More Than A Magazine, A Movement
When it comes to the menopause and perimenopause landscape, many women are left navigating symptoms without clear, trustworthy information.
This conversation aims to change that—offering evidence-based insights, practical guidance and a broader look at the systemic reforms needed to improve menopause care.
Despite affecting roughly half the population, menopause remains under-researched, underfunded and often stigmatized—leaving many without adequate medical guidance or institutional support.
On Tuesday, March 31, Ms. magazine will convene a panel of physicians and policy experts to demystify menopause, addressing everything from symptoms and treatment gaps, to the broader structural changes needed.
The virtual event, “All You Ever Wanted to Know About Menopause, From Symptoms to Systemic Reforms (2026 Edition),” will take place at 5 p.m. PT / 7 CT / 8 ET. Registration is free and open to the public.
The panel will feature:
—Huong Nghiem Eilbeck, M.D., M.P.H., a physician affiliated with Pandia Health and AltaMed Health Services, with additional clinical experience across maternal health and labor medicine. She holds certifications from The Menopause Society and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
—Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of partnerships and strategy at Ms., executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU Law, and a leading voice on menstrual equity. Her forthcoming book, When in Menopause: A User’s Manual and Citizen’s Guide (October 2026), expands her work connecting reproductive health to policy and democratic participation.
—Sophia Yen, M.D., M.P.H., a physician trained at MIT, UCSF and UC Berkeley, and CEO and co-founder of Pandia Health, a birth control delivery company. Yen specializes in adolescent medicine and reproductive health, with a clinical focus that spans contraception, menstrual regulation and broader gynecological care.
“Mom, what were you like in the 90s?” The question has gone viral—and the response, a flood of celebrity flashback montages, captures the likes of Halle Berry and Courteney Cox in their Kodachrome heyday, set to (what else?) the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Iris.” The trend dovetails FX’s Love Story, the trashy yet wildly popular mini-series purporting to depict the behind-the-scenes courtship and ill-fated marriage of Carolyn Bessette and John F. Kennedy Jr.
I always appreciate when Gen X, the perennially forgotten generation, gets its props.
In early February, while the nation was still reeling from the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, Loretta Ross and Jackson Katz—two feminist academics with decidedly different backgrounds and identities—discussed how U.S. federal agents became the enforcement arm of the nation’s racism and misogyny.
You’ll find this, and more, in the Spring 2026 issue of Ms.
In his State of the Union address, President Trump opened by boasting about a roaring economy, falling inflation and a richer and stronger nation. But those claims ring hollow for many Americans who feel economic security slipping further out of reach, a reality made worse by the policies he and his Republican Congress have championed.
In Tucson, Ariz., Angelica Garcia begins most mornings waiting for her Lyft app to ping. She’s a driver raising three children in a two-bedroom apartment that costs $1,400 a month. Her summer electric bills hover around $300. At the grocery store, it costs her over $100 just to cover basic essentials. Angelica and her children rely on Medicaid and SNAP. Medicaid covered her daughter’s broken arm and her son’s tonsil surgery. “It’s been a blessing. A godsend,” she says.
But her representative in Congress, Juan Ciscomani (R), voted to cut Medicaid and SNAP and to impose new work requirements.
Meanwhile, in Iowa, a retired woman named Jill is enrolled in a Marketplace healthcare plan that once cost her $75 a month thanks to enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies. But when Republicans voted against extending those subsidies, her premium jumped to nearly $800 a month.
Her representative in Congress, Marianette Miller-Meeks (R), voted to let those subsidies expire.
In Eau Claire, Wis., Erin Klaus has spent 17 years building up and running her small business. Erin’s representative in Congress, Derrick Van Orden (R), voted to protect Trump’s tariffs—tariffs that made small businesses like hers pay upfront, even as multinational corporations are better positioned to shift supply chains or pass along costs.
Since 2024, there has been handwringing among politicos about the rightward shift of young male voters in the United States. And now, a new report from the centrist think tank Third Way predicts many of the “swingy, moderate, low-propensity young men” who support Donald Trump will sit out the midterms this year.
At the same time, it’s crickets when it comes to understanding the political engagement of midlife and older women. Even as “organized gangs of wine moms” dominated headlines in recent weeks, I’ve found vanishingly little interest in analyzing how that demographic energy might translate to electoral clout.
In response to abortion bans and restrictions, feminists across the country have created networks of community groups that share abortion pills by mail, free of charge, with people who need them. Mostly run by volunteers, these mutual aid networks have served over 100,000 people since 2022.
“Everybody deserves bodily autonomy,” said one volunteer, who got involved out of rage after the Supreme Court revoked women’s constitutional right to abortion in 2022.
Increasingly decentralized and moving closer to the people they serve, these community providers are expanding their reach. While originally focused on states with bans and severe restrictions, they are now increasingly serving people in states where abortion is legal, but may not be affordable or accessible.
This essay is one of three “Letters to My Future Self” included in Flipping the Menopause Script Is Essential to Democracy. Through personal reflection, political memory and spiritual inquiry, these letters consider menopause and midlife as thresholds—moments of undoing, reckoning and renewal. They invite readers to see aging not as decline, but as a site of transformation, agency and hard-won power.
“Since we were born in 1967 … we were told, implicitly and explicitly, that we were the first generation of Black children born into the fullness of freedom promised by law. The first generation of Black women was meant to be fully protected by the government. Free to vote without obstruction. Free to be educated without limits. Free to open a bank account, hold a credit card and own property. Free to marry who we loved. Free to live without our rights being constantly renegotiated.
“That was the promise we inherited. …
“Menopause sharpened my understanding that rights, like bodies, require attending to and care. That neglect is a political choice. That erosion is not accidental. That what happens to aging bodies mirrors what happens to democracies that refuse to honor those most impacted by time, labor and sacrifice. So I am writing to you, Future Me, because I want us to meet each other awake.
“Who are we when I finally arrive?
“Are we softer without being smaller? Stronger without armor? Have we learned how to rest without apology? Have we let go of the belief that our worth must be proven through exhaustion? …
“If you are an ancestor now, please remind me of what mattered most. Not the accolades. Not the fear. Not the scarcity. Remind me that I belonged to myself. That I belonged to my people. That I trusted the wisdom of my changing body.”
(This essay is part of the latest Women & Democracy installment, published in the middle of Black History Month, in partnership with Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause. Menopause is not only a physical transition—it is also cultural, social and political. Recognizing its full scope is essential to advancing true health and civic equity.)
Like many of the women in my family, I had early menopause and had completed the process by the age of 50, the same as my mother.
The alarming truth is that we know more about reproductive organs in other species than we do our own. Our limited societal understanding of the lifespan of ovarian function is a casualty of the intersection of medical racism, patriarchy and white empiricism.
The story will remain incomplete until we have our research and clinical care guided by the menopausal experiences of those who experience it.
(This essay is part of the latest Women & Democracy installment, published in the middle of Black History Month, in partnership with Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause. Menopause is not only a physical transition—it is also cultural, social and political. Recognizing its full scope is essential to advancing true health and civic equity.)
One of three “Letters to My Future Self” featured in Flipping the Menopause Script Is Essential to Democracy. Blending poetry, spiritual reflection and lived experience, these letters explore menopause and midlife as sites of transformation, rest and reclamation.
“Let the cleavage of your wound smile out at the world from your unbuttoned dress. You know how to do it. This is an exercise in nerve. You need nerve to be free. (And you need freedom to fulfill your earthly mission.) …
“The liminality you are in is a temporary chrysalis. Your whole being is restructuring, and you’re shedding the parts of you that are no longer useful. When you emerge, you’ll soar.”
(This essay is part of the latest Women & Democracy installment, published in the middle of Black History Month, in partnership with Black Girls’ Guide to Surviving Menopause. Menopause is not only a physical transition—it is also cultural, social and political. Recognizing its full scope is essential to advancing true health and civic equity.)