Menopause in the Mainstream: A Global Perspective and How Pop Culture is Helping to Break the Silence

In some societies, menopause is regarded as a natural part of the aging process for women as it’s something that notably affects 50% of the population.¹ There are even some cultures that celebrate menopause, highlighting it as a rite of passage of sorts.² In some Western cultures, however, it has more of a negative connotation – often being associated with the end of sexual vitality, fertility and an indication of aging.³

However, a shift away from this more negative viewpoint has started, and pop culture, along with the media, are beginning to play a key role in menopause finally becoming more mainstream. This shift is potentially groundbreaking, as stereotypes about aging can have serious negative impacts on mental health, general attitude, outlook and overall health and wellbeing.⁴

Cultural Differences in Attitudes Towards Menopause

Along with socioeconomic and lifestyle factors, cultural attitudes and beliefs toward menopause — whether they’re modern or traditional in origin — can greatly affect how women perceive, experience, and even choose to manage their menopausal symptoms.⁵

In some societies, menopause has been a subject of silence, embarrassment, and has been tied to a general lack of public awareness or misunderstanding. As a result, women have endured menopause as more of a private matter.⁶ In societies where menopause isn’t as openly discussed, healthcare providers have been known to refer to the perfectly natural life stage solely as a result of hormonal deficiency, often recommending estrogen replacement as the primary treatment for their patients.⁷ The lack of conversation and education around the topic doesn’t help either – with many women choosing to not even discuss menopause or their experience with their healthcare providers.

In other cultures, people view menopause as a normal part of the aging process and as a time of transition to a new phase of a woman’s life. In these cultures, women are more active in developing their menopause symptom management plans with providers, giving them a greater sense of control over their health and wellbeing and enabling their physicians to provide them with better care.⁸

In Japan, for example, menopause has traditionally been viewed as a venerated time for women to transition to a valuable new life purpose; it’s been noted that Japanese women also have more access to quality healthcare and have adopted a preventative mindset when it comes to the management of menopause symptoms. ⁹

In traditional Chinese medicine, menopause is often considered to be a normal part of the aging process and is most commonly associated with the body being in balance or not – symptom management tends to revolve around restoring any imbalances.¹⁰

The Indian Ayurvedic system of medicine commonly views menopause as a natural, transitional, cycle of life, where certain metabolic changes occur and extra care must be taken to support overall health and wellbeing.¹¹

In these and other cultures around the world, menopause is not broadly viewed as a disease, and women are more empowered to seek out support for their symptoms – which may or may not include hormone therapy. While every woman will go through menopause in their own unique way, they may be able to achieve a more positive experience of the menopause transition if they choose to actively address their symptoms.

While traditional cultural opinions may still remain, a recent shift in how menopause is being portrayed in pop culture and by the media may help to shift the way women view menopause and their decision on how to manage their symptoms.

Evolving Portrayals of Menopause in Pop Culture

In early 20th-century radio, television, and other media, menopause was mentioned almost exclusively in jokes about hot flashes and mood swings. That started to slowly evolve, however, in the 1970s. In its 1972 season, All in the Family, a sitcom acclaimed for stridently addressing a range of social issues, aired “Edith’s Problem,” an episode focused on the family’s matriarch dealing with early menopause symptoms.¹²

Over the next two decades, other television shows presented similar episodes discussing menopause, including The Golden Girl’s “End of the Curse” (1986), where a pregnancy scare leads Blanche to realize she’s actually in menopause,¹³ The Cosby Show’s “Claire’s Liberation” (1990) where main character Claire begins her menopause transition,¹⁴ and That 70s Show’s “Heartbreaker” (2002) – another instance of a mistaken pregnancy, which turns out to be the start of menopause for main character, Kitty.¹⁵

These episodes had good intentions, but the menopause symptoms these leading ladies were experiencing were mostly highlighted to incite laughter – which could speak to how menopause was viewed during this time. Although these shows helped bring attention to the topic of menopause, they continued to perpetuate existing cultural norms of that period in time, by presenting menopause in a negative light — as a problem for women to bear, an affliction to be dreaded, and an uncomfortable, taboo topic to discuss.

Current Ways of Breaking the Silence About Menopause in the Media

Fast forward to present day, menopause has become more of a common theme in musicals, sitcoms and on the big screen, and is being approached in a more realistic manner. These more balanced presentations have increased the visibility and understanding around the transitional phase of menopause and have provided more of an educational perspective on the topic.

For example, Menopause the Musical, Sex and the City, House of Cards, Sex Education, Big Mouth, Better Things, Fleabag, Grace and Frankie, and Nine Perfect Strangers are just some of the notable shows that have featured more honest discussions about menopause and how it affects women’s lives.

Celebrities are also using their platforms more readily in order to draw positive attention to menopause.¹⁶ For example, in 2018, Gwyneth Paltrow made headlines by announcing that her company Goop wanted to “rebrand menopause” by changing the way women think and talk about it.¹⁷ In 2023, Oprah Winfrey hosted a “The Menopause Talk,” a panel discussion that featured Drew Barrymore, Maria Shriver, and two doctors. The women frankly shared their menopause experiences; a conversation that had long been considered too personal for public discussion.¹⁸ That same year, Ms. Magazine hosted “Menopause Needs a Margaret,” a panel discussion focused on the representation of menopause in popular culture.¹⁹ And more recently, in May of 2024, Halle Berry joined a group of U.S. senators to advocate for legislation that would allocate $275 million for menopause research and education.²⁰

The conversation is clearly evolving, and influential women are choosing to vocalize their experiences in the hopes of continuing to make menopause more mainstream.

Sharing the Menopause Journey

Constructive and positive pop culture depictions of menopause, along with influential women and celebrities sharing their own, authentic experiences, are helping to make menopause an integral part of the public discussion of women’s health.

These efforts will hopefully help to transform the negative stereotypes surrounding menopause and increase awareness of possible treatments to address menopause symptoms, which may include medical intervention, hormone-free options, stress management, self-care, and lifestyle changes.

All of these approaches can help a woman better support her mind, body, and sexual wellness during this phase of life, and it’s encouraging to see that we, as a society, are finally more open to talking about it.

Resources

1. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01099-6/fulltext
2. https://www.thewomensjournal.co.uk/womens-life/health-wellness/menopause-in-different-cultures-around-the-world
3. https://www.pghr.org/post/menopause-understanding-the-implications-of-society-and-culture
4. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2015/954027
5. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17515566
6. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01099-6/fulltext
7. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01099-6/fulltext
8. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0898010107299432  
9. https://www.womenshealthnetwork.com/menopause-and-perimenopause/menopause-in-different-cultures/
10. https://www.womenshealthnetwork.com/menopause-and-perimenopause/menopause-in-different-cultures/
11. https://www.amrtasiddhi.com/menapause
12. https://screenrant.com/all-family-ediths-problem-episode-facts-trivia/
13. https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheGoldenGirlsS02E01EndOfTheCurse
14. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0546966/plotsummary/
15. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0720097/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl
16. https://www.glamour.com/gallery/celebrities-who-have-spoken-out-about-menopause
17. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gwyneth-paltrow-menopause-perimenopause-symptoms-goop-madame-ovary-a8615781.html
18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI_ZHubzc_k
19. https://msmagazine.com/2023/07/07/menopause-judy-blume/
20. https://apnews.com/article/halle-berry-menopause-8fe88d4fd3d4e81a0ddcbedb12a35e08