How Attitudes About Menopause Have Changed

Just a decade ago, millions of women took hormones to deal with symptoms of menopause, particularly hot flashes. But after a massive federal study highlighted some of the risks of hormone therapy, many women stopped taking the pills. There's now much more variation in how women deal with the menopause transition. Many try to control their symptoms with lifestyle changes – which can be very effective.

Where did the original push to put so many women on pills come from? In the 1960s, hormones got a big boost from a book called Feminine Forever by a New York gynecologist named Robert Wilson. I found an old copy of the book when I was researching my own book on menopause and used a particularly egregious passage to illustrate the prevailing attitude at the time about menopausal women.

Wilson claims that a husband demanded estrogen for his wife because she was driving him nuts. "She won't fix meals," he told Wilson. "She lets me get no sleep. She makes up lies about me. She hits the bottle all day."

Perhaps that wasn't enough to convince Wilson to put the woman on estrogen.  So the husband pulled out a gun and said, "If you don't cure her, I'll kill her." (Wilson claims the husband was a member of the Brooklyn underworld.)

Wilson ended up giving the wife "intensive twice-a-week estrogen injection" which he says improved her disposition markedly.

If you ever think women haven't made enough progress, consider that story. Menopause isn't what it used to be.