Menopause: Why menopause affects not just women, but everyone

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Miriam Stone

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Robert Rieger

These days I'm getting congratulations because I've turned 45 and you don't look at me: »Man, you look much younger!« – »35, at most!« – »But you Asian women really don't age at all!« These messages come from men and women, girlfriends, co-workers.

They are undoubtedly well-intentioned, as nice compliments.

I am pleased.

The fact that I still find them strangely bland lies in the silent message that comes piggyback with them: There seems to be a consensus that a woman has achieved something – anything – if she looks younger at 45 or 50 or 57 years of age.

I remember well that a few years ago, older friends in their mid-40s or early 50s were suggested to vacate their positions as managers or consultants and instead continue to work part-time.

Actresses, even the most talented and beautiful, stopped getting roles.

Where did Hollywood banish Julia Roberts to?

Or Michelle Pfeiffer?

Accordingly, I feared middle age.

Fortunately, this attitude has recently changed, a woman over 40 is no longer asked to withdraw.

But it is simply better if you neither notice nor look at women from their mid-40s.

Nobody has to become a young professional for this, it is enough if you look and act as if you were 38 forever - mature, but not old yet.

At this point in their lives, women seem to be very compatible with our society: Karoline Herfurth will be 38 in May, Helene Fischer in August, both are rightly at the peak of their careers.

But no one stays in their late thirties forever.

What exactly happens so reprehensible in our forties and fifties?

The apparent end of erotic womanhood, in the form of the farewell to fertility.

“An old woman, that is, one who no longer menstruates, arouses our disgust.

Youth without beauty is still appealing: beauty without youth is none,” said Arthur Schopenhauer in 1817. This did not and does not seem to apply to men, men do not age, they mature.

Even two hundred years later, the aim is to outwit the female physical malaise as best as possible, at least visually.

The motto of visible women my age in Hollywood seems to be "muscle not ovulate." See Sandra Bullock, 47, Jennifer Lopez, 52, or even Viola Davis, 56. Great if you have the budget for a personal trainer.

Unfortunately I don't.

Accordingly, I ask myself a counter question: What will happen if my cells no longer naturally renew themselves frequently in the future?

(A hallmark of biological aging is the slowing of cell regeneration in both men and women.) What happens if I turn gray, wrinkled, or even fat?

(Which will happen, of course.) Or, even worse: what if, for example, I ran out of patience at a conference and yelled at someone, then resign, buy a Tesla, leave my family and go to Denmark with an attractive 25-year-old intern would burn out?

Like a man in midlife crisis, would I be forgiven?

At the end of my mid-40s road trip, could I go back to my life as if nothing happened?

My well-wishers don't know these thoughts, after all I don't want to whine, that doesn't suit middle-aged women at all.

Also, no one suspects that I spent another two hours googling, jotting down notes and staring at the ceiling last night because I just couldn't sleep from 2:30 to 4:30 am.

Because I still have a secret: I'm already in perimenopause (at 45, and that's normal).

This perimenopause is better known as menopause and was feared by Arthur Schopenhauer and Co. Therefore, depending on the point in the cycle, I lack the hormone progesterone, which enables me to sleep deeply and restfully.

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Nobody likes menopause, especially women.

That's why hardly anyone talks about it, so many readers will read its medically correct term "perimenopause" here for the first time and be surprised that a woman who "looks like 35" has to deal with something so unsavory.

Because of this, we know very little about menopause in private, medical and social contexts.

They affect half of all people directly and the other half indirectly.

According to a survey in the UK, one in four working women in the UK aged 45 and over was dissatisfied with their job in the past year because they did not get enough help with menopausal problems.

At the same time, women in their 50s are a rapidly growing group in the labor market.

Every reader probably knows a woman going through menopause.

The menopause is not only something for women, but for everyone, but we haven't had a debate yet.

Because menopause is like a loss of control for women who experience it, on a biological and social level.

When the two come together, it gets uncomfortable.

Cycles, for example, really step on the gas again before they end.

Menstrual periods are more frequent at first, not less frequent, they are stronger and not weaker, at worst unscheduled, really suspect of splattering - it's better not to happen on a long train journey or in the cinema.

Or women suddenly start sweating, like a female founder I interviewed for my book.

She told me an investor interrupted her: "Your glasses are fogging up." The 51-year-old had a hot flash mid-presentation.

In a large meeting, a colleague was under so much pressure for a moment that she cried.

A colleague dismissed the 50-year-old: she simply wasn't resilient enough for the job.

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Younger women are also familiar with this – emotions with a female connotation, such as tears, are very often attributed to »hormonal disorders« by male colleagues in the so-called rational work context.

Pregnancy, PMS or the famous "days" are quickly diagnosed at the conference table.

The menopause resembles a hypersonic drive of hormonal imbalances.

So I'm only allowed to socialize when I'm in control of my body, curbing my appetite, controlling my moods, experiencing bouts and rising heat in the seclusion of the toilet stall.

In other words: If you can't tell from looking at me that something is changing, apart from a few charming laugh lines around my eyes.

If I help with some Botox and you don't see the procedure - wonderful.

Should my face look "made" at some point, then I'm considered really desperate: Then I can't age gracefully and I submit to the prevailing obsession with youth.

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I have to find the middle ground, breathe my anger through sports, drink green smoothies and, in the worst case, get screwed for it.

My perimenopausal complaints should please be a private matter, but any effects or possible countermeasures can be publicly commented on and condemned at any time.

Visible femininity—not sex appeal, but femininity—is still considered offensive, even in fertile women, such as public breastfeeding, flaunting pregnancy (Rihanna's belly!), or discernible period blood.

Instead of integrating all the natural aspects of womanhood, including menopause, into social life, many people are more inclined to make disparaging comments along the lines of “does it have to be?”

It must be.

What I really want for my 45th birthday is an open debate about menopause.

We should no longer link being a woman to fertility.

The hormonal shift of menopause turns maternal nurturing into leader nurturing at best, as estrogen levels decline and testosterone also becomes more dominant in female body chemistry.

The form in which this new femininity manifests itself may vary just as much as the menopause itself. In any case, concealing it is no longer an option.