Sociological imagination, feminist politics and their limits in accounts of UK menopause experts

This article presents an ‘ambivalent critique’ of how experts in the UK ‘menopause movement’ imagine menopause. It shows how, on the one hand, in employing a sociological imagination and drawing on the legacy of feminist movements, menopause experts seek to challenge structural inequalities and social injustices, including the shame, silence and stigma surrounding menopause. On the other hand, it critiques the way these experts’ visions of menopause are underpinned by individualised, visibility-centred and market-driven logics and ideals, which curtail feminist politics and a capacity to meaningfully reimagine menopause and challenge unequal structural conditions. Drawing on interviews with 14 leading figures who act as experts in the field of menopause in the UK, I develop this ambivalent critique by first analysing the experts’ motivations for getting involved in the menopause field particularly in 2020–2021, what they seek to address in their public activity on menopause, and what they consider to be a ‘good menopause’, how it can be achieved and who it can benefit. I then explore how these experts employ a sociological imagination in Mills’ sense, connecting their personal experiences of menopause within larger social forces and societal conditions. In the third and final part of the analysis I examine three central visions of a ‘good menopause’ these experts share: (1) public, hyper-visible and normalised; (2) self-owned, controlled, managed and optimised; (3) expansive, intersectional and beyond.