Myths of Menopause
It Was a Hard Blow for Me as a Therapist and Feminist When I Realized Hormones Do Affect Us
So where do we go from here?
I’m a second-wave feminist, a therapist, and someone who had a rocky peri-menopause and menopause, followed by a relatively peaceful post-menopause. Maybe you can relate.
We second-wave feminists fought for most of the civil and human rights women have in the U.S. and Europe today. In doing so, part of the narrative we embraced is that hormone fluctuations do not affect women. At all.
This narrative was in response to the decades of patriarchal arguments and jokes about women, their fluctuating hormones, and having women be in charge while under the influence of their hormones. You’ve probably heard them. Here’s one from as recently as 2008.
Think back to the 2008 elections. (You may remember this quote from Miss Representation the documentary.)When Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly asked guest Marc Rudov what the downside to a woman (Hillary Clinton) in the Oval Office would be, Rudov replied, “You mean besides the PMS and the mood swings?”
Never mind that Hillary, like me, was well past PMS by 2008. Even if she hadn’t been, Gloria Steinem has a great quote for that:
