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lifeinpoetry's review against another edition
1.0
Another cis woman who equates menopause with becoming less woman. Except this one equates her experience of feeling more androgynous because of looking less feminine with the experiences of trans people on HRT. I was already skeptical because she'd cited Germaine Greer multiple times and though it seemed she was in favor of trans rights and multiple genders appropriating the experiences of trans people is super gross. Her kid kept telling her she didn't get it.
There aren't many books that take on menopause but no thanks.
There aren't many books that take on menopause but no thanks.
lola425's review
3.0
Not a self-help book, but it can help you orient yourself within your own experience.
stevia333k's review against another edition
First of all I'm a non-operative trans woman. I'm not going to get into how the non-operative status came about. Point being, when I saw the library list this book about people who choose not to take HRT during menopause, I was like oh cool this can be something to talk about with the older women in my community, (especially as it could relate to navigating the intersection of body horror & gender), especially since I'm older now & so the topic of fertility & having children comes up (since I'm still childless), in addition to me being disabled & older people developing disabilities as they age.
Germaine Greer is quoted around the 0:16:57 I don't know how else to explain that there's more than a thousand feminists in our world, and so your choice of sources is a statement of affiliation.
That being said, things I appreciated were the discussion of the intersection of disability politics & misogyny. (Some call this medical misogyny, but I think not acknowledging this is a compound is weaponized to police/surveil our bodies & lives as women more.) Like I checked this book out from the library because I wanted to hear about the things my family members went thru, etc. Also some menopausal people, trans people seeking medical transportation, and people with premature puberty, so I thought this book could give insight for that.
That being said, I do not have a christian education & I thank God for that, so the focus on religious conversion experiences was really disorientating & I wasn't sure whether this was a sort of Christian nationalism or just spirituality (like how LGBT+ people sometimes compare themselves to various fairies & supernatural creatures)
For example, based on the information I gof from a world's religion textbook, I think "st paul" is a false prophet & was loaded with hate... That being said, the part about him possibly having epilepsy was interesting because as someone with bipolar I do like representation & it can be a weird sort of comfort to know that yeah they knew about this shit 2000 years ago, but it was Nero. But then the book elaborated more about other christian stuff that made no sense to me.
Anyways, this is a lovely topic, but I don't share the cultural references being used & so with that vulnerability, I had to stop once Greer was cited since that's usually a red flag.
Germaine Greer is quoted around the 0:16:57 I don't know how else to explain that there's more than a thousand feminists in our world, and so your choice of sources is a statement of affiliation.
That being said, things I appreciated were the discussion of the intersection of disability politics & misogyny. (Some call this medical misogyny, but I think not acknowledging this is a compound is weaponized to police/surveil our bodies & lives as women more.) Like I checked this book out from the library because I wanted to hear about the things my family members went thru, etc. Also some menopausal people, trans people seeking medical transportation, and people with premature puberty, so I thought this book could give insight for that.
That being said, I do not have a christian education & I thank God for that, so the focus on religious conversion experiences was really disorientating & I wasn't sure whether this was a sort of Christian nationalism or just spirituality (like how LGBT+ people sometimes compare themselves to various fairies & supernatural creatures)
For example, based on the information I gof from a world's religion textbook, I think "st paul" is a false prophet & was loaded with hate... That being said, the part about him possibly having epilepsy was interesting because as someone with bipolar I do like representation & it can be a weird sort of comfort to know that yeah they knew about this shit 2000 years ago, but it was Nero. But then the book elaborated more about other christian stuff that made no sense to me.
Anyways, this is a lovely topic, but I don't share the cultural references being used & so with that vulnerability, I had to stop once Greer was cited since that's usually a red flag.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Infertility, Medical content, and Misogyny
alissynia's review against another edition
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
marmot28's review
4.0
A friend recommended this book to me after I described the year-long struggles I’d been having with my health. I was having such a difficult time with reconciling who I am in my head with the changing body where I experience the world.
This book challenged me. I did not like it at first, probably because it felt too real. Society has many negative stereotypes about older women and science has limited understanding of the process. But the author comes to grips with her menopausal symptoms by becoming more attuned to the natural world, particularly to animals. That is what kept me reading. She very thoughtfully researched what scientists have to say about female animals who go through menopause. She comes to feel a kinship with matriarch gorillas and whales, animals who begin to play different social roles as they move beyond their reproductive years. She also learns more about herself, about her relationships with family, and about how she wants to consciously respond to menopause. When I reached the end, I realized that it was the most thought-provoking book that I had read in quite a while.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is aging or who cares about someone who is.
This book challenged me. I did not like it at first, probably because it felt too real. Society has many negative stereotypes about older women and science has limited understanding of the process. But the author comes to grips with her menopausal symptoms by becoming more attuned to the natural world, particularly to animals. That is what kept me reading. She very thoughtfully researched what scientists have to say about female animals who go through menopause. She comes to feel a kinship with matriarch gorillas and whales, animals who begin to play different social roles as they move beyond their reproductive years. She also learns more about herself, about her relationships with family, and about how she wants to consciously respond to menopause. When I reached the end, I realized that it was the most thought-provoking book that I had read in quite a while.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is aging or who cares about someone who is.
kjboldon's review
4.0
This book about menopause, like its subject, is complicated and hard to handle. I found there was a lot of good (the wide-ranging examination into the science of menopause, the analogies in the animal world, and its sociological reception), some bad (the author's comparison of herself to a prisoner and to trans people undergoing hormone treatment, and her lack of situating her privilege, were not as nuanced as I'd like), and some ugly (the author's symptoms, those reported from her interviews, and details of the pervasive patriarchal problem that aging, non-fertile women pose by their very existence--all these made for rich, if painful reading.) This deceptively short book with its pithy segments separated by white space packs a punch. There is a buttload of research interwoven with a memoir narrative. This is a deeply researched book, meticulously crafted. Complaints that it's poorly written are, simply, wrong.
I've been intrigued to scan the negative reviews of this book, many of which seem to embody some of what Steinke is critiquing in the book. She's not nice. She's not upbeat, though I do find the ending hopeful, in a realistic way. She is not going quiet into the good night. And that's why I liked this book so much. Steinke is having a rough time of menopause, and is here to tell us about it. She is giving us a diary that doesn't try to wrap itself in 20 layers of toilet paper and hide itself at the bottom of a trash can. It tells some brutal truths. She dares to show herself as one of the most reviled characters in literature, the unlikeable female narrator. She admits to unkind thoughts about her mother, her husband, and that poor girl on the whale watching trip who didn't see an orca. She did not have to do this. She could have censored out the ugly bits. But the ugliness--like how menopause has been feared, reviled, and defiled over history--is much of her point. I am grateful for her complicated honesty, which made the hopeful ending feel all the more earned.
So, should you read this book? It depends. This is not a feel-good book, though it can be a book to elicit empathy from those who feel bad. It is not a how-to book. It is one woman's curious mind turning over every stone she can find in search of answers. In that way, it belongs on the same shelf with books by two of the authors who blurb it on the back: Jenny Offill's Dept of Speculation, and Maggie Nelson's Bluets and Argonauts. If you didn't like those books, I suspect you won't like this one. If you did like those books, then give this one a try, with the understanding that it is a memoir, not a manual, it is not a ray of effin' sunshine, and its topics range widely.
I've been intrigued to scan the negative reviews of this book, many of which seem to embody some of what Steinke is critiquing in the book. She's not nice. She's not upbeat, though I do find the ending hopeful, in a realistic way. She is not going quiet into the good night. And that's why I liked this book so much. Steinke is having a rough time of menopause, and is here to tell us about it. She is giving us a diary that doesn't try to wrap itself in 20 layers of toilet paper and hide itself at the bottom of a trash can. It tells some brutal truths. She dares to show herself as one of the most reviled characters in literature, the unlikeable female narrator. She admits to unkind thoughts about her mother, her husband, and that poor girl on the whale watching trip who didn't see an orca. She did not have to do this. She could have censored out the ugly bits. But the ugliness--like how menopause has been feared, reviled, and defiled over history--is much of her point. I am grateful for her complicated honesty, which made the hopeful ending feel all the more earned.
So, should you read this book? It depends. This is not a feel-good book, though it can be a book to elicit empathy from those who feel bad. It is not a how-to book. It is one woman's curious mind turning over every stone she can find in search of answers. In that way, it belongs on the same shelf with books by two of the authors who blurb it on the back: Jenny Offill's Dept of Speculation, and Maggie Nelson's Bluets and Argonauts. If you didn't like those books, I suspect you won't like this one. If you did like those books, then give this one a try, with the understanding that it is a memoir, not a manual, it is not a ray of effin' sunshine, and its topics range widely.
kickpleat's review
4.0
Informative, highly interesting and good feminist talk about menopause. A must read for all women.
superdilettante's review
4.0
a beguiling mixture of horror and empowerment, minute and broad. Essential reading.