ABSTRACT
During the last two decades the menopause and, as medical textbooks tend to phrase it, ‘its management’, have become the subject of intensive debate. However, there has been relatively little comment from feminists on the issue, especially in Britain. In part this may be argued to reflect feminists’ greater concern (hitherto) with issues of reproduction-with birth control, abortion and childbirth-than with ageing. As greater numbers of active feminists age, we might expect this situation to change. Some, chiefly American, writers (e.g., Rossi 1980 and Stimpson 1982) have charged that the preoccupation of feminism during the 1970s with equality meant that it tended to ignore issues of difference, especially biological difference. This is a more controversial and, to my mind, dubious argument, given femin-ism’s historical concern about reproductive issues. What seems most important is that the chief medical treatment for menopausal symptoms and, increasingly, for many diseases in postmenopausal womenhormone replacement therapy (HRT)—is highly contentious for feminists in a manner not dissimilar to other aspects of modern medical practice. It is difficult for women to weigh up the pros and cons of high-tech medicine (amniocentesis is another example), to decide whether to accept or reject it, and if the former how to exercise some degree of control over it.
