Biosocial aspects of menopause

Nicole Vernazza-Licht (1)

1 ESPACE - Études des Structures, des Processus d’Adaptation et des Changements de l’Espace

Menopause is a stage of a woman’s biological life corresponding to the end of her time of fertility and appears with the final stop of menstruation between the age of 45 and 55 years. It is considered as one of the ageing mechanism which leads to a series of biological changes having an impact not only on the woman herself, but on her role inside the family and inside the society as well. A biological phenomenon still poorly investigated by anthropologists. Despite differences inside social, cultural and medical environments, menopause is clearly a crucial stage of a woman’s life. Menopause is a turn-over for her and her surroundings and needs a clear assessment in terms of social and health adjustment. In fact, what is the factual experience of a menopaused woman ? How does she face this challenge from a social and physiological point of view ? Does this new biological status mean a different quality of life depending on each region of the world ? Menopause in today’s western societies is no longer linked to the end of fertility, but more to the start of an ageing process. The medicalization of menopause today is perceived as a delayed process of ageing and as a way to extend a better quality of life. In that context, menopause is negatively perceived and consequently leads to a series of health and personal actions for maintaining an identical role inside the couple, the family and the society as well. In southern countries and in subsaharan Africa, the issue of fertility is not addressed the same way because of a poor policy of contraception. Menopause there means the end of fertility and is more positively perceived, because of a potentially greater autonomy inside the couple and a greater social aknowledgement. Nevertheless and despite an increased life expectancy, the public policy for health is not very concerned by these issues and focus more on the fertility of women. Faced with the challenge of menopause and beyond the biological variability of the phenomenon, it is all the more necessary to study the social behaviours in different cultures, since menopause tends to have a more and more important place in women life in regard to the extended life expectancy of populations. Menopause is a biological process at the crossing paths of medical science and sociology. This is one of the reasons why anthropologists should pay attention to it.

Mots clés: Anthropology; menopause; France; women

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie

Nicole Vernazza-Licht. Biosocial aspects of menopause. Social biology and human affairs, 2000, 65.1, pp.1-7. ⟨hal-01442665⟩