ABSTRACT
The view that menopause is a disease is dominant in medicine, where menopause has long been considered an estrogen deficiency disease, and more recently, described as an endocrinopathy. This view is a result of the scientific discourses and practices of the Western world, which have evolved a cultural stereotype of menopausal women as asexual, engulfed with hot flashes, and facing postmenopausal years with decaying bones and lipid-clogged arteries. The definition of menopause as disease, like menstruation, has its origins in patriarchal views and beliefs about women as defective and imperfect (as related to men), and/or machines that need to be fixed. This view of menopause has made invisible the concept of menopause as a normal biological event, i.e., the closure of menstrual life.
