Menopause and the paradoxes of self-help

In the context of the growing visibility of menopause across multiple domains, this article explores the ways in which menopause self-help books are both contributing to, and capitalising on, this visibility. It argues for the importance of ongoing sociological engagement with the menopause self-help genre, despite its limitations, as part of the work of reimagining menopause, because it is impossible to predict in advance where, and for whom, collective action may find a productive foothold amidst the genre’s precariously constituted neoliberal frame. Drawing on a discourse analysis of 15 popular menopause self-help books written by celebrities, healthcare professionals and healthcare-adjacent practitioners, this article argues that the books are built on a series of paradoxes: (1) silence vs. cacophony; (2) exceptional vs. generic; (3) decline vs. self-transformation; and (4) revolution vs. entrenchment. These paradoxes cultivate the imperative to act; create an inclusive space where diverse readerships can co-exist; and reflect the paradoxes in the wider social and cultural world around menopause. The books are sincere attempts, animated by feminist sentiment, to reimagine menopause in ways that will be collectively beneficial but they are ultimately constrained, first, by the limited discursive resources through which menopause is made intelligible, and second, by the genre itself and its definitional focus on the self as the primary subject of change. Consequently, in constructing an ideal menopause subject who must enact her own reinvention (and has the resources to do so), they foreclose the possible reimagining of a more socially inclusive menopause for all, even while trying to imagine it differently. However, the extensive discursive work required to contain the menopause within these paradoxes exposes the precarity of this foreclosure.