Menopause in UK public discourse: visibility, content, factors and implications

In contrast to centuries of invisibility, recently menopause appears to be receiving  increased visibility in the UK and the wider Anglo-American cultural landscape. But why is there so much talk about menopause now? How is menopause being framed and whom does this newfound public visibility benefit? Despite growing scholarly interest menopause’s impact on women in the workplace, little is known about how menopause is currently being framed in public discussions, whether its negative biomedical framing is being contested and what, if any, alternative framings are emerging. Little is known also about the factors contributing to menopause’s heightened visibility and current framings, and the potential implications of its newfound visibility and current framings. Our study seeks to address these urgent questions by investigating how menopause has been framed in UK public discourse over the past twenty years; uncovering key economic, social, cultural, and political factors contributing to menopause’s growing visibility, and exploring the potential implications of these changes and of their underlying factors. 

Read more about the project in the latest edition of the Leverhulme Trust newsletter. 

People

Professor Catherine Rottenberg (PI)

Catherine Rottenberg is a Professor in American & Canadian Studies, Faculty of Arts.

Her areas of expertise include 20^th-century American literature, with particular interest in comparative African-American and Jewish-American literary studies, multi-ethnic US literature, Harlem Renaissance studies, "passing" narratives, as well as feminist, critical race and urban theory.

She has additional expertise in postfeminism, neoliberal and popular feminism as well as contemporary theories of "care".

Professor Shani Orgad (Co-I)

Shani Orgad is Professor in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. 

Professor Orgad’s research interests include gender, feminism, and media; representations, inequality and contemporary culture, representations of suffering and migration, new media, narrative and media, media and everyday life, media and globalisation, and ethnographic research methods.