(Un)Changing Menopausal Bodies: How Women Think and Act in the Face of a Reproductive Transition and Gendered Beauty Ideals

Abstract

Biomedical literature suggests that menopause primarily represents negative change in women's lives. Feminist literature on menopause proposes that it can represent positive change or is a neutral experience for individual women. Conflicting characterizations result from different empirical emphases; biomedical research has focused on bodily change, and feminist research has highlighted social contexts for menopause. Results from interviews with a snowball sample of 61 women in 2001 illustrate how a change discourse on menopause and gendered beauty ideals combine to create a context within which some women believe that changes in their physical appearances can be attributed to menopause and that bodily change is problematic. In addition, during focus groups and in-depth interviews, women suggested that, in the face of these discourses or ideologies and changing external bodies, they face a "category crisis." Interviewees also discussed how they attempt to prevent/mask bodily change in order to remain attractive, visibly feminine, and desirable in the eyes of men. Findings from this qualitative study illustrate that we must continue to explore women's perceptions and experiences of bodily change during menopause, as we lack a full understanding of this developmental transition and its biosocial contexts.

Body image in adult women: moving beyond the younger years

“…Body shape also may change, as body fat redistributes towards the waist/hips and muscle mass decreases (Aloia, McGowan, Vaswani, Ross, & Cohn, 1991; Svendsen, Hassager, Christiansen, 1995). Additional changes include alterations in skin tone, reduced skin firmness, and breast changes (Dillaway, 2005;Genazzani&Gambacciani, 2006; Ley et al, 1992). As a result of these changes, women may experience reductions in feelings of youthfulness, beauty, and sexual attractiveness (Hurd, 2000).…”

“…Yet research indicates that such fears may be stronger in women high in self-objectification (Rubinstein & Foster, 2013). Further, although some women experience negative emotions regarding menopause, other women experience an increase in enjoyment of sexual activity and sexual freedom, as well as relief from fertility (Dillaway, 2005). Similarly, Busch and colleagues (2003) found that women who endorsed a perspective that aging is a natural and manageable part of life, and who associated aging with other positive characteristics (e.g.…”

Menopause Narratives: The Interplay of Women’s Embodied Experiences With Biomedical Discourses

“…In recent years, a new wave of research undertaken predominantly by feminists has opened up, seeking to understand women's embodied experiences of menopause and the meaning of menopause for women from their perspectives (Dillaway, 2005a(Dillaway, , 2005b(Dillaway, , 2006. Much of this work arose to countermand what was deemed to be narrow biomedical definitions of menopause as a deficiency syndrome-a body of work that focused on women's bodies as different from those of men but with a much different emphasis than that of the feminist work that followed.…”

The Ending of Menstruation: Perspectives and Experiences of Lesbian and Heterosexual Women

“…This growing literature includes themes such as women's understanding of their own bodies (Boughton, 2008;Dillaway, 2005aDillaway, , 2006aHarrison and Becker, 2007); encounters between menopausal women and biomedical professionals (Banister, 1999); women's perspectives on hormone therapy (Ballard, 2002;Stephens et al, 2002;Kolip et al, 2009); coping strategies and managing symptoms (Im et al, 2008;Lindh-Åstrand et al, 2007;Kafanelis et al, 2009); menopausal women's views on ageing (Banister, 1999;Dillaway, 2005b;Hvas, 2006); the impact of menopause on social roles (Dillaway, 2006b); and on sexuality (Winterich, 2003;Dillaway, 2005b). Much of this scholarship emerged from a feminist perspective with writers responding to (and usually resisting) the biomedical notion of menopause as a hormone deficiency disease leading to dwindling femininity, loss of womanhood, sexual redundancy, empty nest syndrome and clinical pathologies.…”

“…The conventional wisdom emerging in a good deal of this new wave of research was that, as far as women experienced it, menopause in its wider sense was not the dreaded experience that it had been previously made out to be, but rather was variously experienced, and indeed had many positive aspects. Thus, although the challenging dimensions of menopause continued to be acknowledged (for the most part) in this new wave of social research, a revised discourse of menopause was coming to the fore -menopause as positive or at least as acceptable and natural (see Dillaway, 2005aDillaway, 2005bWinterich, 2003;Hvas, 2006;Kafanelis et al, 2009).…”