Beauty culture has a vocabulary for menopause, and it’s mostly a subtraction of something—of collagen, fertility, and most glaringly, youth. The skin care aisle in department stores and personal care stores speaks the same language: labels promising to “restore,” “reverse,” and “defy” age. It’s all the same. No wonder so many of us walk into our big 4-Os and 5-Os feeling way past our prime.
But menopause isn’t an ending. It’s a transition, a second adolescence of sorts—and like the first, it might be confusing because no one explains what it is.
Here are five myths about menopause worth unlearning and why.
Pexels
Myth #1: Menopause is a loss.
Part of this narrative has basis. In a previous article, OB-GYN and pelvic floor specialist May Anne Tabaquero, MD, FPOGS, FPSURPS, explained that hormone levels start fluctuating and eventually decline during perimenopause. Resident physician at Cardinal Santos Medical Center, Roberta de Jesus, MD, also said those hormonal shifts can bring a variety of changes in the body.
So yes, some things do get “lost,” biologically at least. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), menopause is caused by the loss of ovarian follicular function and a decline in estrogen. Falling estrogen is also linked to the loss of bone density, higher cardiovascular risk, and weaker pelvic support.
However, WHO notes that menopause shouldn’t be thought of as a disease, but an opportunity to reassess one’s health, lifestyle, and goals.
In an exclusive interview with Allure Philippines during Halia’s Decoding Women’s Health: From 30s to Perimenopause event, Rega Stellar Pe, Director at the World Institute for Incurable Diseases (WIID), says she wants to push back on this framing of loss.
Life, she says, is always subtracting something and adding something else, from childhood to adolescence to adulthood, and menopause should be seen as an evolution, “not just as linear addition and subtraction.”
What’s gained, in her opinion, are experience, maturity, and new capacities that keep growing even as fertility declines.
She also adds that this depends on the person’s outlook in life. “If you think you’re losing something, then you’re in a rush to gain it back. But if you think you’re evolving, and you’re focusing on growing through the change, and on how to do it smoothly and gracefully, a better version of yourself will emerge,” she says.
Myth #2: It’s something to be afraid of.
If menopause feels frightening, it’s partly because of how little of it gets explained. Jayme Timbol, a trainer and mentor at the World Institute for Incurable Diseases (WIID), shares with Allure Philippines that in her circles, she hears a lot of fear, confusion, and misconceptions about menopause.
It’s a gap the WHO describes as common in most countries: menopause often goes undiscussed in families, workplaces, and clinics. Women may not realize their symptoms are related to it or may feel too embarrassed to ask for help and support.
However, Timbol wants women to be able to face it—even enjoy it, instead of having no idea what’s happening in their bodies. “As we think about our journey from our youth to childhood, there are so many things that we could truly enjoy. So we definitely want to shift the narrative and come from a place of strength rather than from a place of fear.”
Myth #3: You’re supposed to deal with it alone—and quietly.
Lesley Geronimo, founder of WIID-Purposeful Longevity, points to the changes that happen in a woman’s 40s and 50s, when everything overlaps with everything else: a promotion at work, teenagers or young adults at home, a partner going through their own problem, or something else entirely.
“They’re faced with so many things in the different areas of their lives, and the last thing they would want is to feel like they’re losing something,” Geronimo tells Allure Philippines. This is why, she says, many women don’t understand what’s happening to them, and this confusion turns to shame. They don’t share it because they already have this notion that others won’t be able to understand either.
It’s a public health challenge that the WHO has acknowledged, stating that women need access to systems that can support them: “Unfortunately, both awareness and access to menopause-related information and services remain a significant challenge in most countries. Menopause is often not discussed within families, communities, workplaces, or health-care settings.”
Geronimo’s goal is to call for greater understanding of menopause. “I think it’s more important for us to have more people, not just women, also men and employers, understand better what menopause is or what perimenopause is or what kind of changes women are going through, so that we’ll have a more supportive environment for women in general,” she says.
Pexels
Myth #4: Older women have nothing left to give.
Alexa Jocom, the Gen Z founder of Halia, tells Allure Philippines that women always have something to give, no matter what their age is. Speaking from her own relationship with her mother and grandmother, she says that menopause “isn’t a stage of losing, but of them actually giving back,” with the younger generation receiving their wisdom and experience.
She points to “The Grandmother Hypothesis,” a theory by James G. Horndon that suggests that women can enjoy life more once they pass their reproductive years.
“That’s why menopause also happens, to ensure the survival of their lineage through more wisdom and storytelling to their grandkids or great-grandkids,” she explains.
Sharing these experiences with them, Jocom says, eventually helps the family evolve and thrive together, and not just as individuals.
Myth #5: It’s a problem to fix.
For Pe, menopause is a transition to be led, not just managed, so that women aren’t dealing with the consequences after the fact. In practice, she says, this process begins with the basics: proper sleep, nutrition, and the right kind of movement.
Jeannette Graf, MD, assistant clinical professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Medical Center, said in a previous Allure US article that menopause may come with challenges but also with solutions, and that “by taking simple care of ourselves, we can look good and feel great for a long time.”
None of these myths can change what menopause really is: a stage in life that most women will experience, with real physical changes and plenty of information to know about it. What changes is the narrative we choose to follow.
It doesn’t have to be all negative—a subtraction, a decline, a secret, or even a problem you’re meant to solve on your own. Just like everyone’s first adolescence, it’s better to have someone hold your hand through it, without shame. Our mothers and grandmothers may have gone through it without this conversation, but we don’t have to.
