Culture and Menopause
I have not yet experienced the symptoms of ‘menopause’, yet my mother and other family members started warning me at a young age of the senility, hot flashes, and potential facial hair growth that could occur. This, of course, made me anything but excited about reaching the end of my reproductive years. However, a recent lecture on the subject made me rethink much of what I, and my American female peers, have been told about menopause.
Some aspects I never considered before:
1. Every culture experiences menopause differently. Not every culture experiences the same symptoms or approaches the period in a woman’s life in the same way. Some speculate that the different symptoms may be due to the typical diets of various cultures. (1, 2)
2. Despite what we hear, many women have very few or no symptoms at all around menopause. (6) There is reason to believe that many menopausal symptoms reported are largely influenced by the environment and cultural beliefs woman have about that period of their life.
3. It is difficult to determine what symptoms are associated with age and which are due to menopause itself. One study demonstrated that men and women of similar ages experience many of the same ‘symptoms’ that are frequently associated only with menopause. Some of the symptoms that are proven to consistently plague women across cultures around menopause are hot flashes and vaginal dryness. (5)
While symptoms do occur during menopause, assuming problems are caused by the infamous ‘change of life’ could result in a misdiagnosis and unneccessary negative feelings and stress about a natural occurrence. Many problems may simply be from aging itself or other causes unrelated to menopause.
FOR MORE INFORMATION CHECK OUT THESE SOURCES ON MENOPAUSE:
1. Vanda. Menopause Center: What’s the Difference? Available online at: http://health.discovery.com/centers/womens/menopausenew/culture/culture....
2. Melby MK, Lock M, Kaufert P. Culture and symptom reporting at menopause Hum Reprod Update. 2005 Sep-Oct;11(5):495-512. Epub 2005 May 26. PMID: 15919681
Available online at: http://humupd.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/dmi018v1
3. Medline Plus. Menopause. Last reviewed March 12, 2008.
Available online at: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/menopause.html
4. Office on Women’s Health. Menopause and Menopause Treatments. March 2006
Available online at: http://www.womenshealth.gov/faq/menopaus.htm
5. Obermeyer CM. Menopause across cultures: a review of the evidence. Menopause. 2000 May-Jun;7(3):184-92. PMID: 10810964
6. NIH State-of-the-Science Conference Statement on management of menopause-related symptoms.NIH Consens State Sci Statements. 2005 Mar 21-23;22(1):1-38.
Comments
Menopause does tend to take on different meanings in different cultures. I've read that in some Asian countries, menopause is known as the 'second spring.
"At around age 50, this time also usually coincides with the completion of a woman's child rearing duty. With her familial obligations mostly fulfilled, she is now freer to pursue her life and personal dreams. Further, by this time, she has acquired tremendous life experience and wisdom that will allow her to fully blossom into who she is in the second half of her life." (Source: www.acupuncture.com.
Definitely prefer this outlook to more Westernized viewpoints where menopausal women sometimes feel like castoffs.
One interesting note in the articles you shared was the frozen shoulder syndrome experienced by women of other cultures. I'll need to explore this further.
Thanks for the eye-opening article.
I agree, that is a much more positive outlook than the one American girls are typically raised with. :)
Google brought me here and this a very thoughtful post. You said, "Despite what we hear, many women have very few or no symptoms at all around menopause. (6) There is reason to believe that many menopausal symptoms reported are largely influenced by the environment and cultural beliefs woman have about that period of their life." In my own reading, I've found this to be true. For example, in West Africa, yam is a very common part of a woman's diet. Yam has been shown to have weak phytoestrogens (like soy) and in West Africa, menopause symptoms are reportedly not a common part of a woman's life. Food for thought! I believe that the U.S. is so caught up in the HRT debate, that we don't look beyond that to other cultural changes that could make aging and menopause seen as more a natural stage of life than something that needs to be fought. I recommend Dr. Northrup's Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and the Womentowomen.com site for a more holistic view of menopause. It changed my life! Here's the "Test Your Menopause I.Q." from womentowomen.com: http://www.womentowomen.com/community/survey/testyourmenopauseiq.aspx
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