Menopause: fundamental adaptation or deficiency syndrome?

In the 21st century, educated women know to expect menopause just as girls are taught to prepare for menstruation. However, while there has been a recent movement to destigmatise menstruation and to discuss it as a normal stage of the human life course, the same is not quite true of menopause. Rather, menopause has often been medicalised—classed as a deficiency syndrome—and women anticipate dire symptoms as they speed towards bodily decline and...