The self-care paradox of menopause and yoga in neoliberal spaces

Menopause in many societies is dominated by a persistent narrative of decline, as a natural biological transition that must be managed and controlled. While there is a growing societal conversation around menopause, structural supports are often inconsistent, homogeneous, performance-driven and/or performative leading individuals to engage in self-care. The increasingly popular empowerment narrative of managing one’s own menopause is simultaneously and somewhat paradoxically associated with feminist collective action and activism while valorising individualised self-care. In this article, we provide a conceptual analysis for reimagining menopause as a way of undoing societal structures that reinforce the marginalisation of midlife women. Specifically, we draw on our lived experience as menopause researchers and yoga teachers/practitioners to discuss how yoga practice and its spaces promote a self-care paradox: espoused through Indian and Western cultural perspectives as having utility to help ‘manage menopause’, they are underpinned by and in turn reinforce neoliberal feminism, highlighting gendered/ageist contradictions of inclusion/exclusion. We focus on reimagining balance as a gendered physical and metaphorical dimension of the relationship between yoga and menopause to contextualise this self-care paradox, which is applicable to a wider range of women’s issues. We advocate for a reimagining of menopause and its spaces, which sees feminist goals of gender equity and equality achieved through both individual-level self-advocacy and community activism.