These days, when it has become acceptable to air out things that were once considered private or taboo, then it is also about time to bring menopause out of the closet. As a piece in Ms. Magazine puts it, “A new generation of women are demanding that the next chapter of their lives no longer be ignored, overlooked or squandered.
Mobilised by a diverse coalition of doctors and lawyers, social and racial justice activists, CEOs and celebrities, the modern menopause movement is well underway. Some attribute it to generational politics, the estimated 6,000 Gen Xers now entering menopause every day in the United States. The women of Gen X are bookended by their postmenopausal moms and mentors and by millennials, who are already or soon to be in the throes of perimenopause.
As Ms. executive director for partnerships and strategy Jennifer Weiss-Wolf writes, “Menopause is not an afterthought for us. Nor can we continue to tolerate being society’s afterthought.
” There have been several medical and non-fiction books written about menopause – in fact, The New Menopause by Mary Claire Haver is currently on the New York Times bestseller list; now the newly released All Fours by Miranda July is being hailed as the first great perimenopause novel. It may not be the first, but it is the most powerful and poignant so far. Last year, Lisa Allardice, writing in The Guardian , caught the trend of the menopause novel as it sprouted.
“ Broken Light (by Joanne Harris) is the latest in a.
