Perimenopause has become a joke, but midlife women deserve better

There is a strange moment that happens in a woman’s 40s. And it sneaks up somewhere between figuring out why your nine-year-old has suddenly decided he doesn’t like tomatoes and trying to remember the last time you drank a coffee before it went cold. You start noticing tiny things. The way people pause when you talk to them, then offer to explain technology you already use every day. The way some women, once they cross a certain invisible age line, are treated as if they have malfunctioned or worse.. expired.

And then there is the big one. The M-word. Menopause.

Still me, still plaits, still showing up

Now, I am still wearing plaits, still turning up to the gym and refusing to give up my Saturday morning punchy-kicky routine. I am also still raising my son, who I had at 40, still living in a home that is charmingly lived-in and will never look like one of those spotless, sterile influencer flats. I am me, and still trying to make ends meet to pay unforgiving school fees, the looming worry of having no pension and the quiet fear of whether I will even be able to afford my mortgage in years to come. Which is exactly why I find the whole cultural treatment of menopause so bloody irritating.

At 50, I am not a lady of leisure. I don’t have the luxury of drifting through life in linen trousers and slow mornings. I need to earn every penny I can, and I need a world that treats midlife women as the powerhouses we are, not as the punchline.

When the symptoms creep in quietly

I have noticed the shift myself. Recently I have succumbed to quietly ticking off my own symptoms with the Balance app. The odd nights when my body decides to run its own sauna, and “hot, hot, hot” means something very different from what it means for H. The afternoons where my brain decides it would rather be on a beach in Kish Island listening to Persian pop than answering emails. The mood swings that could give any Marvel villain a run for their money.

I’d like to think I’d be a mix of Black Widow and Hela, strategic enough to plot my Saturday morning punchy-kicky routine without missing a jab cross hook, fierce enough to survive the 3am craziness with my dignity intact, and stubborn enough to refuse society’s “midlife woman, please stay in your lane” script. My superpower would be turning body combat into a weapon of mass energy, and giving the occasional side-eye when someone takes my space at the back of the class. My lair is a lived-in home filled with books, molehill piles of small stray socks, and my battle is less about world domination and more about proving that midlife, motherhood, and muscles can all coexist, hot flushes and brain fog included.

Villainous? Maybe. Relatable? Absolutely. I have not fallen apart, but I have certainly begun paying closer attention to my own body, and it has been whispering all sorts of new information. What frustrates me however is not the symptoms, it is the cultural shrug surrounding them.

The real reason midlife women get pushed aside

It is no coincidence that women are sidelined once they become confident enough to stop conforming to sexist standards. When we finally grow into our own skin, when we stop performing girlhood to make others comfortable, when we prioritise our health, wellbeing, and strength, suddenly we are treated as though we have had our turn and should move quietly to the back of the line.

As women reach 50, they are sometimes seen as less valuable and less capable than their younger counterparts. I’ve heard this from friends, and it’s heartbreaking. The irony is that this is the exact stage where many of us become wiser and more powerful than ever.

The gym is not the sanctuary they tell us it is

I spent my 20s trying to be smaller and quieter. I spent my 30s juggling expectations. My 40s have been an awakening. I had a baby, I felt invinsible, and then there was the slow realisation that I could lift heavier weights in the gym, and choose kinder friendships than I ever could in my youth. Yet society wants to treat this chapter as a downgrade. A glitch in our systems.

Even the wellness world, which supposedly champions women’s health, often makes things worse. The miracle solutions and patronising messaging. The idea that midlife women must battle their bodies rather than understand them. I see it every time I walk into the gym. If you are not 25 and sculpted like you live on protein shakes, people assume you must be there to “fix” yourself because it’s all about “mental health” at our age, isn’t it? As if fitness is only valid when you are young.

What midlife women actually need from society

And then there’s TikTok, forever insisting that confidence means twirling in your pants under good lighting. Apparently anyone can be “empowered” if they’re willing to point a ring light at their stretch marks and lip-sync about self-love. Lovely idea in theory. But if we’re truly confident, why do we need to prove it to strangers scrolling in silence in bed or on the bus?

What women actually need is honesty. Not the glossy TikTok version where everyone is effortlessly body-positive, never bloated, never exhausted, never up at 3am wondering why their hormones are behaving like rebellious teenagers. We need stories from real lives, real homes and real women. The ones who don’t have a neutral-toned dressing room for wardrobe transitions, the ones who post when the washing is on the staircase and your mascara resembles Alice Cooper.

Confidence, at least in my book, has actually nothing to do with how much skin you’re willing to show online. It is about knowing yourself, respecting yourself, and standing your ground when the world keeps nudging you towards the sidelines.

And if TikTok wants realism, it is welcome to film me in the kitchen having a small argument with H because I can’t remember where I put the car keys. That’s confidence too.

Which brings me back to the way menopause has been framed as the end of something. I do not accept it. I do not accept the cultural laziness, the sidelining, the assumptions that midlife women fade quietly into the background like the ZX Spectrum of the computer world.

It’s time to reclaim the narrative

Women’s health deserves better stories than that. Our fitness journeys deserve respect. Our wellbeing deserves investment just as much as our younger counterparts. And our midlife confidence should be seen as the asset it is, not a fault to be corrected.

The more I talk to other women, the more I see how powerful intergenerational conversations can be. This is not about pitting young women against older women. It is about creating a culture where none of us are reduced to stereotypes. I want my son to grow up seeing all women as leaders, creators, thinkers, and powerhouses, not punchlines.

So I am keeping my plaits. I am keeping my punchy-kicky gym classes. And I am keeping my voice. The more they try to reduce menopause to a joke, the louder I will get about how serious and complex this stage of life can be.