Menopause is a part of life in women's life span. Women around the world have different perspective and value about menopause. Even through all women went through similar menopausal symptoms, the way they receive it make a difference. in western culture menopause consider a medical condition and and treated with hormone replacement therapy. In Japanese culture " their way of dealing with the perimenopausal transition does not involve replacing estrogen or recreating menstrual periods" (Dixie Mills). according to DR. Dixie. Menopause in Japanese culture consider as regeneration or renewal while in united state it is considered as something dreadful that's is going to happen to us.other cultures such as in mayan women and the Cree women in Canada,women be come spiritual leader when they become menopause. This is because they retain their menstrual blood which is considered as " wise women blood". It is obvious that when women become older in western culture they become less important in the society. How ever in Sudan culture when women become older they become powerful and respectful. One interesting aspect of sexuality in menopause women is, in western culture loss of libido is considered as a problem of menopause and doctors write prescription while Bengali women considered her loss of libido as natural and no medical intervention is needed.
Refernce
http://www.womemtowomem.com/menopause/menopauseacrosscultures.aspx
Seyoum abebe
Seyoum,
ReplyDeleteYou point out a very important factor of how woman address this time in their life depending on where they are from and what their culture beliefs are. I agree with you about our western culture here it is all about beauty in a physical aspect of things and not the true inner beauty of a woman. Out libido decreases for a reason, God created our bodies to handle certain stages at different levels. We do not function now in our tewenties as we did in our teens. We do not function the same way in our thirties as we did in our twenties and so on. Woman tend to forget that men's libido and erectile dysfunction also takes part of their lives where medication is required so that they can feel how they felt when they were young.
If our western culture can learn to embrace aging and how beautiful each phase of life is and to have the media potray these positive images about aging, we would not have such a problem like we do today in the negative images of aging, menopause, and so on.
Dana Anderson