The change : women, aging, and the menopause /

Two decades ago (The Female Eunuch ), Greer altered readers' assumptions about sex and gender; now she's out to change readers'--and particularly women's--understanding of menopause, and to redefine the purpose and value of the final third of a woman's life. Central to the mythos of menopause, Greer insists, is anophobia--hatred and fear of older women--which too many younger women share with the medical "Masters in Menopause" and pharmaceutical multinationals who seek an illusory but profitable fountain of youth. The extent of ignorance about the female climacteric is astonishing: science still doesn't know why (or when) women stop ovulating; how to distinguish the symptoms of menopause from the symptoms of aging; why some women experience few if any symptoms while others suffer a laundry list of problems; how various forms of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) produce symptom relief; or at what point the costs of each form of HRT outweigh its benefits for any specific patient. Greer's multidisciplinary overview outlines allopathic, traditional, and alternative treatment approaches; describes what is known about physical symptoms and about psychological responses (The Change discusses useless misery and wholesome grief at some length); addresses issues surrounding postmenopausal sex for both single and married women; and proposes that a new joy, serenity, and power await the older woman who "is climbing her own mountain, in search of her own horizon, after years of having been absorbed in the struggles of others." A European best-seller and Literary Guild alternate selection; expect requests (Reviewed Sept. 1, 1992)0394582691Mary Carroll

Menopause, Greer believes, should be a time of stock-taking, of spiritual as well as physical change, when the middle-aged woman, rejecting the roles held out by patriarchal society, attains a mature serenity and power. In a wise, witty and inspiring book, she rebukes doctors, psychiatrists--and women themselves--who blame the aging female for her menopausal distress. Skeptical of hormone replacement therapy, which she views as a boon to the pharmaceutical industry, Greer asserts that the ``climacteric syndrome,'' marked by depression, fatigue and irritability, is treatable by holistic medicine. Tweaking ``hardy perennials'' like Joan Collins and Helen Gurley Brown who, in Greer's opinion, refuse to grow old gracefully, she urges women to devise their own private ways of marking the menopause and puts forth the Witch and the Crone of history and literature as role models. Greer dispels all manner of myths and misconceptions about menopause. 50,000 first printing; Literary Guild alternate. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Greer ( The Female Eunuch , LJ 4/14/71; Daddy, We Hardly Knew You , LJ 1/90) turns the clear light of her ferocious intelligence on what she calls ``the undescribed experience,'' the female climacteric--menopause. She has read everything : medical treatises, herbaries, historical letters, the few literary works that treat this universal aspect of female experience. At last, she says, women get to decide: Whether they wish to spend the second half of their lives in a ghastly re-creation of culturally approved youth, or whether menopause ``marks the end of apologizing'' and the beginning of a search for deep joy for and in oneself. She notes that the pitifully small amount of research done does not yet indicate the real causes for menopausal distress such as hot flashes, nor does it untangle the symptoms of plain aging from the cessation of monthly periods. She decries the lack of role models for the aging woman but does find us a few: the courtesan Ninon de Lenclos, whose intelligence charmed male and female alike into her advanced age; Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen), who wielded her old woman's power into lapidary prose; Jane Digby El Mezrab, who at 47 enchanted a sheik, who rode by her side for 30 more years. Not the least of models is Greer herself, whose fine and hard-edged voice makes life after the cessation of childbearing sound, if difficult and harrowing, also joyful and rich in reward. Far superior to Gail Sheehy's The Silent Passage ( LJ 4/1/92), this is highly recommended for all collections. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/1/92.-- GraceAnne A. DeCandido, ``School Library Journal'' (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

It may be that menopause saw Greer (Daddy, We Hardly Knew You, 1989, etc.) coming and quaked, for surely the subject will never be quite the same again. Women, contends Greer, need not feel helpless in the face of what she calls ``the fifth climacteric'' (the others are birth, menstruation, defloration, and childbirth). ``The climacteric marks the end of apologizing,'' says Greer, and her book will give the committed reader the information she needs to begin to change into the author's ideal of a serene and powerful woman ``climbing her own mountain, in search of her own horizon.'' Writing no mere paean to the glories of life over 50, Greer looks at menopause through history and literature, skewering the medical establishment--the ``Masters of Menopause''--for its ignorance on the subject after so many centuries, and suggesting her own theories when others fall short (for instance, that menopausal symptoms may reflect too much estrogen, not too little). Differentiating between misery (self- pitying old women longing for their youth and sexuality) and legitimate grief (for the loss of the womb), Greer combs literature for positive images of older women, finding few in fiction--or real life. Even Colette and Simone de Beauvoir have little that is positive or optimistic to say about growing older. Mme. de Maintenon, mistress of Louis XIV, and actress Joan Collins, among others, do. Intensively researched, intelligently written, this erudite, literate work--a brilliant philosophical complement to Gail Sheehy's bestselling The Silent Passage (p. 381)--should inspire change in how we think about The Change.