How about talking about menopause? Tonight, France 2 broadcasts a new documentary, devoted to this subject that the majority of people with a uterus will have to live and which remains taboo. The plus: here, it is those who live it who tell …
Blandine Grosjean, who had directed the excellent documentary Sex Without Consent, denouncing the dangers of the "gray zone" in sexual matters, tackles this evening a completely different subject, also very little treated in the media: that of menopause. Average between 45 and 55 years old according to GEMVI, a group of studies on menopause and hormonal aging, this biological phenomenon affects people with a uterus. Yet, as evidenced by the women interviewed in Menopause, nobody (or very few) talks about it. This change suddenly remains a mystery, which we must live alone and without complaint under penalty of passing for "an old woman" (the ultimate insult for a woman in our society). To put an end to the stigmata, this document is therefore essential.
Testimonies full of life and joy
In her film, Blandine Grosjean involves seven women who confide in a funny and intimate way. No experts, no men, we are embedded as in a large support group, filmed in the middle of nature. The women interviewed tell about their symptoms and how they experienced them. Some thought they were in depression, not knowing the physical manifestations of menopause … One even admits: "To me it was supernatural and creepy!"
All denounce the pressure on women of postmenopausal age, their invisibilization, hormonal upheavals and possible treatments. They also speak of desire, of this changing body which is also a source of new things. Finally, they evoke the fact of becoming a grandmother and the difficulty of being perceived as old. The bonus, despite everything? A form of serenity when you find balance.
We would recommend that you too much to look into it, this evening at 11:10 pm on France 2, or on the site of France TV.