Thread by @monaeltahawy

When the final results of the U.S. #MidtermElection are in, let's see how many women governors, senators, representative etc are at the age of the #menopause transition and how many talk about it publicly in the way only Nicola Sturgeon so far has.

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

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

#Menopause #Midterms

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

feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-po… #MidtermElections2022 #Menopause

For too long, women in politics have had to hide all that makes them a cis woman or flaunt all that the patriarchy most values in a woman–youth, fertility, motherhood. Look at Giorgia Meloni’s “I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am Christian” france24.com/en/live-news/2…

Nicola Sturgeon refuses that game and in so doing has signaled she is out of the bounds of patriarchal control. Surely that is what makes us menopausal folks so terrifying. #Menopause

And surely that is why we have been shamed into feeling we have “lost” something. So that we don’t recognize what we have gained.

Power. We have gained power.

feministgiant.com/p/essay-menopa… #Menopause #MidtermElections2022

“There is an upside to this stage in life where menopause can reduce women’s confidence but I think getting to this stage in life gives you another kind of confidence…‘eff it a little bit and say what you think and who cares what other people think," Nicola Sturgeon.

There is a liberating element to all of this," First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon

feministgiant.com/p/essay-the-po… #Menopause #Midterms

Perhaps I'll call my next essay the Midterms Menopause or the Menopause Midterms, something like that!

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feministgiant.com