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hhhTamWhen menopause approaches, many women start to tremble.
They are stalked by symptoms that can sometimes be uncomfortable and other times terrible, depending on the omens.
Along with the extinction of menstruation and hormonal changes, these voices predict that hot flashes, insomnia, memory loss, extreme fatigue, vaginal dryness, weight gain, a drop in sexual desire will worsen... More or less, like one plague after another.
Anna Freixas
(Barcelona, 77 years old), feminist writer, psychologist and retired university professor, does not agree with this story that links menopause with poor health and illness and she told it 17 years ago in
'Our Menopause'
, a book that has now been published. reviewed with Captain Swing publisher.
Freixas is not the only dissident of that speech.
There is already a current of depathologizing this vital stage that accuses it of medicalizing it unnecessarily.
The
last response
, in fact, is from just a few days ago regarding a study by Professor of Gynecology and Obstetrics at the University of Melbourne Martha Hickey, published in 'The Lancet'.
The researcher defends that if it is not a disease, menopause does not require diagnosis or treatment.
She proposes approaching the end of periods as a
normal life change
that only requires medical intervention if problematic symptoms occur.
Hickey adds fuel to the debate over hormone therapy, widely recommended a few decades ago and now in decline, after it was linked to an increased risk of stroke and cancer.
Freixas dedicates a chapter of the book precisely to this topic called
'Hormones?... No, thank you'
.
With this title he makes his opinion clear.
He also does not use the term "symptoms", but prefers "signs"...
You say that there is a suspicious silence about the benefits of menopause.
What are they? I have asked many women and they tell me that the best thing that has happened to them in their lives is menopause.
On the other hand, there are the obvious benefits: not being able to get pregnant, if you are heterosexual;
the disappearance of discomforts associated with periods, such as chest pain, migraines, emotionally cyclical situations, etc.;
the money we save on intimate hygiene products;
and that our sexuality can be renegotiated in an important way.
These are some, but in general everything that involves taking control of your life and freeing yourself from behaviors related to heteropatriarchal femininity is good.
In menopause, women enter another area of life, we can live more free of instilled and renewed fears.
We have a lot of life ahead of us... We have half left and, furthermore, it is a significant half.
At this point, you professionally master your subject;
If you have children, the parenting tasks are already underway;
It is a time of care for parents... It is a time of crossroads, but a stage that women can enjoy perfectly.
Instead, an interested message of social apocalypse is conveyed, because scared women are more vulnerable than if we are safe and empowered. I detect two self-described "feminist" discourses.
One focuses on the androcentric view of Medicine, which has not investigated menopause to alleviate its symptoms, and another, which could be yours, which dedramatizes and depathologizes this stage.
Both are "unofficial," as the subtitle of their book states.
Are these two approaches compatible? I also want there to be more research, I want us to be able to complain about hot flashes and to be able to normalize menopause, instead of hiding it.
I agree with everything, except the word "pills."
There may be women who need some treatments to relieve discomfort, but we must remember that when we lose hormones, the body tells you that it is adapting to the new situation.
If you give him more, when you take them away, that body will still not adapt.
It is better to think about how we can live through this stage in which some bodies, not all, experience complicated situations.
The only thing that can be generalized about menopause is that we have it.
That's it.
Some women have a lot of discomfort, others have few, and others have none.
There are more women who do not have hot flashes than women who do.
We cannot treat all women equally.
There are many women who have a really bad time and who want what happens to them to be validated. I take Carmen Sáez Buenaventura's phrase: menopause, like a beautiful cape, covers everything.
Over 50, women have lived a life with many thicknesses and reasons for stress: partner, work, caring for the elderly, etc.
It is a time when many things happen and therefore, we cannot attribute all discomfort to hormones.
For example, the relationship between stress and hot flashes, stress and insomnia, stress and loss of libido has been demonstrated... Not everything that happens to us at 50 is called menopause.
This is lack of rigor and mental laziness.
Menopause requires a lot of listening and conversation between women, to know what has happened to others.
We would arrive at that moment full of light and tranquility.
Who is part of what is called "the menopausal industry"? The entire group of beings who make a living by conveying a frightening message about menopause, those who raise it out of panic.
The medical, pharmaceutical and aesthetic industries benefit from this, with products that promise to make us go through menopause as if it were a bed of roses.
Maybe it would be if we weren't so afraid of it.
Captain Swing
Does 'coming out' menopause have a B side?
Can we women be accused of being intense? Maybe, but during the time he has been inside that closet we have not done better.
We have been told that without periods we are less of a woman and that patriarchal stigma makes us believe that we are no longer sexually eligible.
You have to have menopausal pride and be able to talk about it calmly, like young girls talk about their periods and the world doesn't collapse.
Since you wrote this book 17 years ago until this update, what social changes have there been regarding menopause?
Above all, women are more informed.
The Women's Health Initiative study [2002] raised awareness about hormonal therapies and their supposed benefits.
Women are less gullible and we ask more.
Some gynecologists say we are hormone-phobic, but we could say we are hormone-wise.
We know more about them and they no longer sell us the idea of being eternally feminine according to the patriarchal model.
Menopause