“What Menopause Taught Me,” a personal essay on The Cut, redefines menopause. Through anecdotal passages, Darcey Steinke explains journey from life before and after menopause hits, with one clear exception: Instead of limiting menopause to be a drudgery of an experience Steinke paints it as an empowering life stage.
“Stopping reproduction gave women the freedom they needed — not to care for grandkids, but so they could lead,” writes Steinke. Spoiler alert (just in case), but the big conclusion Steinke arrives at is that menopause should be rebranded from the punchline of everyone’s jokes to the goal that women should aspire to reach to. In Steinke’s eyes, it’s a time in which freedom, empowerment, and possibility overcome a woman’s body completely, leaving no other option but to accept its arrival.
What do you think? Is it time for menopause to be redefined?
Cover image courtesy of Shutterstock.
comments