Happy early Thanksgiving! I’m serving up some media reviews this week. Since midlife women are underrepresented in our culture, I keep an eye out for programs and content that speak to us. Here are four that have caught my attention recently.
Website
Journalist Ann Marie McQueen created hotflashinc.com as “a platform to inform, entertain and encourage people going through perimenopause, menopause, andropause, and midlife around the world.” Focusing primarily on health, Hot Flash Inc. keeps up with current news and research on menopause. The platform includes a blog and podcast—and Ann Marie invites guests from both traditional and naturopathic backgrounds. Her work keeps me up-to-date with current discussions of menopause and treatment of it.
News
The New York Times reports that some companies are adding menopause-specific care to benefits packages. The Mayo Clinic reports that 15 percent of women either missed work or cut back on hours because of menopause symptoms, and that loss of productivity costs women an estimated $1.8 billion each year. As companies look to attract and retain talent, some are expanding benefit programs for women facing menopause. This is good news since 40 percent of female workers are at least 45 years old—an age many enter perimenopause.
Since midlife women are underrepresented in our culture, I keep an eye out for programs and content that speak to us.
Book
I mentioned Heroine with 1,001 Faces by Maria Tatar in my last blog post. Maria wrote this response to mythologist Joseph Campbell’s wildly popular The Hero with a Thousand Faces. She offers an academic response to world mythology that is male-dominant by highlighting the stories of women told through time, throughout the world, in fairytales. I include this book because it brings the voice of women to story, and that the form of feminine narrative is different than what we mostly read and watch in our culture. Maria’s work has stayed with me, particularly as I watch world events unfold in the news.
Podcast
Three wise women discuss the climate crisis: Buddhist teacher, Roshi Joan Halifax; writer/activist Rebecca Solnit, and climate activist Christiana Figueres. In this episode of Outrage! + Optimism, they offer personal reflections on climate grief and how to be more present to the emergency. A memorable part of the discussion for me was the discussion of “victim narrative,” which takes away people’s agency, genius, strength, and capacity for the climate (or any) crisis. “Post-traumatic growth,” on the other hand, gives room for people’s suffering while allowing for an expansion of work for beauty, hope, and healing.
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If you’ve found this article helpful, I’d be grateful if you’d share it with friends. I created greencallings.com to help women thrive in midlife so we can bring our wisdom and gifts to the world.