Menopause: A Short History From Human Anatomy

Menopause: A Short History

From Human Anatomy and Physiology, Spence and Mason, 2nd Edition from 1983, comes this description of Menopause.

At about age 50, the ovarian and menstrual cycles gradually become irregular. Ovulation fails to occur during many of the irregular cycles and in most women the cycles cease altogether over the next several months or at most, a few years. The cessation of the menstrual cycle is referred to as menopause, and the entire period is called the female climacteric.

The female climacteric is thought to be caused by an inability of the ovaries to respond to hormonal signals, most probably due to a shortage of follicles resulting from their ovulation or degeneration during the reproductive years. As a result, production of estrogens and progesterone is quit low...(753)

The lady who gave me the above information from her old A&P book wants to make a correction. She was "pre-menopausal" for eleven years!! Although this lady had no problems with her pregnancies or her early reproductive cycles the eleven years she dealt with being pre-menopausal, she had pain, she bleed like crazy and she wound up with muscle pain. She also commented that, " If men had to deal with hot flashes, they would have found a safe, quick, pleasant answer to menopause a century ago, as soon as the technology became available." (Joy Marsh, personal communication, May, 2004)

Menopause is the result of a physiological and hormone system ceasing to function. Some of the material available through Internet sources such as Questia, claim that there is "no reason" for the female reproductive system to quit functioning when it does. In an online article, Craig Packer, a Professor of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Michigan writes:

Since many women today live well into their seventies, menopause seems a frustrating, old-fashion constraint. Indeed, evolutionary biologists have long viewed menopause as a reflection of life-history patterns adapted to a pre-technological era. Biologists have not agreed, however, on just why and how menopause evolved. Some consider it a natural part of the aging process; others see it as some sort of adaptation, a milestone like puberty, marking anew phase in life.

That's one view. Another view is found in a book titled, oddly enough, Hot Flashes by Barbara Raskin, "Most of us are ecstatic about dispensing with birth control pills, sponges, coils, diaphragms and non-recreational condoms," states one of Raskin's characters.

Menopause has had a strange history. For whatever reasons, this natural biological occurrence has been assigned public, social significance. Long, long ago, if a woman lived long enough to actually achieve menopause, it conferred on her a special status. She must be very wise because she had lived so long. There were, in some pre-patriarchal cultures, even the idea that it was the "holding of the blood" that made wisdom. The reasons for menopause were not understood but to attain "Crone" status was definitely to attain a place of power. There is nothing in the life cycle of males that compares to menopause. There is some talk of a male menopause, but it in no way equates with the female climacteric -- not in actual physical results and certainly not in social ramifications.

At the same time in history that we began to truly understand other aspects of how our bodies work, we began to learn about the powerful chemicals that drive both the female and male gender life cycle.

As doctors and scientists began to understand the biological reasons behind the female monthly cycle and its cessation, there was less mystique about it and it than everything about the process became trivialized. Many female complaints were brushed off with exactly that comment. "It's just a female, or a woman, thing," as if that made the hoht flashes, interrupted sleep patterns, muscle pain, profound bleeding, etc. unimportant.

Women have been condemned for "being at the mercy of hormones." The social ramifications of everything to do with women's reproductive life, is a matter of public comment and the comments are frequently derogatory. Nothing about the life of men garners the same attention. If public attitude is to be accepted as reality, everything about men is OK.

The fact that testosterone probably drives aggression and things like more automobile accidents is considered funny in a "hale, fellow, well met," kind of way.

Everything about women has been the source of snide, comments that make women look silly, mindless and out of control, in spite of the fact that the processes providing the butt for humor are the same processes that guarantee the survival of the species.