Kvinners Utløpsdato? : bilde og forståelsen av klimakteriet, kjønn og aldring i dagspressen og blant middelaldrende kvinner ; A female expiring date : images and understandings of menopause, gender and aging in media and among middle-aged women

Menopause is a period of biological transition in middle-aged women, when oestrogen levels gradually drop. After menopause women no longer can give birth to children. However, menopause is more than biology; it is also an example of a bio-psycho-social process, where psychosocial and cultural involvement can influence experiences of the biological transformation. Furthermore, many myths and meanings surrounds menopause, and the purpose of this study drawing on a Foucauldian perspective, is to examine discourses in contemporary society that affect the understanding of what menopause is. The methodological approach consists of an analysis of media articles and interviews with middleaged women to explore different conceptions of menopause. The analysis of articles in two leading Swedish newspapers during a period of five years (Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet, 2007- 2011) reveals that the media present menopause as a substantial risk factor that increases the possibilities of many diseases, irrespective of genes and lifestyle, and that menopause appears to cause reduced quality of life and degraded body. This female period of life is portrayed as “the beginning of the end”, filled with dichotomies concerning whether menopause is natural or pathological, but with an emphasis on the pathological. The newspaper articles present different strategies for women on how to deal with this transformation, such as hormone replacement therapy, fitness, and different diets that can "calm" women’s experience of menopause. Media thus present menopause as both problematic and challenging. However, interviews with six middle-aged women show that women themselves view this differently. Women define menopause as the border between being young and old, and this makes menopause in conflict with today's youth-obsessed society, where health and appearance are essential components of personal identity, particularly for women. Women talk about menopause as a confirmation of age, and also indirectly as the beginning of deteriorating ...