Two new books—from Jennifer Weiss-Wolf and the editors of Oprah Daily—offer practical tools for navigating menopause and ask why women still have to fight so hard for informed care.
Co-published with Oprah Daily.
Around her 50th birthday, Oprah Winfrey began having heart palpitations so frightening she thought she might die. She went to five doctors; none connected her symptoms to menopause.
She happened to pick up a book that finally gave her a possible explanation. “Heart palpitations and sleeplessness were indications that The Change was coming,” Winfrey writes. “But no one, including my trusted doctors, had warned me (did they even know?), and when my symptoms showed up, we looked for the most dire explanation—heart disease—instead of the most likely.”
Later, a friend’s experience prompted Oprah to ask her doctor about getting on an estrogen supplement. “After I started hormone therapy, the world returned to technicolor. … For the first time in years, I was sleeping the whole night through.”
That sequence—doctor, book (or article), friend, doctor again—will sound familiar to many women who have had to assemble their own understanding of this major health transition that remains underfunded and underdiscussed, despite affecting 51 percent of the world’s population.
It also runs through two new books arriving this month: Jennifer Weiss-Wolf’s When in Menopause: A User’s Manual and Citizen’s Guide (available Oct. 6) and The Book of Menopause: Real Talk, Real Science, Real Strategies for Your Next Chapter, from the editors of Oprah Daily (available Oct. 13).
Weiss-Wolf understands why Oprah’s doctor might have missed the signs of menopause: Medical training has given it too little attention. Weiss-Wolf’s When in Menopause is a guide to speaking up for yourself, then for the people who will come after you. She begins with a menopause primer and practical ways to prepare for a doctor’s appointment, assess health claims online and talk with loved ones. Then she widens the lens to workplaces, communities and government, showing how gaps in research, medical training and affordable care became problems that individual women are expected to solve on their own. Her wit and conversational style make even the policy sections feel like a discussion with a well-informed friend who wants you to know what you can ask for and what you can help change.
The Book of Menopause reads like a curated news feed or community: hilarious social media diatribes from midlife and menopausal women we know and love; personal accounts of health discovery with important lessons for readers on their own journey; profound admissions from menopausal women that will make you feel less alone; an accessible breakdown of every single peri- and menopause symptom (so you’re not left wondering if your uncontrollable rage is a tumor on your frontal lobe or a natural—and avoidable—symptom of menopause); advice for navigating menopause while protecting your most important relationships; troubleshooting tips from experienced women and menopause experts; suggestions for how men can play bigger roles in menopause access and advocacy; and more.
Together, they raise a bigger question: Why does getting informed still require so much work and persistence from the person seeking care? And as Oprah Daily editorial director Pilar Guzmán asks in The Book of Menopause, “Why aren’t we as a culture more proactive when it comes to women’s health at midlife? Why is it not standard medical practice to scan for the impacts of hormonal decline preemptively, especially when we know that estrogen supplies are only moving in one direction?”
Out this week, Weiss Wolf’s When in Menopause opens with a foreword from menopause expert Dr. Sharon Malone, MD, who traces the stigma surrounding women’s bodies from menstruation through menopause. Her history moves from ancient claims about menstrual blood, to a 1960s doctor who marketed estrogen as a way to keep women attractive to their husbands. Next, she corrects the record on the fallout from the Women’s Health Initiative and mourns the “subsequent damage” of two-plus decades of “women left to suffer in silence.” She also cheers today’s unabashed conversations on social media and in groups of women across the country sharing their collective knowledge about menopause. Malone tells it all with the warmth and occasional sharp aside of someone who knows this history is infuriating. She ends by calling for “Big A” advocacy: demands for better midlife healthcare that are “political but not partisan.”
It sets up Weiss-Wolf’s central question: What can we change once we understand how we got here?
Weiss-Wolf, a lawyer and writer who coined the term “menstrual equity,” charts her personal and policy journey: menstruation, motherhood, more menstruation, and finally perimenopause and menopause. Weiss-Wolf intersperses endearing personal stories with accessible science. Without talking down to readers, she introduces unfamiliar terms with the ease of a friend explaining what she’s learned; I felt both guided through the material and trusted to understand it.
From start to end, Weiss-Wolf’s writing is pragmatic, funny and focused on what readers can do, rather than pointing fingers at who dropped the ball the most, and when, and how. To equip patients and make speaking up feel manageable, Weiss-Wolf writes using bullets and even a literal checklist that you can bring into your appointment and use as a tool to demand more from your doctor (and your country). Oh, and trying to make sense of the cacophony of ads on your newsfeed promising to cure your menopausal symptoms? Weiss-Wolf’s got a list for that too.
She’s also focused on what the government can do: Invest in menopause research. For too long, misogyny, racism and stigma have created a perfect storm for women’s midlife health, leaving patients and doctors without the knowledge they need.
Oprah Daily editors’ The Book of Menopause is especially useful in the space between noticing that something feels wrong and knowing what to ask next. Its chapter “What if You Can’t Figure It Out” makes room for the possibility that a symptom has another cause. Later, a spread of questions to bring to the doctor includes one I suspect many readers will underline: “How do I know if the symptoms I’m having are because of menopause or something else?” The book encourages curiosity without asking readers to diagnose themselves.
That distinction matters. Oprah’s story begins with a woman searching for an explanation; neither book suggests that one woman should have to become her own doctor. These books give readers more knowledge, better questions and a welcome sense that someone else has been through this. The challenge now is to make sure that when they take those questions to a doctor, informed care is there to meet them.
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A note from Ms. editors: We want to hear from you for The Majority, a new campaign collecting stories about how reproductive freedom has enabled readers to build the lives they want and need.
Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans support reproductive healthcare access. Yet public debate overlooks the lives shaped by abortion access, contraception, IVF, miscarriage care, maternal healthcare or comprehensive sex education—countless women who chose to pursue an education, have children, not have children, protect their health and chart their own future. What’s your reproductive freedom story? Add your voice. Together, these stories will help show not only why reproductive freedom remains a majority value, but also what it makes possible.
