Menopause in Hollywood: feminist revolution or marketing stunt?

She has already faced the wrath of King Kong, a vengeful ghost (

) and survived a tsunami (

).

But by her own admission, nothing prepared Naomi Watts for the acute symptoms of early perimenopause at age 36.

“I woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat.

My skin was dry and irritable.

My hormones turned upside down, I no longer had control of my own body.

I felt lost, and very alone,” the

star recalls .

And for good reason.

While menopause, or the definitive cessation of ovulation and menstruation, occurs on average between the ages of 50 and 55, perimenopause and its first side effects generally appear around the age of 45.

Faced with the beginnings of the great hormonal change, at an age when many women are still planning maternity (she nevertheless gave birth to Sasha at 38 and Kaï at 40), Naomi Watts was met with a deafening silence. from his doctors, and to the embarrassment of those close to him: "I didn't know how to ask for help and they didn't know how to help me."

To discover

• Watch the Business Masterclass “Investing can be learned” in replay

In video, Naomi Watts positive on the benefits of menopause

Naomi Watts' Crusade

Already co-creator of beauty brand green Onda, the neo-startup actress founded Stripes, a holistic skincare range to pamper women “from scalp to vagina, to help eradicate the shame and anxiety associated with menopause,” she says.

Ultra-hydrating body serums and oils, anti-hot flash sprays and intimate lubricants, plus online “meno-guides” and a magazine,

to provide the information and create a community, all that is lacking to women beginning "their transition" to menopause.

His company, launched in October 2022, is one of the most successful initiatives within a new part of the "silver economy" (the economy of seniors) that the

has already dubbed "the gold rush of menopause”.

Boosted by an unprecedented demographic revolution, with already one million newly menopausal American women every year, the market suddenly seems ripe for mature women.

At the end of the Covid pandemic, faced with the cruel shortage of gynecologists and doctors trained to respond to the explosion in demand for support for women in their mid-life phase, we saw the emergence of telemedicine start-ups and wellness counseling and symposia, the first of which, New Pause, led by Naomi Watts and Alisa Volkman, CEO of The Swell, a community platform for Gen X (born between 1960 and 1980), was held sold out, $130 admission.

A plethora of high-end products have appeared in the process, such as the vitamin supplement, Madame Ovary, offered by Gwyneth Paltrow on Goop, or Better Not Younger (“better but not younger”), hair care line for aging hair , including actress Jennifer Coolidge (

) is a fan.

Gwyneth Paltrow has launched Madame Ovary, a vitamin supplement designed to compensate for hormonal changes.

Press office

An attractive market for celebrities

At the gates of a meno-revolution, celebrities break the omerta to share their experience, often with humor.

In her podcast, Michelle Obama, in 2020, compared an unexpected hot flash “to raising the thermostat of her indoor oven to maximum”.

Gillian Anderson (

) wanted to sound the alarm about the disorders of the perimenopause, evoking his fits of irrepressible tears and a great fatigue which, on certain days, gave him the impression of “not being able to manage anything from 8 am”.

Drew Barrymore, actress and star TV host, described devastating mood swings "that drove her crazy and made her cry for a yes, for a no".

A concert of liberated words for a generation X, which also wishes to appropriate a piece of the cake of the "menopause business", but more discreetly.

Read alsoHot flashes, weight gain, sexuality… How to best manage your menopause?

Gwyneth Paltrow (50 years old), Drew Barrymore (47 years old), but also Cameron Diaz (50 years old) thus participated in the collection of 28.5 million dollars for Evernow, a telemedicine company which can help, in agreement with the American law, to obtain a medical consultation by SMS for hormone replacement therapy (THM) in order to alleviate the most debilitating symptoms.

Venture capital firm, Serena Ventures, founded by tennis champion Serena Williams (41), is helping fund actress Judy Greer's (

) Wile, a brand of wellness supplements and tinctures to herbal remedy to relieve the symptoms of perimenopause and menopause.

And that's just the beginning: a trends report from the Global Wellness Summit projects a $600 billion market by 2025, potentially reaching 12% of the world's population.

A female population that breaks down a millennial taboo and refuses the social downgrading induced by their new status as “middle-aged women”.

Contrary to their mothers, who suffered it in silence.

At a time of affirmation of all diversities, Gen X women want to add that of age to the agenda, without hiding it.

And demand

models who look like them.

Scandals

, Jeff Bezos: the billionaire who wanted to rejuvenate at all costs

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

The fifties perked up on the screen

In fact, Hollywood is carrying out its own “meno-evolution”.

The industry, historically quick to dismiss the majority of actresses deemed undesirable from the age of 40, is beginning to understand, with supporting figures, that fifty-plus heroines, active women who "look" their age and live it well, represent an audience highly

.

In 2021, just for the small screen, Kate Winslet (47) won the Emmy for best actress for

as a police lieutenant and mother with disheveled hair, wrinkles and assumed extra pounds, and Gillian Anderson (54), the Golden Globe for best supporting actor, playing the inflexible Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, in season 4 of

.

More recently, in

the sequel to

Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her 50-something friends discuss libido and menopause as freely as they did their

in the late 1990s.

Quinqua, the golden age in Hollywood?

In images, in pictures

See the slideshow06 photos

See the slideshow06 photos

In season 4 of

Birgitte Nyborg (Sidse Babett Knudsen), with drawn features, faces hot flashes, bad nights and mood swings as much as her political opponents.

For the first time, menopause was thus invited as a guest star in a European series... In the same spirit, at the cinema last year, Emma Thompson, 55-year-old widow in

(re) discovers pleasure in the arms of a young man, while in France, Fanny Ardant, 73, vibrated in unison with Melvil Poupaud, her junior by 24 years, in

And according to the

Americans now see Sylvie Grateau (Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu) from

the "ideal fifty".

Beautiful, free, at the height of her professional, romantic and sexual fulfillment.

The shining proof, as the actress recalled at the microphone of Léa Salamé on France Inter in December, “that life is not over at 50”.

Read alsoEmma Thompson: “I have the body of a 63-year-old woman and facing the mirror, I tuck my stomach in so as not to see reality”

fight the shame

In this gratifying context, the psychoanalyst Catherine Grangeard (1) applauds the liberation of speech, even if she criticizes the mercantile recovery.

This new market has the merit of confirming a social fact already established in our Western civilizations: "Women now live for more than 40 years after menopause and reject the status of

that they were once granted."

But for her, the new battle to be fought is existential: “Fighting shame.

Dare not to stress or worry because our body is aging.

Give yourself the right to continue to live and love.”

And this despite the sad observation of the sociologist Cécile Charlap, author of

(CNRS Éditions, 2019): “This passage is still perceived as the final ticking of the biological clock, the official entry into the “senior” phase of a woman’s life.”

And historically, the end of female fertility, synonymous with youth, would mark the fall of the quotient of seduction and the social validity of women.

Always discriminated against on their age, as denounced by the AAFA-Tunnel collective of the 50-year-old actress, our actresses display, compared to their American counterparts, a very Latin modesty in the face of the inconveniences of menopause.

This is not the case of Monica Bellucci, who claimed in 2015 to consider it "as something natural and not a disease".

A de-dramatized experience of "change" which resembles that experienced by the majority of the 14 million French menopausal women.

No offense to Cassandre predicting exhausting climacteric syndromes, libido at half mast or uncontrollable weight gain,

Only 15% of women suffer from fairly painful or disabling consequences on a daily basis requiring medical treatment (2).

Namely THM (hormonal treatment of menopause), demonized since a 2002 study because possibly carcinogenic, but prescribed on a case-by-case basis, also to fight against osteoporosis as well as cardiovascular diseases, enemies number 1 of women after 50 years.

Read also"The Last Day of Fuckability" or the revolt of actresses over 50 in Hollywood

A new visibility

In the country that saw the birth of the very word and concept of menopause from the pen of Dr. Charles de Gardanne in 1821, medical gynecologists, increasingly rare, are generally poorly trained on the issue.

Getting informed, reassuring, discussing a subject that is still too little known to better understand it, this is a new key mission that Sophie Kune, flagship Instagrammer of the "Frenchie menosphere" has fulfilled since its creation six years ago. , from

(13.7k subscribers).

In all sorority, she brings together those who wish to share their intimate experience of menopause and deconstruct its archetypes.

“Fears, paralyzing, disappear as soon as we find the right information.

There are answers and solutions for every problem today,” she says.

And for good reason.

Advice guides for living “your” menopause well, with or without medication, are invading the personal development shelves.

Sophie Dancourt's media,

aiming to offer visibility to 50-year-old women, is part of a collective #allformenopause, which addresses frankly "the medical wandering of women" and pushes for a dedicated consultation for all, from 45 years old.

Laboratories offer cosmetic products with phytohormones and recruit silver muses, such as Ines de la Fressange or Jane Fonda, to better represent them.

The FemTech also seizes on a subject of the future: "If only 5% of start-ups are dedicated to menopause, it is with endometriosis the subject which motivates the most fundraising from investors", emphasizes Mathilde Nême, one of the three co-founders in their twenties of Omena, the first French application offering expert medical advice and which has already attracted 35,000 users.

Alleviating the inconveniences of this last hormonal transition allows women to sublimate themselves

Mathilde Neme

In solidarity with their mothers and grandmothers, these Gen Z entrepreneurs intend to normalize menopause for all.

“Alleviating the inconveniences of this last hormonal transition allows women to sublimate themselves.

Because without the symptoms, 50 years is supposed to be the pinnacle of their life, ”concludes Mathilde Nême.

Menopause, a new golden age?

An evidence for Catherine Grangeard: “Freed from the constraints of cycles and contraception, some of my consultants say they are more fulfilled at 50 than at 30, personally, professionally, romantically and even sexually.

Because against the injunctions, they remain visible, assuming themselves “beyond appearances”.

Enjoying instead of undergoing a menopause without taboos accompanied and "performing", here is the credo of the supporters of this meno-revolution.

(1) Author of "There is no age to enjoy!"

, Éditions Larousse, 2020.

In video, the trailer of

My meeting with Leo

with Emma Thompson