The First Sex by Helen Fisher

Author:Helen Fisher [Fisher, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-76611-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-09-29T00:00:00+00:00

“Peaceful Potency”

“No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace, / As I have seen in one autumnal face.” So wrote John Donne about an older woman. Women seem to acquire a new presence in middle age—due, I think, to the physiological changes of menopause.

In a woman’s middle forties, some four to eight years before the last menstruation, biological changes cause the ovaries to pump out less estrogen.47 As levels of female hormones decrease in the bloodstream and other tissues, some women begin to feel the effects. Hot flashes, sweating, a dry vagina, and mood swings head the list. But the climacteric has a virtue. With menopause, levels of estrogen decline, unmasking levels of testosterone and the other male hormones present in the female body.48 As a result, postmenopausal women have proportionately higher concentrations of male hormones coursing through their bloodstreams.

Some of the effects are unpleasant. Some middle-aged women begin to put on weight around the waist, a male trait. Some grow a little facial hair. Some become slightly bald. Most acquire deeper voices. Some suffer related ailments, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart disease.

But with menopause, women around the world also become action-oriented, confident, forthright, and uninhibited, traits associated with high levels of testosterone in women.49 Germaine Greer caught the essence of this womanly state when she called menopause “peaceful potency.”

People have asked me how hormone replacement therapy, which replaces lost estrogen, will affect their postmenopausal personality. That is hard to answer. But a few things about HRT are clear: Only 8 percent to 12 percent of American women take estrogen in middle age for more than two years; even fewer women in other countries take female hormones for any length of time.50

More important, women who do take HRT do not regain the modest, self-deprecating demeanor of young girls—nor the girlish waistline and high voice. These women continue to exude the air of mature confidence that frequently characterizes postmenopausal women. HRT appears to add some healthful estrogen without dramatically affecting the peaceful potency of postmenopausal middle age.

Why has nature bestowed menopause—a condition that frees them to play a larger role in the community—on middle-aged women?

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.