Thread by @monaeltahawy

“This is one of the reasons why I’m talking about it…There are very few women who’ve been in top positions in politics, but of those who have been, if you think about Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton, Thatcher they must all have gone through this,” Nicola Sturgeon on #menopause

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

Nicola Sturgeon is not the first woman to lead a country. But it is telling that the only other cis woman leader that she can compare her experience of the #menopause transition with is fictonal--Danish TV series Borgen’s Birgitte Nyborg feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-po…

For many reasons, women reach pinnacles of political power as they enter midlife–be it age requirements of certain political positions, more time because their children (if they have them) have grown, or simply because it takes years to accrue power and to make it up that ladder.

And it is at that moment, in midlife as they accrue the most political power, that cis women also go through the #menopause transition.

That is no coincidence. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-po…

Because we are finally able to seize a power that for too long we were told was off limits and it is the power of menopause–the power that #menopause bestows–that propels us over those limits.

But the silence around it makes it seem like it is a liability. And they know it will be used as such, as is any difference between women and men used by patriarchy to disadvantage women.

And this is what makes First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon brave, although it should not be brave to talk about your body doing exactly what it should be doing and to talk about it without shame.

But it is also what makes Sturgeon powerful. feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-po…

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