The Change: Women, Aging and the Menopause
by Germaine Greer
Hard to review. Toward the end , she got so "right on!" that I wanted to cheer. I wanted to pull out quotes and send them to friends. To cherish the book forever for reading and re-reading.
But then again, maybe I should just get on with my life.
Anyway, her initial chapters dealing with the history of menopause, or the climeractic as she prefers to call it, are as sad as you would expect. The tendency of male doctors and philosophers to view the female body as a frail, diseased version of a man's; to treat childbearing as the whole purpose of a woman's existence; to expect all women's ultimate desire to be pleasing a husband...well, we know our history, don't we? It sucked. And the glory age of HTR (hormone replacement therapy) fitted neatly into a world that wanted a pill to pop for every disorder. Ceasing to have periods was a disorder, wasn't it? When women complained of the pre-menopausal symptoms, doctors "fixed the problem." That's what doctors do.
I enjoyed that part of the book and very seldom had to put it aside and pace around the room swearing. But the last two chapters--The Old Witch and Serenity And Power--are outstanding. Maybe she over-glorified the historical contrast between wizards and witches--wizards are all about spells and transformations, evil eye and dark arts; witches about love spells, healing and herbs. But the idea of witchery as an escape from the dead and lonely lingering of a useless old woman was a new idea, and it delighted me.
Serenity and Power is a rallying cry for the modern-day elderly woman. Childbearing and mothering behind; freed from the nuisance of a monthly curse, she can let herself be alive to create the strong old woman she was always meant to be. Yeah.
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