The march of the ‘menosplainers’

I think we’ve reached peak menopause. You simply can’t switch on the radio, open a newspaper or watch telly without some fiftysomething media babe banging on about her hot flushes, sudden rages and the feeling of going mad. Davina McCall has just made a whole TV show about it (Sex, Mind and the Menopause), and her book Menopausing is out this month. McCall has likened her symptoms to those felt by people with a brain tumour. Clearly, she has never known anyone with a brain tumour, because those symptoms are a little more significant than simply forgetting where you left your keys, or feeling suddenly hot.

I’m not saying there isn’t a place in women’s magazines or in the health section of newspapers for features about ‘My menopause hell’. Every female journalist is entitled to her fair share of pieces about her biology – about pregnancy, periods, childbirth, child-rearing and the menopause: morning sickness so bad I puked on the Northern Line; I poured a bottle of Evian over my head during a hot flush at a Springsteen concert; I ate an entire box of chocolates because I was hormonal and I wanted them; and I’m a woman in charge of my own destiny.

The trouble is the sheer amount of it all – and the seriousness with which it’s taken. In my late mum’s time, two women going through menopause would exchange conspiratorial giggles as they whipped off as many clothes as they decently could, or fanned themselves, or said in unison ‘Is it me, or is it hot in here?’, which incidentally is the title of Jenni Murray’s book on the subject.

These days bookshop windows are full of the menopause. There’s a book by that medical expert – oh wait, no, Primrose Hill trendsetter – Meg Mathews, called The New Hot: Taking on the Menopause with Attitude and Style.