Reimagining Menopause

Reimagining Menopause offers a sociological response to the heightened public visibility of menopause in the West and the increasing attention it has received in the Global South in recent years. Employing C. W. Mills’ concept of the sociological imagination as a lens, the monograph examines how individuals’ and groups’ diverse lived experiences of menopause relate to and interact with contemporary cultural narratives, social discourses, actors, and structures. The monograph examines: (1) how menopause has come to be imagined, understood, and experienced across different social and cultural contexts and domains; (2) what current imaginings of menopause enable and exclude, and how they reinforce existing and/or create new exclusions and inequalities; and (3) how menopause might be reimagined in more inclusive, diverse, and just ways. Addressing these questions, the articles in the monograph highlight the significance of the current visibility of menopause in challenging its historical invisibility and in contributing to the development of alternative ways of knowing and experiencing menopause, ageing, the body, and femininity. These new forms of knowing and ‘doing’ menopause emphasise collective relations, lay knowledges, and embodied practices, thereby resisting individualised and biomedicalised understandings. At the same time, the articles underscore the limitations and exclusionary character of dominant ways of imagining menopause, ageing, femininity, and the body—particularly their confinement within neoliberal logics. Reimagining Menopause thus demonstrates the important role of sociology in diagnosing prevailing and marginalised imagininings and their consequences, while underscoring the continuing importance and utility of the concept of the sociological imagination in this task. Furthermore, the monograph exemplifies how sociological thinking and research can foster more equitable and inclusive ways of understanding and experiencing menopause, particularly in its intersection with gender and ageing. Finally, it advances creative methods for reimagining social issues, especially those related to the body, gender, and ageing.