Читать книгу Brain Fitness for Women - Sondra Kornblatt - Страница 30

If men could menstruate, clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much. Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields—“For Those Light Bachelor Days.”

Gloria Steinem, feminist, journalist, and activist

There is no more creative force in the world than the menopausal woman with zest.

Margaret Mead, pioneering anthropologist

When Sherree read about menopause or hormone supplements, she became anxious. Everything seemed to say that (1) menopause was hell, (2) life without estrogen was barely manageable, and (3) hormone-replacement pills increased the risk of developing breast cancer, heart disease, blood clotting, and dementia.⁶⁷

Still, her female coworkers in their late fifties seemed fine. She overheard some of them saying that they weren't on hormone replacement therapy (HRT, they called it), though one of them said she had less brain fog and felt much saner and happier when she began HRT.

Sherree, age forty-four, wished she knew what was in store for her. She didn't know if her mom had had an easy or rough menopause, since she had died right after Sherree got her first period, at age twelve. And even if Sherree did know about her mother, would menopause would be the same for her as it was for her mom?

Science always has more to learn, but there are some things we do know about hormones, our bodies, and our brains—how they work monthly and throughout our lives.