Full Description
A woman muses about buying lovely new panties; another journeys inward and outward to redefine her life, a blogger offers information, support, and community to perimenopausal women; researchers uncover myths and misconceptions about migrant and refugee women's experiences of menopause; a gerontology scholar extrapolates for menopause the meanings of cultural representations of childbirth; a sociologist and intersex advocate challenges her medically constructed menopause; young women's stories inform an inquiry into the health and social repercussions of primary ovarian insufficiency—all in a collection of research papers and personal narratives that moves far beyond the idea of menopause as a mere biological marker. While biomedical and feminist researchers agree that menopause is a time of transition and border crossing, they offer diverse viewpoints about whether perimenopause and menopause signal deficiency and burden, or growth and freedom, or both. So too, contributors to this collection—influenced by factors of age, cultural background, societal context, and physical and psychological experience—vary significantly in their perspectives of this process. Research, analysis, narrative, poetry, and art intermingle to create a multi-textured montage that challenges stereotypes, probes relationships, and defies categorization. Musings on Perimenopause and Menopause: Identity, Experience, Transition, provides insight into how women think about and experience the transition to menopause in contemporary times.
Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
Laura Wershler and Heather Dillaway
1. MENO-TYPICAL
The Anatomy of a Hot Flash
Beth Osnes
"Gone Girl:" The Menopause in Popular Culture
Mary Jane Lupton
Myths and Misconceptions: Migrant and Refugee Women's Constructions and Experiences of Menopause
Jane Ussher, Alexandra Hawkey, and Janette Perz
The SWAN Study: Race, Gender, Identity, and Menopause
Mindy Fried
Slouching Toward Menopause
Joanne Gilbert
2. OUT OF STEP
Before Your Time: When Menopause Comes Too Soon
Evelina W. Sterling, Christine Eads, Starr Vuchetich, and Catherine M. Gordon
Shadow Story
Yolanda Kauffman
Just Before Menopause
Donna J. Gelagotis Lee
Patches Not Pads: An Intersex Experience with Post-Surgical (Pseudo) Menopause
Georgiann Davis and Koyel Khan
3. BLOOD RELATIONS
Waiting for Seventeen Days
Heather Dillaway
"Dear Magnolia.....Nobody Really Understands....What Can I Do?": Reflections on a Perimenopausal Blog as Social Support
Gillian Anderson
Finding Bedrock
Marie Maccagno
Menopause Claimed
Laura Wershler
4. UNLEASHED
Harsh Blessings: On Finding Poetry at Fifty
Magali Roy-Féquière
Uninhabitable Lives: Narrative Strategies of Menopause Experience in Notes on a Scandal and Carol
Sylvie Teillay-Gambaudo
Perimenopause: The Body, Mind, and Spirit in Transition
Victoria Team
From the Crowning to the Crone: Extrapolating Judy Chicago's Birth Project to Older Women Anne Barrett
All New Panties
Cayo Gamber
Contributor Notes
