Thread by @monaeltahawy

“There's an upside to this stage in life where menopause can reduce women’s confidence but I think getting to this stage gives you another kind of confidence…F it a little bit & say what you think & who cares what other people think...There's a liberating element to all of this”

https://twitter.com/monaeltahawy/status/1585036070562934784

The above quote is from First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon. She is not the first woman to lead a country, but it is telling that she is the only one who has spoken publicly about her menopause transition feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-po…

Because other than Sturgeon and Danish TV series Borgen’s Birgitte Nyborg, you would think that being elected into office rendered female political leaders immune from a life transition that affects everyone who has ever had a uterus. #menopause

Here we are, with only Sturgeon, 52, in real life, and Birgitte Nyborg as her counterpart in drama, talking about hot flashes, anxiety, rage, insomnia and other ways that going through the menopausal transition is affecting them. #menopause

But even in Borgen, that conversation is between Nyborg–former fictional prime minister and now fictional foreign minister and fictional leader of her fictional party–and her (fictional) doctor.

Sturgeon has been telling the whole,real world.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-po… #menpause

Read, like, and share my essays.

It's free to subscribe to FEMINIST GIANT--no paywall or ads.

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

feministgiant.com

Even those who weren't heads of state have only just recently started talking about #menopause.

In Aug 2020 on her eponymous podcast, former U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama, 58, described in surreal detail going through a hot flash as she was about to climb out of Marine One.

“I'm dressed, I need to get out, walk into an event, and, literally, it was like somebody put a furnace in my core and turned it on high, and then everything started melting. And I thought, 'Well, this is crazy. I can't, I can't, I can't do this.'" harpersbazaar.com/celebrity/late…

In Sept 2022, on 1st episode of docuseries Gutsy that she co-hosts with her daughter Chelsea, former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton talked about menopause with comedian Wanda Sykes, who has taken to calling her menopause belly Esther. people.com/politics/hilla…

"It was toward the end of the second term, after I turned 50 in 1997, that I began to go through menopause, and it was something you didn't talk about in those days. My friends and I would talk about it or roll our eyes, but not publicly," Hillary Clinton, 74. #menopause

Michelle Obama described her husband, President Barack Obama, seeing #menopause around him.

So clearly, #menopause is an open secret wherever midlife cis women are.

And remember it is shrouded in even more silence for trans, intersex, and nonbinary people. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-po…