7 Harmful Lies Society Tells Women About Menopause

Secretly, many women hope they’ll be the exception to menopause.

Perhaps if we don’t talk about it or pay it any mind, the menopause fairy will pass us by. But eventually, it comes — and we soon learn that this particular fairy doesn’t flit about; she drives a truck.

Then, the moment we seek real information about what is happening to our bodies and minds, we find ourselves dropped in an information dead zone.

So little research.

“Women live longer, but they live with more physical declines, cognitive declines, and cardiovascular issues.”

~How Gaps in Research Lead to Gaps in Care for Aging Women

Very little funding—especially compared to issues that affect men.

“The gender health gap is a wide one that exists between women’s health and hundreds of years of unconscious bias that dismisses, misdiagnoses, or mistreats symptoms — all because the female body is a “big mystery.””

So few doctors with good training, knowledge, and options for women.

“To date, there is not a standardized menopause curriculum that provides tools to enhance and assess resident competency during training,”

~ Jennifer T. Allen, MD, NCMP, associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Augusta University

And so much avoidance, silence, embarrassment, and stigma.

In the personal growth arena, I advocate for embodiment and wholeness.

I believe that all stages and places of life, even the darkest ones, should be seen, integrated, and valued. I believe that we grow into new roles and assume new responsibilities best when we consciously move through three distinct stages of a rite of passage:

1. Separation from a previous identity (in this case, adulthood).
2. Deep reflection (time to rest, heal, and integrate).
3. And finally, rebirth (into elderhood).

Like many liminal, or “in-between”, times of life, menopause is a rite of passage.

Particularly, menopause is a transition from the stage of life we call adulthood—with our primary responsibilities being around family, work, and success—to elderhood, where duties, in theory, should shift toward guidance, mentorship, storytelling, and passing down earned wisdom and knowledge.

But that’s not how menopause is seen or treated. While we readily talk about and have treatment for men’s issues, menopause remains a taboo subject (especially at dinner, god forbid in mixed company).

Why do we allow this to be so?

Because directly or indirectly, the culture has told us so many lies about menopause.

Here are just seven of them.

7 Harmful Lies Society Tells Women About Menopause

1) Women’s usefulness to society ends with menopause.

You might think this sounds extreme, but consider the words of Freud’s colleague Helene Deutsch:

“Women’s biological fate manifests itself in the disappearance of her individual feminine qualities at the same time her service to the species ceases.”

So this is not a fringe idea. These ideas wormed their way into our psyche (or our mother’s psyche) and have been passed down unconsciously.

So rather than claiming new duties of elderhood, women find themselves straddling these two life stages — adulthood and elderhood—unable to feel fully at home in either.

2) Menopause is a disease that must be cured.

“Menopause is a serious, painful, and often crippling disease.”

Robert Wilson, Feminine Forever

For women lucky enough to reach a certain age, menopause is an unavoidable transition. If understood properly, that transition can be a sacred one. But not when the only dialogue that exists focuses on suppressing the symptoms rather than understanding the significance.

Menopause is not cancer. It does not need a cure. It needs to be understood, accepted, and even celebrated.

By saying we should celebrate menopause, I am not being dismissive of the very real, and sometimes debilitating symptoms. Nor am I trying to put a happy face over a challenging time in life. But celebration should not be reserved only for times of comfort and ease in life! Discomfort—precisely because of its ability to change and grow us—should also be embraced.

3) Menopause is a problem that must be solved.

If anything, menopause is a solution.

If we see it as a rite of passage that transforms adult women into elder women who are esteemed in the culture as elders, if they can then offer wisdom to younger generations so that each generation does not have to begin at the beginning, we can raise the consciousness of the entire culture.

We could follow in the example of many Indigenous cultures that recognize and utilize the wisdom of older women.

According to the Women’s Health Network:

“Across Indigenous cultures, from the Māori in New Zealand to the Iroquois, post-menopausal women are community leaders with considerable power and status. To these people, menopause itself is the transition from being a member of the community at large to becoming a spiritual elder.”

4) Menopause does not need any special recognition.

Recognition is how you bring meaning into any time of life.

Bringing meaning to sacred transitions in life is why we hold graduations, weddings, showers, and funerals. In ceremonies such as these, all involved have a chance to honor the change taking place. That’s what a ceremony is for.

“The life of an individual in any society is a series of passages… Wherever there are passages, there are rites.”

~Arnold van Gennup, The Rites of Passage

5) Menopause is embarrassing and taboo.

Did you know that women in menopause often pack an extra change of clothes in their travel bags or work desks, in case a hot flash overcomes them at the wrong time?

They avoid talking to their sexual partners about changes in their libido.

Their doctor doesn’t discuss the significant drop in their metabolism that goes along with declining estrogen.

Many women are unaware of just how long the symptom list is — it goes far beyond hot flashes—and so feel as if they’re falling apart.

All because somehow we’ve accepted this idea that menopause is something to endure, silently, so as not to be a bother.

But as we recognize menopause as the sacred rite of passage it is, the symptoms, too, become normalized. We can get treatment. We can embrace this transition and all that it brings.

6) Menopause is a “woman’s issue.”

Stigmatizing, downplaying, or ignoring menopause does not just hurt women. It hurts girls — who grow up dreading this future timeline. It hurts men and boys—who remain ignorant of these sacred passages for their loved ones. And it hurts a culture at large when, because we don’t initiate anyone into elderhood, we live in an elder-free society (and it shows)!

7) Menopause marks the end of a woman’s vitality.

Menopause may mean that a woman can no longer conceive children. But that only allows her to consolidate her energy and channel it into other equally important societal responsibilities!

There is a reason women can have many years of life beyond childbearing, and it is not to become increasingly invisible. It is to step into a whole new power, one that comes hand-in-hand with the menopausal journey.

That’s because women who are or have undergone menopause:

• Have deepened wisdom and life lessons to share, enriching families, communities, and society.
• Can hone their attention to issues that matter deeply to them, rather than so many things competing for their time.
• Can model authenticity, boundaries, embodiment, and personal power to younger generations, both boys and girls.
• They have healed wounds and transformed them into wisdom that can be passed down through the generations.
• They are free from restricted definitions of femininity (and the male gaze!) and thus are free to explore their wholeness.

Closing

When menopause is not part of the cultural discourse, women find themselves straddling two life stages —adulthood and elderhood—without feeling like they completely belong to either.

When menopause is not normalized, it does not get the funding, research, and easily accessible treatment options it needs and deserves.

And when menopause is not understood as a sacred rite of passage, we, collectively, miss the opportunity to evolve the consciousness of this entire society.

Let’s see through the lies and bust the myths once and for all. Because honoring menopause as a sacred transition wouldn’t just benefit individual women — it would benefit all of us.