SCROLL DOWN FOR CLIPS.Back in 2014, I wrote a blog (remember those?!) called ‘The Childless Menopause’, and it got a lot of comments. It seemed that I’d hit a nerve in being open about something many of us were already experiencing (or would experience in the future), yet which was rarely mentioned; namely, what it was like for those of us without children trying to make sense of our menopause when all of the available literature, support and messaging seemed to presume that everyone experiencing menopause was also a mother (and a white, middle-class, well-resourced, heterosexual and partnered one too…) I have to say, if I’d read one more twee statement about going into your ‘autumn’ as your daughter entered her ‘spring’, I might have set fire to the house with my hot flushes. Now, it’s not that I don’t empathise with the challenges faced by those with children, but with 1 in 5 of us not in that category, it was hard to never see our experience even mentioned in passing…
Things have improved slightly since then in that I have since been asked to contribute a handful of interviews to mainstream books about the menopause: 2020’s Still Hot: 42 Brilliantly Honest Menopause Stories by Kaye Adams and Vicky Allen, and 2021’s Cracking the Menopause: While Keeping Yourself Together by Mariella Frostrup and Alice Smellie, as well as the brilliant Dr Sharon Blackie’s Hagitude (2022), and have discussed it on podcasts such as The Hagitute Sessions and the Red School’s Menstruality Podcast.
However, non-mothers are still very much a footnote to the mainstream menopause narrative, (including on World Menopause Day), so much so that it can feel like the ‘motherpause’!
A book I can recommend (and which I’m not interviewed in), is 2021’s What Fresh Hell: Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities and You by Heather Corinna, which, although it’s predominantly about the peri-menopause, is the funniest, most radically inclusive book I’ve ever read about the menopause, with nary a mention of motherhood or children. I highly recommend it to all people who experience menopause.
And just out in 2025 is Mona Eltahawy’s collection of essays, Bloody Hell!: Adventures in Menopause from Around the World. My copy arrived recently, and I look forward to reading it and having my own perspective enlarged—because menopause, like everything, is an intersectional experience and, as Stella Duffy points out in our webinar, the dominant white, hetero, western, middle-class experience of menopause is just one story.
Life after Menopause: yes, it exists!
Most writing/offerings on menopause appear to have a strong focus on the ‘going through it’ bit. However, menopause isn’t just the permanent cessation of menstruation, nor is it only the often bewildering 8-10 years of the peri-menopausal process that precedes it.
Menopause is not an event, a date on the calendar—it is our embodied experience as women for the rest of our lives once our bodies are beyond our potentially childbearing years.
Yet we don’t hear much about life after menopause, which colludes with the sexist and pronatalist-driven narrative that post-fertile women are of no interest or use to the patriarchal project (other than the ‘grandmother hypothesis’—confirming once again that patriarchy sees no value in old women other than as reproductive support). You won’t be surprised to know that I, and my wise and experienced panel of childless elderwomen, do not agree!
Post-menopausal women are of value to the culture, with or without children.
Menopause is a natural stage of life for women (although for some it comes much earlier than midlife+, something explored by Catherine-Emmanuelle (early menopause at 14) and Stella (chemically induced menopause) in the clips below.
Our menopauses bring gifts as well as challenges—it’s not just a whack-a-mole list of symptoms; it can also be a powerful portal into a new kind of relationship with our body, our sensuality, the people in our lives, our worldview, and our personality.
Menopause can be the end of ‘playing nice’ with the world, and a deepening of what matters to us in the time we have left on this earth. Certainly, my ability to tolerate bullship (my own or others!) is almost non-existent.
Whether you are in your menopause transition, post-menopausal, or have that ahead of you one day, I really hope you gift yourself the time to listen/watch the recording above—and hear what nine powerfully tender non-mothers have to say about their lives after menopause with the frankness, vulnerability, soul, sass and heart I’ve come to love about hosting these sessions.
I look forward to hearing what you think.
What is your experience of menopause as a woman without/with children? Do share your thoughts in the comments below! I’m travelling at the moment, so I may not be able to respond immediately, but I will as soon as I can.
You are also very welcome to sign up for our next free ‘Fireside Wisdom with Childless Elderwomen’ session on Sat 13 December, when 16 powerful old/er women without children from around the world will be sharing their thoughts on how to Celebrate Our Light as women without children (and often without partners too) during the December festival season.
Guests featured in the ‘Life After Menopause’ video:
CATHERINE-EMMANUELLE DELISLE (CAN) is a Therapist for Relationship Assistance (TRA) working with childless people (in both French and English), as well as a regular workplace and conference speaker on the issues facing people without children. She is the founder of the award-winning Francophone website for women without children, Femme Sans Enfant, and is a licensed Gateway Women Reignite Weekend facilitator. Now in her late 40s, Catherine-Emmanuelle was diagnosed with unexplained early menopause at 14, and told that she would never be able to have biological children. She is joining us as a ‘middle-aged’ guest to speak to the complex experience of early menopause as a childless woman. Catherine-Emmanuelle has been closely involved with Gateway Women since 2012 and is also a World Childless Week Ambassador. Her website is: femmesansenfant.com
ANN MARIE McQUEEN (CAN/UAE) is in her mid-fifties and is a Canadian health and wellness journalist with over 30 years of experience. She launched Hotflash Inc in June 2020 to cover the latest clinical studies, treatments, products, guidance and more via a weekly research letter, podcast and across social media, bridging the widening gap between mainstream and holistic menopause care. Hotflash Inc. subscribers include some of the top CEOs, doctors and other practitioners in the space, alongside curious, open-minded women and other folks seeking to connect the dots and find their own solutions, all part of a fast-growing 25k+ global community living across 45+ countries. She’s also North America’s first dedicated menopause and midlife columnist, writing a twice-monthly column for Canada’s Postmedia newspaper group and Healthing.ca, a digital space. Check out HotFlash here on Substack at: hotflashinc.substack.com
DR STELLA DUFFY OBE (UK/NZ) is in her early 60s. She grew up in Aotearoa/New Zealand and has lived in the UK since her early 20s. She is an existential psychotherapist and also teaches psychotherapy theory and practice, as well as being an award-winning writer of seventeen novels, over seventy short stories, and fifteen plays. Her doctoral research was in the embodied experience of postmenopause, and she is currently rewriting her thesis for mass-market publication with Virago, entitled Being The Change. Stella is also a yoga teacher who teaches yoga for writers. She and her wife are childless due to cancer treatment and subsequent failed IVF. http://stelladuffy.blog
SUE FAGALDE LICK (US) is in her early seventies and the author of the memoir & blog ‘Childless by Marriage’, the collection ‘Love or Children: When You Can’t Have Both‘, a wonderful trilogy of novels (beginning with ‘Up Beaver Creek‘) featuring her inspiring and relatable childless heroine, ‘P.D.’, as well as journalism & poetry. She is childless due to her second husband not wanting (more) children, and in 2024, published her memoir ‘No Way Out of This: Loving a Partner with Alzheimer’s‘, about their marriage, his decline, her life whilst being his sole carer, and death. A musician and singer, she lives alone in rural Oregon and writes a Substack about her experience of ‘solo ageing’ called ‘Can I Do It Alone?‘ Main website: www.suelick.com
KATE KAUFMANN (US) is in her early 70s and the author of Do You Have Kids? Life When the Answer Is No. Kate’s blog for Psychology Today, ‘Unapparent’, explores the lives and issues faced by the childless and childfree. She is childless due to failed infertility treatments and single after divorce. www.katekaufmann.com
SUE NEWSOME (UK) is in her early sixties and a psychosexual therapist, coach and educator, and in 2013 was named ‘Sex Therapist of the Year’ by Outsiders, the UK charity that provides sex and relationship support to physically and socially disabled people. Partnered and childless-by-circumstance herself, Sue has been a long-time member of Gateway Women. www.suenewsome.com
MARIA HILL (US) is in her late seventies. She is a World Childless Week Ambassador and a long-time member of the Gateway Women/Childless Collective online community. She is the founder of Sensitive Evolution and the author of The Emerging Sensitive: A Guide for Finding Your Place In The World. She is a writer, coach, healer, and transformative thinker illuminating the connection between culture, identity and the self. Maria Hill can be found here on Substack at A Different Dream, where she discusses the current cultural shift from hierarchical to egalitarian systems.
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