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Sep 20 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Menopause has made a wreck of me, a necessary wreck. My new essay feministgiant.com/p/essay-menopa… Four pictures of Mona arranged in a square. In each she is w
As I promised, I called my latest essay "Menopause is Shit. Menopause is Amazing."

I feel as if I'm almost there now. Deceptive perhaps (when your period returns after 10 months away, you understand menopause can be the great deceiver), but I feel as if I’m arriving somewhere.
To get there, I look back at the years behind me as if reassessing a wreckage of sorts. A necessary wreckage. I don’t know who I am becoming but to emerge into her, I must unbecome.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-menopa…
Pair my new essay on menopause with this one I wrote about Everything Everywhere All at Once feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-me… #Menopause #Perimenopause
And remember to moisturize your vulva and vagina.

feministgiant.com/p/moisturize-y… #Menopause #Perimenopause
All my essays on menopause are at FEMINIST GIANT.

Subscribe for free--no paywall or ads--and get new essays delivered to your inbox.

If you can pay, it helps to keep it free.

feministgiant.com
I am also editing this menopause anthology

unbound.com/books/bloody-h…

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More from @monaeltahawy

Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
Sep 21
For FEMINIST GIANT, I have written 13 essays on peri/menopause and getting older. Here they are:

#Menopause is the hardest thing that has ever happened to me. And it’s the best thing I’ve ever gone through.

Menopause is shit. Menopause is amazing. feministgiant.com/p/essay-menopa… Four pictures of Mona arran...
One of the greatest gifts of #menopause is shamelessness.

In lieu of my menstrual cycle, instead of shedding the lining of my uterus, I am shedding the lining of patriarchal fuckery that I was socialized into.

feministgiant.com/p/moisturize-y… A picture of Mona sitting a...
Understanding the macrocosm of the pandemic through the microcosm of #perimenopause: we must emerge, not regress.

I refuse to emerge as if unscathed. I insist that we all be scathed, that we refuse to be the people we were at the start.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-fallin… #Menopause
Read 14 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
Sep 21
I turned 55 this summer and all I could think was: I don’t remember what I used to be and I don’t know who I am becoming. But I welcome her! feministgiant.com/p/essay-menopa… Four pictures of Mona arran...
“How can I compete with men when I can’t sleep?”

I was enraged when I read that quote from a perimenopausal woman who was struggling in the corporate world

And that's why wrecking it all is the theme of my essay. feministgiant.com/p/essay-menopa…
We were never meant to thrive in this world, built by (able-bodied, wealthy, cisgender heterosexual, white) men for (able-bodied, wealthy, cisgender heterosexual, white) men. “How can I compete with men when I can’t sleep?” The simple answer of course is you cannot.
Read 5 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
Sep 21
In my late 40s and especially after I turned 50, I would wake up too often with an impending sense of doom. I had no idea that it was anxiety, a common impact of perimenopause but brand new for me. It was the worst impact of menopause for me. I write about it in my new essay
Menopause is a transition, so I know things won't suddenly change as I emerge through peri and into postmenopause, which I'm hoping is soon because I haven't had a period in 11 months and if I get one again I will fucking DESTROY MANY THINGS.
I had no idea anxiety would hit me so hard.

I realise now that when I wrote this, I was referring to my anxiety:

"my mind felt like a car that was trying to drive with the hand brake on. And there was nothing to do but sit with it, screeching and all."

feministgiant.com/p/essay-fallin…
Read 13 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
Sep 20
My neon yellow hair plays a big role in this essay about menopause. This afternoon, waiting to cross the street next to a man and his daughter (about 6yo), he complimented my hair and I heard him say to her “She is doing what she wants and is happy to be different.” I loved it.
In all the messages we give little girls, let’s always include “Do what you want and be happy to be different.”

So that they don’t have to wait for menopause to claim it.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-menopa…
Support my work and subscribe.

It’s free. No paywall or ads.

If you can pay, it helps to keep it free.

feministgiant.com
Read 8 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
Sep 20
This coming month—if my period stays where it is and does not return—will mark 12 months without a period and I will finally be done. Post-menopausal Mona—yes yes I want that! Until then, my latest essay Four pictures of Mona arran...
The closer I get to Post-menopausal Mona, the more I feel like running up to older women in the subway and yelling “I KNOW! I FUCKING KNOW!”

feministgiant.com/p/essay-menopa…
How many of us are ready for perimenopause? I am a feminist and until shamefully recently, I thought menopause would take a few months or so during which my period would sort of peter out and boom I’m done.

Wow, have I learned. 

feministgiant.com/p/essay-bloody…
Read 8 tweets
Mona Eltahawy Profile picture
Sep 20
I turned 55 this summer. And all I kept thinking was I don’t remember what I used to be and I don’t know who I am becoming. #Menopause has discombobulated all of me. It has taken whatever Mona I used to be pre-perimenopause and shaken her free at the seams feministgiant.com/p/essay-menopa… Four pictures of Mona arran...
I look back at the years behind me as if reassessing a wreckage of sorts.

A necessary wreckage.

I think of Adrienne Rich's Diving Into the Wreck

“I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done.”
-Adrienne Rich
In Rich’s poem, the dive is to explore & challenge the myths of patriarchy.

What if menopause is a dive into the self to explore the myths of what we're supposed to be at this stage of our life, what "success" is, what "milestones" to celebrate or regret. And to then wreck them
Read 5 tweets

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