterus and ovaries. We don’t define men as they age by an obvious physical change in their reproductive function.

It’s a penis, not a magic wand.