Culture and Menopause?
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| https://wunrn.com/2016/01/growing-older-around-the-world-latest-trends-in-ageing-older-women/ |
Menopause is the ending stage of menstruation, simply whereas the woman does not get a period anymore, making her infertile. Women should go through menopause at the end of their reproductive years putting the age mark in her 40's or 50's. Although this is something biological that happens to almost every woman, cultures around the world yield different outcomes on how the woman perceives and feels about menopause. Her perspective however is not the only opinion on menopause, the way the people in a woman's culture perceive it is an important factor as well.
To quickly glaze over the U.S., women report symptoms like hot/cold flashes as well as night sweats. However, these symptoms are not universal, as symptoms vary from culture to culture. In a study done in 1970 by Marcha Flint showed that Indian women reported very differently in that they complained about NO symptoms other than menstrual changes (Flint). Another woman named Margaret Lock found a decade later that shoulder stiffness ranked the highest among Japanese women and hot flashes were rare among this cultural group. These studies have shown that wherever you live in the world you will probably have a different outcome in menopause. Everyone will have a different experience because not everyone has the same lifestyle.
In a western culture like the one we live in today, we tend to mark menopause as an ending. This is however not the case with many other cultures across the world. In a post called "Menopause around the world" writer Kaitlyn Pote states that,"A study reported that Mayan women, although experiencing some uncomfortable symptoms, looked forward to menopause, as it provided newfound freedom and status (Stefanopoulou). Marcha Flint found that in Rajasthan, India, women who were veiled and secluded before menopause, could now "come downstairs from their women's quarters to where the men talked and drank home brew" and could publicly visit and joke with men after menopause (Flint 1975)." After reading this statement in Kaitlyn Pote's article, I fully agree that the culture you live in changes how menopause is perceived.
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| https://www.helpage.org/newsroom/latest-news/older-people-across-the-world-march-against-ageism-/ |
To wrap things up, menopause is completely different for everyone. There should be more studies done in multiple cultures that we don't have data in to see how big the differences are around the world. Knowing what I know now I am very interested in finding out more about why women are going through the same exact natural process, all with different symptoms.
Resources
Pote, K. (2020). Menopause Around the World - Women in Balance Institute. [online] Women in Balance Institute. Available at: https://womeninbalance.org/2014/09/17/menopause-around-the-world/ [Accessed 10 Feb. 2020].
Mayo Clinic. (2020). Menopause - Symptoms and causes. [online] Available at: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/menopause/symptoms-causes/syc-20353397 [Accessed 10 Feb. 2020].
