Break out the show tunes, I am officially in menopause

Loading

As my doctor predicted, I do have mixed feelings about losing my fertility. It seems not so long ago I was 13, reading Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume and being as desperate as Margaret for that first period to start. I was probably a weirdo, always relishing menstruation and its hidden promise, that power to make humans.

There are mixed feelings, too, about how perimenopause has become competitive and commercialised. Celebrities including Naomi Watts and Gwyneth Paltrow – who hopefully has never lost half a day skiing from being in a hormonal strop – are leading what has been called a “shared age-related victimhood”.

In the UK, menopausal NHS staffers can work from home if their symptoms require it. In Australia, employees can take up to 12 days’ paid leave if they can’t perform work duties because of menopause.

It’s such a wonderful change for this part of a woman’s life to be now spoken about and fought for. In 1986, I was sent home from work for using the word menstruation in a newspaper review of a TV show about … menstruation. “Family paper,” huffed the editor. Um, families come from menstruation.

Loading

What can be forgotten is a state affecting half the population over 50 isn’t an illness. It’s part of the female condition, a sign you’ve lived past your reproductive capacity. It shouldn’t be medicalised, it’s just another milestone.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.