Menopause is often spoken about as if it arrives at the same time, in the same way, for every woman.
For many Black women and women of colour, that assumption does real harm. Early and surgical menopause are not rare outliers, they are lived realities shaped by stress, health inequalities and systems that were never designed with our bodies in mind.
Menopause is often reduced to a checklist of symptoms or a quiet biological milestone women are expected to manage privately.
What is far less discussed is how profoundly it is a social, workplace and equity issue, one that determines whether women are supported, dismissed or slowly edged out of confidence, care and opportunity.
In most workplaces, changes in confidence or performance are attributed to shifting roles, organisational pressure or workload. We are reminded that the most significant disruptors are usually the ones no one is examining.
Menopause is not a personal weakness. It is a biological transition with workplace consequences. The problem is not the symptoms. It is the silence around them.
Before women begin questioning their capability, one essential reflection is missing “Is my confidence changing because of competence or because of chemistry?”
When researchers call menopause a “gold rush,” it forces us to confront a truth many women already felt instinctively. There is profit in our confusion. Millions of women report feeling uninformed, unsupported or dismissed and into that gap steps a marketplace of supplements, influencers, private clinics and quick fixes offering hope at a price.
The Guardian recently highlighted this problem when University College London researchers found that only 22 percent of women felt well-informed about menopause.
That statistic is not simply medical, it is political. It exposes how deeply society has under invested in women’s health, education and long-term wellbeing.
What Happened?
The FDA recently removed the black box warning from most Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) products. This warning, introduced in 2003 after the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) study, highlighted risks like breast cancer and heart disease.
Every major shift in women’s health has a tipping point. A moment when what we thought we understood turns out to be incomplete. Hair loss in menopause is one of those tipping points.
Most women are told it is “just aging.” The NHS describes menopausal hair thinning as common, often offering reassurance, lifestyle tweaks or Minoxidil. It is well-intentioned, but the explanation is incomplete.
The evidence tells a more intricate story grounded in endocrinology, follicular biology and crucially, cultural experience.
We often talk about menopause as if it is an ending. But in truth, it is a turning point, a recalibration of the body’s chemistry, rhythm and sense of identity.
One of the most visible and misunderstood signs of this transition is hair loss. By age 50, over 40% of women experience noticeable thinning, yet most are told it is “just part of aging.” Science tells a different story.
What is really happening is a hormonal imbalance, not a slow decay. During menopause, estrogen and progesterone, the two hormones that nurture, protect and sustain hair follicles, begin to fall. Their decline leaves hair unprotected from a more dominant hormone called DHT (dihydrotestosterone), which miniaturises follicles and slows growth. In other words, it is not time that is taking your hair. It is chemistry.
This month, we pause not to whisper about menopause, but to celebrate it. Too often, society frames menopause as an ending, a slowing down, a fading away. But in truth, it is a beginning. It is a season where wisdom ripens, self-awareness deepens and women step into a power unshaken by old expectations.
Menopause is not just about hot flashes or hormone shifts, it is about transformation. It is the body’s way of saying “you have carried enough for others. Now is the time to carry yourself with pride.”
In this group, we honour every stage of the journey:
The courage it takes to embrace change
As women transition through menopause, symptoms like sudden heat, palpitations or dizziness are common. But here is the critical question, is it a hot flush or could it be high blood pressure (hypertension)?
This distinction matters, especially because cardiovascular disease is now the leading cause of death in post-menopausal women worldwide (World Health Organisation, 2021).
Here are 5 key points with data and evidence:
In every doctor’s office, there is a quiet vocabulary that determines how women’s pain is recorded, treated or dismissed.
Words like dysmenorrhea, menorrhagia and amenorrhea are not just medical jargon, they are signals, codes that unlock care or close the door to it. Yet who gets to use these words and who gets heard when they do, tells a bigger story about health inequity than most of us realise.
Behind each clinical term lies a lived reality, an experience that reaches far beyond a line in a medical textbook. These words describe the rhythms and disruptions that can shape a woman’s physical, emotional and professional life.
For decades, menopause has been framed as an ending, a biological shutdown, a loss of youth or worse, a punchline. Our culture has had little to say about it beyond whispers and warnings.
But what if we imagined menopause differently? What if it marked the beginning of a new chapter, one that liberates us from biological and societal expectations and invites us to redefine ourselves on our own terms?
Menopause is not just a medical milestone. It is a deeply personal transformation, physical, emotional and cultural. For many women, hot flushes are one of the most visible and disruptive symptoms. But what happens after menopause? Do they ever stop and is the experience the same for everyone?
For many women, the end of monthly periods is supposed to mark freedom from hot flushes, but reality often tells a different story.
These sudden waves of heat, sometimes followed by a pounding heartbeat or night sweats, are more than a passing nuisance. They are the visible signs of a profound neurological shift. When oestrogen levels fall, the hypothalamus, the brain’s internal thermostat, becomes hypersensitive, misreading even slight changes in body temperature as a reason to cool down.
The result is a surge of heat that can interrupt sleep, cloud concentration and erode confidence at work or in relationships.
The Lancet’s 2024 Menopause Series reads less like a medical manual and more like a quiet call to reset an entire cultural narrative. Across four papers, researchers trace the contours of early menopause, mental health, cancer-related menopause and a new empowerment model for managing the transition.
Their argument is disarmingly simple. Menopause is not a disease to be “fixed” yet for decades it has been treated as one. By framing it as an oestrogen-deficiency disorder best solved with hormones, medicine and marketing have created a cycle of stigma, over-prescription and profit.
The Series pushes for an individualised, evidence-based approach. Some women sail through with minimal discomfort, others wrestle with night sweats, insomnia or mood shifts that can upend daily life. Hormone therapy can help, but it’s not a universal answer and it carries measurable risks, including higher breast-cancer incidence.
Menopause is often framed as a hormonal shift, but new research is challenging that narrow view, especially for Black and minority ethnic women. A pioneering initiative, the MODEL Programme (full name: Multi-Organ Approach to Address Diseases Following Estrogen Loss), is set to transform how we understand menopause-related health issues across multiple body systems.
If you have ever felt a hot flash rise like a summer sun or noticed your mood dip with the long winter nights, you are not imagining things and you are not alone.
Our bodies are tuned to the rhythm of nature and that ongoing dance between sunlight, temperature and hormones can make menopause feel like a moving target. For Black, Asian and other minority women, that rhythm is even more complex and revealing.
Here is the science in plain language.
Proud Sista!
Proud Sista!
Proud Sista!
Proud Sista!
Proud Sista!
