"Unfortunately you have gone through the menopause" - everyday sexism?

[Flingmoo]

Everyday sexism...? Or am I being oversensitive?

DM is almost 50 and had a fertility/menopause test to find out if she's going through the menopause as she has been suffering from anxiety and wondered if that might be the cause. The GP called and told her "unfortunately" the test results show she is post menopausal. DM was baffled as she is certainly not intending on trying for a baby and didn't know why it's such "unfortunate" news...

I guess he was trying to be sympathetic but it annoys me that he made the assumption this would require sympathy? If anything, it's good news for her. If he'd looked at her medical file surely it would be clear that she had the test for a reason other than wanting to conceive?

I do understand some women might be hoping to conceive and the doctor has to be sensitive to their feelings, but isn't it really sexist to assume a natural part of womanhood is bad news, as if being post-menopausal means you're suddenly out-of-date? In case you can't tell, I was a bit miffed when she told me about all this.

Is this what I have to look forward to myself in 20 or so years time? 'Poor you, isn't it a shame you're no longer young and fertile?"

Being post menopausal can have health implications on a woman and at 50 some of them are way out of kilter with the lifestyle of a woman of this age. Things you would expect when you're older, not at this age.

Not everything is a feminist issue.

Not everything is a feminist issue.

I disagree with this. feminism is a political theory, like Marxism, capitalism etc. As such, our whole society, in fact 'everything', can be analysed from a feminist view-point. Of course, events or 'issues' which specifically involve women (or things which only happen to women) are particularly interesting when analysed from the feminist perspective - which is what the OP has done.

An interesting point of view Rosa. Thank you.

Just spotted this having posted on the HRT, informed consent and sexism thread!

What is sexist for me is the paternalistic attitudes towards telling women what their menopause is like/how it should be managed/how it will constrain their lives.

I am a woman having a crap menopause (see other thread!) I want the freedom to make my own informed decisions about my healthcare, even if that's saying that I will take medication which raises my risk of dying in the next five or ten years. I will make an informed choice about the trade-off between risk and quality of life. The medical profession saying that it is their choice to make, not mine, is a paternalistic and sexist decision.

But it's equally sexist for society to turn round and assume that every woman has a crap menopause and we can all be consigned to the scrap heap as old crones once it's happened to us (and in a mild, but still annoying way, this is what is happening to OP's mother).

So the menopause itself is a biological fact and facts aren't "sexist" - but choices about its management (if management is needed) and social attitudes towards women going through/post menopause can be and often are deeply sexist.

I just don't think it's necessarily an example of sexism or an implication that the menopause is a dreadful thing as all 'womens things' are by implication.

Women are having children later and later in life. There is a thread on MN at the moment about limited access to terminations in Ireland which states the oldest woman the organisation has helped was 51. There are many female posters on here who celebrate having their DCs in their late 40s. I know a woman heartbroken by a miscarriage at 53 with her new partner even though a pregnancy was totally unexpected. There are women in their 50s and 60s wanting children and undergoing medical intervention to make that a reality.

I don't think it's entirely unrealistic to suggest that being given the 'no more children are possible now' news was prefaced with an 'unfortunately' as for many women that final judgement that it will never happen is distressing.

I'm 37 but my Mum and her sisters went through menopause in their mid 40s so I know it's possible I will too.

I don't think I want children and haven't met a man who I would want to have children with. But I still have the hope that I could if I wanted to.

I would be gutted to be told it could NEVER happen so maybe that's where the GP was coming from in not knowing if OPs Mum would be delighted by the news or not and erring on the side of caution in a bid to be sensitive.

He's a sexist and a misogynist! I hope you wrote a very strongly written complaint and took to social media to out him as the horrible woman-hater he is.

If your DM didn't know if she was menopausal then if she's actually post-meno that implies she's got through it with minimal problems - sounds like rather a good thing to me(speaking as a 54 yo who thinks she must now be post meno but hasn't really had symptoms and has never felt fitter. If I was told for sure I was post I'd be pleased!)

I think it was mostly ageist but also somewhat sexist.

weebirdie - Since 51 is the average age of menopause, so a woman's periods have stopped for a year, this is exactly what most women this age experience.

aintgonna - Abortions rise at this age because women can have no periods for a year, so women stop using contraception, and then suddenly they have an egg released and become pregnant.

But since the average age for periods to stop is 50, then any woman hanging on to have children till this late age, is being unrealistic.

Morage, Im not even sure why Im answering you but here you are anyway - a lot of women, myself included, have periods way longer than the age of 50 or 51 so from my personal experience it would be acceptable for a woman to be surprised at 50 that she had gone through the menopause. And all the more so if she hadn't had the conventional symptoms associated with it.

I had my last period when I was 56 and its only now at just turned 58 that Im waiting on hormone tests to tell me just where I am with things.

My own symptoms that I thought were menopausal were in actual fact fluctuating blood sugar that Im now on medication for hence the need for a blood test to see just exactly where I am hormone wise.

I think you're quite mistaken to suggest most women experience the menopause at 51.

Weebirdie, I am going through the menopause. My GP told me that the average age of the menopause was 51 years of age and I have read this elsewhere. This is the average age when periods have stopped for one year.
Of course an average hides wide variations, and of course women can have symptoms that they think are due to the menopause, and are not.
But since 51 is the average age, then a woman who is 50 should not be surprised to experience the menopause.

Incidentally my experience is that the women I know have clustered around 51 years of age, some a bit younger, some a bit older. Average means something different from most.

For me this is all about the element of surprise. The OP's mum went to the Dr's with anxiety she didn't know the cause of and was told she had gone through the menopause. If she'd had no symptoms, and thats how it appears, it could have been quite a surprise.

I cant believe that people can get so excited about such an innocent choice of words by the Dr but I suppose if a person is going to go through life always looking to be put down by a man then they'll find one.

If periods are "an appreciated aspect of womanhood" then surely the menopause is unfortunate.

I was told by a female gp that I was young at 50. She also told me most tests were unreliable.

"The average age of the natural menopause is 51 years, but can occur much earlier or later. Menopause occurring before the age of 45 is called early menopause and before the age of 40 is premature menopause."

www.menopausematters.co.uk/menopause.php

This is a brilliant site about the menopause.

I suppose it is just possible that he was saying 'unfortunately' as the symptoms your DM were expressing could be a result of post menopausal hormonal changes and therefore he was expressing some sympathy to her situation, not necessarily for her withered barren years ahead.