When Naomi Watts proclaims that menopause is a badge of honor, it’s a sign that the tide has finally turned in favor of older women.
For three thousand years menopause has been shameful. But now, in 2025, are you even a celebrity if you don’t proudly and joyfully proclaim your lack of hormones?
I’ve had my finger on the weak pulse of the topic of midlife women’s health for the past decade, and in that time it has gone from tedious and toxic to the top of everyone’s hot list.
This week, our US book, Menopause Is Hot, which I wrote with journalist Alice Smellie, is published in the US, with a foreword by the incredible Naomi.
The topic of declining hormones has finally gone global and there are a number of reasons why menopause could be the best thing that can happen to you. What’s more, it’s a gang that everyone wants to join.
As I say, it hasn’t always been like this. Since the time of the Greek philosophers, women’s bleeding – and its cessation – has been variously considered: impure, poisonous, madness-producing, and generally repulsive.
The enforced shame of being an older woman, coupled with the array of horrendous cures we’re presented with, from leeches to ice water injections to chloroform, it’s no wonder we barely talk about it.
In 2015 I first wrote about menopause and then in 2018 I made a well-received BBC program about it. I figured I’d done enough and left that particular issue (there’s still a lot to campaign for when it comes to women’s rights!).
Menopause Is Hot, by Mariella Frostrup and journalist Alice Smellie (left), opens in the United States this week.
Then five years ago, just before Covid, Alice and I visited a five-star hotel in rural Hampshire. Along with the wonderful massages and divine food, there was a seminar on menopause, organized by a well-known duo from the UK.
We both sat in mounting horror as one by one intelligent, articulate women stood up and said they were “just going to get through this” and were “not going to give in” to HRT – or MHT as it is known in the United States.
There was an overwhelming air of disconcerting shame. That was the night we decided to write the book. It is evident that women still did not know what menopause was or what to do about it.
In 2021 our first book Cracking the Menopause was published, in 2022 we launched a Menopause Mandate campaign group and in October 2024 I was awarded the title of Menopause Jobs Ambassador by the UK Government.
Five years later, our book on the topic in the United States, significantly updated to include experts and interviewees in the United States, has just been released in the United States. We are beyond honored that an excerpt was published on Oprah Daily.
The cessation of menstruation, which is a natural progression that every woman will go through at some point in her life, is finally being recognized, and even seen as a cause for celebration.
So what are the positives? Why the joy? Well, first of all, the menopausal transition is a liminal phase, a few years of hormonal disruption.
What’s more, most (many) potential symptoms can be treated and the long-term effects (on the heart, bones and brain) of a lack of estrogen can be counteracted with a combination of lifestyle and MHT ( menopausal hormone therapy).
Naomi Watts, pictured at this year’s Golden Globes, was warned not to reveal that she had entered early menopause because it would draw attention to her age.
Most of us begin to notice the signs of perimenopause (the years before the final cut) in our forties, usually with subtle symptoms; changes in periods, insomnia and anxiety.
Other symptoms, and there are said to be at least 34 (we counted 50 in a recent article we wrote) include hot flashes, night sweats, dry skin, dry eyes, increased urinary tract infections, pain during sexual intercourse, headaches… .the list is seemingly endless.
The average age of menopause (you are said to have ‘gone’ menopause 12 months after your last period) is 51, and then you are postmenopausal for the rest of your life.
But there are many things you can do to relieve physical and emotional symptoms. The global consensus is that for most women, MHT has more benefits than risks.
For those who can’t (who have had hormonal cancers) or don’t want to take it, there are many other medications and options available.
The book is published this week in the US and reveals why the topic of women’s health in midlife is no longer toxic
It is vital that menopause is addressed holistically. This is a fantastic time to consider the lifestyle, not only for the short-term benefits and relief of menopause symptoms, but also for health longevity, which is the buzzword in 2025; Live longer without chronic health problems.
Muscle, heart, and bone health is directly improved by increasing exercise, quitting smoking, moderating alcohol consumption, and improving diet. In addition, you reduce the risk of suffering from diseases such as cancer.
Other benefits of menopause, and this may seem obvious, are relief from periods and worry about getting pregnant, after years of trying or not trying. No TPM, no bleeding…no unexplained crying one day a month.
We did a lot of research to try to establish the position of middle-aged women, historically dismissed as useless and/or poisonous, and to our surprise, there are a number of studies showing that this may be the most exciting time of our lives. lives. .
Traditionally we think that men suffer from midlife crises. Well, you may be interested to know that the majority of divorces – 70% – are instigated by women.
Research has also shown that we are more likely to be happy in middle age; We have more control of our personal lives and finances (not always, obviously) and we often have more freedom.
We lose our need to care and appreciate and rather find renewed ambition and enthusiasm for new experiences. By age seventy we are more likely to have accumulated wealth, to be willing to spend (although this is not reflected in advertising, by the way), so we are at our strongest economically.
But it is also true that women refuse to be pigeonholed in that gray elephant cemetery of uselessness to which we have historically been consigned.
We can’t be expected to work, do most of the housework, and then agree to retire into society just because we have fewer fertility hormones.
Increasingly, we recognize that the patriarchy is wrong (horror) that we are less productive and less attractive just because we have a few more wrinkles. It started as a trickle, but now it’s an avalanche of awareness that middle age is not an end.
Women are finally moving – slowly – like a great hormonal glacier – towards greater equality, although I have to accept that, sadly, the gender gap will not close in my lifetime.
As Halle Berry talks about menopause on Capitol Hill and Drew Barrymore has her first hot flash on TV, is it any wonder that the last must-have item on the list is a proud shout about women’s health in later life?
It’s taken three thousand years, but menopause has finally come in from the cold and is the hottest topic out there. And we are here for it!
Menopause Is Hot by Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie is available now