Wonder Women: Veritable seachange in the menopause landscape

Carla Donson.

This last year has been a year of personal milestones. On this particular journey around the sun, I have celebrated a half-century birthday and 20 years in the hot seat here at the Women’s Network.

Turning 50 is no small thing. And, over the last few years, being in the hot seat has taken on a whole new meaning with my arrival into this intriguing phase of life called perimenopause. The late great Bette Davis once said “Old age ain’t no place for sissies”, and I’m starting to understand something of what she meant by that. Perimenopause is a vast and inevitable landscape that women (and other folk with uterine reproductive systems) have to traverse. The only certainty is that at some point we will end up in ‘the menopause’.

How long that might take, or how we get there is a unique personal mystery. It is a time – pretty much a whole decade – when hormonal changes can feel like our body is throwing down the gauntlet. Much like the knights of old, it’s a time where we can armour up and show our mettle, or simply surrender to the hot flushes and brain fog and wait for it to be over.

In the 20 years that I’ve been at the forefront of ‘women’s issues’ I have observed a veritable seachange in the menopause landscape. Perhaps the global pandemic, with all of our time spent in lockdown, enabled us to get more real as navigators and explorers of our own bodies.

There has been an emergence of podcasts and online resources, as well as women in the spotlight more readily and openly talking about their middle-aged and menopause experiences. The renaissance of grey hair as a symbol of womanhood and wisdom has run parallel to this and I couldn’t be happier about it all.

As the only girl-child in my family, growing up a world away from my grandmothers in England, and with a mum who went through early menopause due to cancer treatment before passing away at the youthful age of 46, I have been devoid of any family markers on the landscape to measure my own menopausal experience by.

It has been quite a trip! Venturing into the unknown, armed with some understanding of biology (largely thanks to my job and a keen interest in anatomy from a young age), I have accepted the challenges of hot flushes, period pauses, aching joints, brain fog and a whole new bodily rhythm as a way of creating conversations.

There have been many times in board meetings or public forums where my usually articulate self has given way to a complete loss of language, often mid-sentence, resulting in more than pregnant pauses. The temptation to paper over it is there, however, in tribute to the sisterhood renaissance, I have seized these moments as opportunities to claim my perimenopause by naming it.

The older women in the room generally nod and smile knowingly, while the blokes in the room follow my lead by pausing too. Hopefully, it’s out of consideration. Even the indomitable TV personality that is Patrick Gower recently dedicated a whole segment of his Paddy Gower Has Issues show to menopause in the last month.

And, it was interesting to note that the idea of menopause leave was pitched to political leaders Chris Hipkins and Christopher Luxon during the recent leaders’ debates in the election campaign, and their response was in the affirmative.

It seems that our maturity towards menopause is heading in the right direction. I have particularly enjoyed podcasts by Petra Bagust that have taken a deep dive into women’s experiences of ‘the change’. Check out Grey Areas. As Petra says, “It’s an honest, raw podcast where we chat about things that often don’t get enough attention.” Highly recommended!

Two wonderful women’s health opportunities are coming up that I’d love to invite you to join in. The terrific team from Her Fitness have put together a Talking Menopause panel discussion on Tuesday, November 14, from 6-8pm, cost $30. Contact the team to register.

Also that week, the annual Porritt Lecture continues the women’s health theme with special guest presenter Professor Peter Sykes who is a gynaecological oncologist and colposcopist from Christchurch. He has been instrumental in the study of Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and the prevention of cervical cancer in New Zealand. The free lecture is open to the public and begins at 5.30pm on Thursday, November 16, in the Concert Chamber of the War Memorial Centre.

Email: womnet.whanganui@gmail.com