Opinion In our youth-obsessed culture, conversations around menopause tend to be hushed. That is, if they occur at all. In our youth-obsessed culture, conversations around menopause tend to be hushed. That is, if they occur at all. Menopause — the cessation of menstruation — is obliquely and frighteningly referred to as The Change. Depictions in popular culture consist of, like, a sweating lady leaning into an open freezer to a laugh track. Our culture talks about women "over a certain age," as though we fall off a cliff and disappear the moment we turn 50. As though we have an expiration date, like a jug of 2%.