Hot Flash: How Understanding Menopause Can Improve Life and Law for Everyone dissolves the silence and stigma surrounding menopause. The book frames menopause as part of the reproductive lifespan and suggests how to reimagine law and society to take into account the biological needs of all people. Menopause is a health condition that half the population will inevitably experience, but it remains one of the last great taboo topics—even among close friends or family members. Silence and stigmas around menopause create the conditions in which bias and discrimination can flourish in personal relationships, the workplace, doctors’ offices, scientific research, and even courts of law. Hot Flash: How Understanding Menopause Can Improve Life and Law for Everyone dissolves the silence and stigma surrounding menopause. The book frames menopause as part of the reproductive lifespan and suggests how to reimagine law and society to take into account the biological needs of all people. Menopause is a health condition that half the population will inevitably experience, but it remains one of the last great taboo topics—even among close friends or family members. Silence and stigmas around menopause create the conditions in which bias and discrimination can flourish in personal relationships, the workplace, doctors’ offices, scientific research, and even courts of law.
This book sets out a reform agenda that will move society in the direction of treating menopause as an expected part of life, akin to pregnancy or breastfeeding. The authors connect the need for more awareness about menopause to the importance of more openness about all reproduction-related conditions and processes, especially those often shrouded in silence, from menstruation to infertility to miscarriage to abortion. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overruled Roe v. Wade, has brought reproductive life to the fore of national politics in a new way. The authors understand menopause as one part of that reproductive life. They emphasize the importance of knowledge and bodily autonomy for all.
The authors also highlight menopause discrimination as an issue that uniquely lies at intersection of gender, aging, and disability. In the past, menopause was often treated as a problem or condition in which women lost their femininity. The “cure” came in the form of hormonal treatments that were touted as both restoring women’s sexuality and preventing disease. While later studies have dispelled some of the myths associated with hormonal treatments, there still is a great deal that scientists, doctors, and the general public do not know about hormonal treatments for menopause. There is also a noticeable absence of research about how race and other identity factors may impact the experience of menopause, its diagnosis, and management.
After describing common cultural tropes about menopause in the United States, the authors then examine how U.S. law accounts for menopause discrimination (spoiler alert: it doesn’t). The authors contrast the U.S. with the United Kingdom, where there have been recent efforts to make workplaces more sensitive to the needs of workers of menopausal age. They suggest changes in existing legislation and workplace policies that could help ensure equality for all, in part by harnessing the momentum of the current menstrual equity movement. They urge reimagining law and society to take into account the biological needs of all people and provide concrete suggestions for what is needed. This book sets out a reform agenda that will move society in the direction of treating menopause as an expected part of life, akin to pregnancy or breastfeeding. The authors connect the need for more awareness about menopause to the importance of more openness about all reproduction-related conditions and processes, especially those often shrouded in silence, from menstruation to infertility to miscarriage to abortion. The Supreme Court’s opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overruled Roe v. Wade, has brought reproductive life to the fore of national politics in a new way. The authors understand menopause as one part of that reproductive life. They emphasize the importance of knowledge and bodily autonomy for all.
The authors also highlight menopause discrimination as an issue that uniquely lies at intersection of gender, aging, and disability. In the past, menopause was often treated as a problem or condition in which women lost their femininity. The “cure” came in the form of hormonal treatments that were touted as both restoring women’s sexuality and preventing disease. While later studies have dispelled some of the myths associated with hormonal treatments, there still is a great deal that scientists, doctors, and the general public do not know about hormonal treatments for menopause. There is also a noticeable absence of research about how race and other identity factors may impact the experience of menopause, its diagnosis, and management.
After describing common cultural tropes about menopause in the United States, the authors then examine how U.S. law accounts for menopause discrimination (spoiler alert: it doesn’t). The authors contrast the U.S. with the United Kingdom, where there have been recent efforts to make workplaces more sensitive to the needs of workers of menopausal age. They suggest changes in existing legislation and workplace policies that could help ensure equality for all, in part by harnessing the momentum of the current menstrual equity movement. They urge reimagining law and society to take into account the biological needs of all people and provide concrete suggestions for what is needed.