Attitudes and experiences The menopause transition is a process, involving hormonal, menstrual, and typically vasomotor changes. However, the experience of the menopause as a whole is very much influenced by psychological and social factors, such as past experience, lifestyle, social and cultural meanings of menopause, and a woman's social and material circumstances. Menopause has been described as a
biopsychosocial experience, with social and cultural factors playing a prominent role in the way menopause is experienced and perceived. The paradigm within which a woman considers menopause influences the way she views it: women who understand menopause as a medical condition rate it significantly more negatively than those who view it as a life transition or a symbol of aging. There is some evidence that negative attitudes and expectations, held before the menopause, predict symptom experience during the menopause, Women with more negative attitudes towards the menopause report more symptoms during this transition. Though there has been a shift towards more public conversations around menopause, it is often still seen as a private process and is predominantly understood through the medical paradigm. Despite these growing conversations, the embodied experience of menopause is often reduced to biological symptoms rather than understood as a complex social and cultural process. Hot flashes are one of the most common symptoms of menopause. They are also associated with psychological symptoms such as anxiety Heat and emotionality are frequently linked, which can socially associate hot flashes with a breakdown of emotional and physical regulation. Women from different regions and countries also have different attitudes. Postmenopausal women had more positive attitudes toward menopause compared with peri- or premenopausal women. Other influencing factors of attitudes toward menopause include age, menopausal symptoms, psychological and socioeconomical status, and profession and ethnicity. Ethnicity and geography play roles in the experience of menopause. American women of different ethnicities report significantly different types of menopausal effects. One major study found Caucasian women most likely to report what are sometimes described as psychosomatic symptoms, while African-American women were more likely to report vasomotor symptoms. There may be variations in experiences of women from different ethnic backgrounds regarding menopause and care. Immigrant women reported more vasomotor symptoms and other physical symptoms and poorer mental health than non-immigrant women and were mostly dissatisfied with the care they had received. Self-management strategies for menopausal symptoms were also influenced by culture. Two multinational studies of Asian women, found that hot flushes were not the most commonly reported symptoms, instead body and joint aches, memory problems, sleeplessness, irritability and migraines were. In another study comparing experiences of menopause amongst White Australian women and women in Laos, Australian women reported higher rates of depression, as well as fears of aging, weight gain and cancer – fears not reported by Laotian women, who positioned menopause as a positive event.
Japanese women experience menopause effects, or
kōnenki (更年期), in a different way from American women. Japanese women report lower rates of hot flashes and night sweats; this can be attributed to a variety of factors, both biological and social. Historically,
kōnenki was associated with wealthy middle-class housewives in Japan, i.e., it was a "luxury disease" that women from traditional, inter-generational rural households did not report. Menopause in Japan was viewed as a symptom of the inevitable process of aging, rather than a "revolutionary transition", or a "deficiency disease" in need of management. This was almost double that of 20 years prior. Whilst the exact cause for this is unknown, possible contributing factors include dietary changes, increased medicalisation of middle-aged women and increased media attention on the subject. Additionally, while most women in the United States apparently have a negative view of menopause as a time of deterioration or decline, some studies seem to indicate that women from some Asian cultures have an understanding of menopause that focuses on a sense of liberation and celebrates the freedom from the risk of pregnancy. Diverging from these conclusions, one study appeared to show that many American women "experience this time as one of liberation and
self-actualization". Recent biosocial and anthropological scholarship cautions against interpreting ethnic or national differences in menopausal timing and symptom burden as innate racial biology. A 2024 U.S. scoping review synthesizing fifteen studies reported that African American women, on average, reach natural menopause earlier than White women and report vasomotor symptoms more frequently. The review links these patterns to cumulative psychosocial stressors—including racial discrimination, lower income, and heavy caregiving demands—rather than to genetic difference. It also reports associations between intimate partner violence and childhood abuse with greater symptom severity, as well as higher hormone therapy use among women veterans, patterns interpreted as markers of heightened chronic stress exposure. These findings highlight how experiences of inequality and trauma can become biologically embedded, shaping health outcomes across the life course. Anthropological syntheses likewise emphasize "local biologies," showing that symptom profiles vary across societies as labor rhythms, diet, clinical discourse, and life-course endocrinology interact. For example, Japanese women commonly report chilliness rather than hot flushes, and symptom labeling and expectations differ accordingly. This underscores that menopause is not only a physiological transition but also a socially mediated experience that reflects broader cultural environments. Together, these sources suggest that apparent disparities are best understood as embodied effects of unequal social conditions and culturally specific meanings. Explanations focused only on attitudes or estrogen may overlook wider social determinants and limit clinical care. Menopause is typically defined as the discontinuation of menstrual periods, the conclusion of fertility, and the finalisation of ovarian function — all of which are deeply connected to traditional understandings of gender and femininity. One study, published in the International Journal of Transgender Health, reported that non-binary individuals experienced menopause as having an impact on their gender identity, either positively or negatively, and that many also struggled to find supportive resources and spaces to share their experiences.
Menopause across cultures Menopause is both viewed and experienced differently in cultures around the globe. From a Western perspective, focus on menopause tends to be more scientific, with an emphasis on the management of symptoms. In post-war (modern) Japan, there has been a sharp increase in the medicalisation of menopause. Anthropologist Margaret Lock explores the cultural construction of the 'menopausal syndrome' present in Japanese rhetoric. Whilst symptoms of 'headaches, shoulder stiffness, and dizziness' are viewed as usual menopause symptoms, 'changes in endocrine function and in the autonomic nervous system' are classified as menopausal. Discoveries made by this study promote the cultural construction of menopause as "unmarked" by stigma, rituals or significance. The emphasis of menopause in Western societies differentiated from the Mayan perception, where it is beheld as a natural part of development, holding no substantiating symbolic importance. Beyen found that 68.2% of Mayan women reported no distressing health changes, which may suggest that the absence of medicalisation leads to a reduction of symptom reporting. Some Mayan women express a sense of liberation after menopause; free from menstruation and childbearing. Cross-cultural research affirms this, discovering that feelings around menopause varies through cultural interpretation. The absence of negative cultural connotations enables Mayan women for a more normalised transition to an older stage of life. Collectively, these discoveries challenge the Western model of menopause by exploring how neutral cultural beliefs shape experiences of menopause. A study conducted at Monash University saw 74% of post-menopausal Australian women under the age of 55 suffer from
vasomotor symptoms, with 28% reporting them as "severely bothersome". It is statistics like this which have promoted the use of
Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), also known as Menopausal Hormone Therapy (MHT) in Australia. These ongoing studies have proven that for symptomatic women, non-hormonal remedies are significantly "less effective than MHT". and suggest that this would aid the population and improve "management and support for Indigenous Australian women".
Impact on work Midlife is typically a life stage when men and women may be dealing with demanding life events and responsibilities, such as work, health problems, and caring roles. For example, in 2018 in the UK women aged 45–54 report more work-related stress than men or women of any other age group. Hot flashes are often reported to be particularly distressing at work and lead to embarrassment and worry about potential
stigmatisation. A June 2023 study by the Mayo Clinic estimated an annual loss of $1.8 billion in the United States due to workdays missed as a result of menopause symptoms. This was one of the largest studies to date examining the impact of menopause symptoms on work outcomes. The research concluded there was a strong need to improve medical treatment for menopausal women and make the workplace environment more supportive to avoid such productivity losses.
Etymology Menopause literally means the "end of monthly cycles" (the end of
monthly periods or
menstruation), from the Greek word
pausis ("pause") and
mēn ("month"). This is a medical coinage; the Greek word for
menses is actually different. In Ancient Greek, the menses were described in the plural, ("the monthlies"), and its modern descendant has been clipped to
ta emmēna. The Modern Greek medical term is
emmenopausis in
Katharevousa or
emmenopausi in
Demotic Greek. The Ancient Greeks did not produce medical concepts about any symptoms associated with end of menstruation and did not use a specific word to refer to this time of a woman's life. The word menopause was invented by French doctors at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Greek etymology was reconstructed at this time and it was the Parisian student doctor Charles-Pierre-Louis de Gardanne who invented a variation of the word in 1812, which was edited to its final French form in 1821. Some of them noted that peasant women had no complaints about the end of menses, while urban middle-class women had many troubling symptoms. Doctors at this time considered the symptoms to be the result of urban lifestyles of sedentary behaviour, alcohol consumption, too much time indoors, and over-eating, with a lack of fresh fruit and vegetables. The word "menopause" was coined specifically for female humans, where the end of fertility is traditionally indicated by the permanent stopping of monthly menstruations. However, menopause exists in some other animals, many of which do not have monthly menstruation; in this case, the term means a natural end to fertility that occurs before the end of the natural lifespan.
In popular culture, law and politics In the 21st century, celebrities have spoken out about their experiences of the menopause, which has led to it becoming less of a taboo as it has boosted awareness of the debilitating symptoms. Subsequently, TV shows have been running features on the menopause to help women experiencing symptoms. In the UK
Lorraine Kelly has been an advocate for getting women to speak about their experiences including sharing her own. This has led to an increase in women seeking treatment such as HRT.
Davina McCall also led an awareness campaign based on a documentary on
Channel 4. In the UK,
Carolyn Harris sponsored the Menopause (Support and Services) Bill in June 2021. It was to exempt hormone replacement therapy from National Health Service
prescription charges and to make provisions about menopause support and services, including public education and communication in supporting perimenopausal and post-menopausal women, and to raise awareness of menopause and its effects. The bill was withdrawn on 29 October 2021. In the US,
David McKinley, Republican from West Virginia introduced the Menopause Research Act in September 2022 for $100 million in 2023 and 2024, but it stalled. == Other animals ==