The Change
Women, Aging, and Menopause
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- $26.99
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- $26.99
Publisher Description
An updated edition of Germaine Greer's revolutionary discussion of menopause, which the New York Times Book Review called "a brilliant, gutsy, exhilarating, bruising, exasperating fury of a book."
A quarter of a century after the first publication of Germaine Greer's now canonical look at women's experience later in life, the renowned feminist and prolific author updates and expands her essential book, The Change.
Despite improvements over the last few years, discussions about menopause are still hampered by a huge variance in conventional wisdom about what happens, when it happens, when it can be said to be over, and how to deal with it. After decades, the same misinformation and ineffective methods are still being widely touted and proliferating at an alarming rate due to the rise of the Internet. In this updated edition of her groundbreaking book, Greer debunks stubborn myths and presents a vital new perspective on the emotional and physical changes--including up-to-date medical details--women face today when they go through what's known as "the change."
Greer also addresses cultural changes that surround female aging today, launching a clear and necessary protest against the notion that women should shrink into the background as they grow older. She argues that menopause marks the point in a woman's life when she should be able to stop apologizing and bask in the freedom and joy that come with her later years. Witty, wise, and timely, this new edition of The Change offers a crucial twenty-first-century guide to the change that every woman faces.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Menopause, Greer believes, should be a time of stock-taking, of spiritual as well as physical change, when the middle-aged woman, rejecting the roles held out by patriarchal society, attains a mature serenity and power. In a wise, witty and inspiring book, she rebukes doctors, psychiatrists--and women themselves--who blame the aging female for her menopausal distress. Skeptical of hormone replacement therapy, which she views as a boon to the pharmaceutical industry, Greer asserts that the ``climacteric syndrome,'' marked by depression, fatigue and irritability, is treatable by holistic medicine. Tweaking ``hardy perennials'' like Joan Collins and Helen Gurley Brown who, in Greer's opinion, refuse to grow old gracefully, she urges women to devise their own private ways of marking the menopause and puts forth the Witch and the Crone of history and literature as role models. Greer dispels all manner of myths and misconceptions about menopause. 50,000 first printing; Literary Guild alternate.
