INTRODUCTION

A NEW ERA

‘You’ve always had the power.’

Glinda the Good Witch to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz

Books, music, film … over the years they have all helped me make sense of my world. But recently, when everything Ithought I had nailed down in life was unpicked and turned upside down, I felt completely at sea. I needed a book like the ones we were given as kids that helped navigate the big questions at pivotal life moments, the illustrated guides like Where Did I Come From? and What’s Happening to Me? A nifty little how-to guide with some cosy, seventies-style illustrations could have really helped when it all fell apart and I found myself filled with a rage that I didn’t recognise.My only way out was to write about this shitshow that is themidlife era (hey, if Taylor Swift can have eras in her thirties, so can we) and offer it up as a guide to getting through.

Sadly, this one has no pictures, but if anyone can draw women who’ve forgotten why they walked into a room, women who can’t sleep, women laughing and crying (sometimes at the same time) at the dud hand they’ve been dealt, furious women whowant to burn it all to the ground, you’ve got the gig. The second edition is going to be wild.If you have been there, or are there, you’ll know: it’s a confusing time, with no instruction manual. This is not just a book about perimenopause and menopause. It’s more than that. It’s about the great perspective shift of midlife and the unravelling of several things I believed to be true. Thisset me on a path of questioning everything, redefining who I am, all the while gaining a sense of clarity and wisdom that is so invigorating it feels explosive at times. This is not the beginning of the end, as we’ve been led to believe, this is the start of a whole new adventure. This is enlightenment.

Until recently, this stage of life has hardly been talked about. Let’s start with the words perimenopause and menopause, shall we? They were not seen as subjects for polite conversation,so these phases of life remained a mystery until they hit you. Maybe, when I was younger, I heard the words whispered, but few shared their experiences. I now know, this is a lifestage that leaves many of us feeling discombobulated, isolated, confused and, quite often, a little on the furious side. Of course, some women sail through ageing with no issues, and I’m genuinely happy for these unicorns, but for many, including me, this life stage brings unexpected and unnerving turbulence, both physical and mental. Thanks to my rapidly depleting hormones, which decided to hit the road, Jack, seemingly overnight, I hit the proverbial iceberg and had started to sink. And that’s when I learned that there were others just like me, but they didn’t know how to talk about it, or didn’t feel comfortable doing so. I’ve never been one to hold back, and that’s why I agreed to make a documentary about menopause a few years ago – because if I didn’t, who would? This was just before menopause chat had reached the mainstream and admittedly, I initially rejected the offer, because my first response was shame and embarrassment. I didn’t want to be known as ‘the menopause lady’.

This response raised alarm bells in me. Perhaps my shame was around ageing, something I know I shouldn’t be apologising for. It was a feeling held deeply, somewhere in the treasure chest of unconscious beliefs. I was also uncomfortable discussing my body or talking about things that were deemed ‘private’ when I was growing up. So I sat myself down for a long chat and came to the conclusion that if I, an educated and, I’d like to think, pretty well informed woman who considers herself a feminist, didn’t have a clue what was going on, then there would be loads of women just like me who needed help. So I did the documentary. And in the process, I overcame a lot of shame, and helped a lot of people. I had women coming up to me in shops, even in changerooms, thanking me for my role in helping them navigate their own experience. Interestingly, when I made the doco, I was already sailing through the choppy waters of perimenopause, but my littleship had yet to dock and unload its cargo of chaos and fury. Then one morning, I looked at myself in the mirror and asked,‘Who is this sweaty troll with greying pubes, crepey skin, a thicker mid-section, a whole bunch of new chin hairs, and absolutely no desire to bother with personal grooming or niceties?’ Spoiler alert: it was me. Something else had changed, too. I was furious. It wasn’t just the intermittent anger that can bubble up out of nowhere, like when a partner breathes or chews too loudly, or tries to explain how to do something we’ve been doing for years (no, I don’t need help backing into a car park, mate – reverse parking is my superpower so off you trot). It was a deep rage that had me feeling all the world’s injustices intensely. I’ve always been highly empathetic, but suddenly, I had to change the world. I wanted to use my voice to help others who, like me, had woken up one day feeling like a completely different person, but were unable to name why it all felt so heavy. For me, it was an unravelling of sorts, from who I thought I was into who I have become – a shift that is both magnificent and terrifying. The old me would have extinguished that rage. Many women ignore our rage, hoping it will go away, or repress it until it erupts at odd moments, and we find ourselves melting down at Bunnings on a Saturday because they’ve run out of sausages.

You see, women are not supposed to be angry. For centuries, our role has been as the soft, thoughtful caregiver. We aren’t supposed to rock the boat. If we do, we get called emotional or that oft-used word, difficult. Men, of course, are allowed to embrace their rage. It’s considered a natural, biological urge that comes with the X chromosome, so they are encouraged to express it, lest they explode. Becoming a woman of a certain age means entering the ‘zero fucks’ stage of life, spurred on by the drop in the hormone estrogen, which removes the buffer that previously helped us facilitate caregiving, enabled resilience and increased our tolerance to stress and other annoyances. Without it, my behaviour was closer than ever to the way so many men behave most of the time. With that epiphany came immense clarity. What I was seeing all around me went from the soft focus of a Joan Collins publicity shot to the laser-sharp vision of a sniper, and there was no going back. This wasn’t just wisdom, this was illumination – and this is why it can’t be a coincidence that in our patriarchal Western culture, women over a certain age miraculously become‘invisible’.They disappear from our screens and from our workplaces,they’re no longer advertised to or spoken about. And that makes perfect sense. Because it’s at this mid-life stage that women start to see through the charade, and they start to call out bad behaviour, bad decisions and bad treatment. This makes us terrifying to those who have been gaming the system to their advantage.

There is a reason why men like Harvey Weinstein target young women, and it is not just the warped perception of beauty that, for men like him, cancels out anyone over thirty. It is because young women don’t yet have the tools to push back. Yes, I know this is a sweeping statement – there are some extraordinary young women being brave and speaking out (bravo Greta, Grace, Chanel, Abbie). But many others are just like I wa sat that age − scared to make waves. And with good reason. Let’s not forget how Sinead O’Connor was treated when, aged in her twenties, she spoke out about abuse in the Catholic Church. Instead of behaving the way she was supposed to, she used her profile to alert the world to the centuries of sexual abuse that had been enabled within the religion − and she paid a heavy price. She was blacklisted by radio stations, her records were burned, and she endured years of public condemnation. Sinead’s bravery cost her both her livelihood and her mental health. Our culture celebrates youth and beauty, but only if it behaves a certain way. Once women pass our ‘use-by’ date, off we are supposed to trot to our daily soaps and our knitting. We are grandmas. Older men are called distinguished, or silver foxes, and are still present and welcome in a world that accommodates, and often celebrates, their physical changes. They’re still in the game, still attractive, just in a new way. There are no real comparable terms for older women. Crone isn’t exactly a word that’s going to get anyone excited, is it? And cougar is all about men finding us attractive despite our age. Once again, we are defined through their eyes. And why is that? This lack of language seems intentional. With this hard-earned wisdom has come the understanding that for too long, most of us have been forced into a way of living that wasn’t of our choosing, nor in our best interests. Up until only a few decades ago, women had little choice but to get married and step into the role of personal assistant,housekeeper and chief baby maker. This life was not designed FOR us. It was about everyone else. And the women who dared step out of those narrow expectations were labelled as different, as outliers.

Even these days, when we have more choice, more autonomy, we’re still wearing the shackles of a patriarchal system that assigns us the bulk of the domestic and emotional labour in our homes and relationships. This makes it near impossible to truly thrive, because juggling it all is exhausting, let alone juggling it all with a smile on your face. We have every right to be angry. Nowadays, I see being difficult as a badge of honour. As the magnificent Jane Goodall said, ‘It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.’So, this book is a celebration of anger, of earned wisdom, of ageing. It is for women like me, who are sliding into this powerful life stage, and the women to follow, who already know things aren’t right. It is about calling bullshit on those in charge, who uphold the archaic structures that subdue women. Our compliance keeps them in power, and in money. Here I was, wanting to write a funny little how-to manual to help us navigate this midlife fuckery together. I wanted to show women how to get through this without feeling so disillusioned and angry they’d want to burn everything they’d built to the ground. But I changed my mind. I want us to embrace our anger. I want us to question everything. And, let’s face it, there is a lot to call out. Anger is a completely reasonable response for women to what is happening to us now, and has been happening to us for centuries. I’m writing this book for the women who have grown up in a system that benefits those who benefit from keeping us silent and compliant, and for the men who also don’t get to be their full selves within that system.

Writing this book has made me realise that not only do I want to burn it all to the ground, I’m happy to light the match. Gone is the old version of myself, who would smooth things over, keep the peace. Today, I am a woman with a can of petrol, ready to clear the ground so new things can grow.