I really enjoyed this piece (as I do all of your work!). I looked back at a piece I wrote on equality and how mad it made me that the book and the playing cards (make it fun ha!) Fair Game were marketed to women to teach men. You have put it much more eloquently here and I love that you delved into this topic.
I find is so fascinating (maddening!) that more men, particularly those in relationships with women (!) don't bother to read anything about menopause. If men went through menopause, their women partners would be reading all about it, trying to understand it, as women typically do with any medical / social issue men face. We know we need to understand it because it affects us and because, for the most part, we care about our partners' well-being. But somehow men don't seem to feel any desire to understand what we are navigating. (I insisted my husband read Ada Calhoun's "Why We Can't Sleep" and it was eye-opening for him, but it did not occur to him to pick it up off my night stand and think hey, I bet this would be useful for me to read. (I saw a post recently by a guy who pointed out he want to a reading / book event for a new book on menopause and he was the only one there, and he just couldn't understand why other men had zero curiosity or interest about what the women in their lives go through.)
“Why don’t women’s accounts of their lives appeal to most men?”
Fuck. There it is.
That’s the line that stood out to me, too!
I really enjoyed this piece (as I do all of your work!). I looked back at a piece I wrote on equality and how mad it made me that the book and the playing cards (make it fun ha!) Fair Game were marketed to women to teach men. You have put it much more eloquently here and I love that you delved into this topic.
Yes yes yes to all of this!
I find is so fascinating (maddening!) that more men, particularly those in relationships with women (!) don't bother to read anything about menopause. If men went through menopause, their women partners would be reading all about it, trying to understand it, as women typically do with any medical / social issue men face. We know we need to understand it because it affects us and because, for the most part, we care about our partners' well-being. But somehow men don't seem to feel any desire to understand what we are navigating. (I insisted my husband read Ada Calhoun's "Why We Can't Sleep" and it was eye-opening for him, but it did not occur to him to pick it up off my night stand and think hey, I bet this would be useful for me to read. (I saw a post recently by a guy who pointed out he want to a reading / book event for a new book on menopause and he was the only one there, and he just couldn't understand why other men had zero curiosity or interest about what the women in their lives go through.)