The Woman’s Owncolumnist has her say on the menopause, DIY and naturists
WONDER WOMEN
Please, let’s stop treating the menopause like an ‘illness’.
I have an apology to make. I’m a woman of a ‘certain’ age and I feel marvellous. I don’t feel diseased, mentally ill or have an overwhelming urge to tear the head off anyone. I’m also managing perfectly well to get out of bed, slap on some make-up and go to work. In short, I’m functioning well and enjoying being part of an amazing group of humans. The strong, caring, feisty, fearless and, frankly, the best kind. Or women as I like to call us.
Yet, to wallow in some of the stuff written about us today, you’d think we were all pathetic gibbering wrecks permanently at the doctors begging for medication.
Whatever stage of womanhood you are currently in, from menstruation, maternity to menopause, these days it’s being painted as an ‘ailment’ we need to have help for.
For God’s sake, we’re not ill. We’re women. And all the stages of the wonderful journey we go through are what makes us female.
Look, of course it’s not always easy and there are bits of being a girl that aren’t too great, but I don’t want anyone – especially men! – looking at me sympathetically because I’m 59 and therefore ‘menopausal’.
I don’t want anyone’s sympathy. I don’t want special treatment. And I certainly don’t want new working regulations that treat me with kid gloves because I don’t have periods any more.
Women have fought for centuries to be treated as equals, as independent, capable creatures. Making anything to do with the natural cycle of our fertility into an ‘illness’ so much so that we have be wrapped in cotton wool is plain wrong.
I’m glad we talk about things like the menopause more and that women who are suffering from any of its more trying elements receive help, but please can everyone stop trying to turn it into an illness.
It’s not just me thinking this now, though. A series of papers published in medical journal The Lancet has warned that celebrity campaigns have contributed to an ‘overmedicalisation’ of the menopause and the view that older women are ‘diseased’.
The experts warn that the menopause ‘has become sensationalised’ and is seen as a medical problem, rather than simply being a natural part of healthy ageing.
Basicall
