24 images Created 2 Aug 2022
MANAGING MENOPAUSE
I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 48. My tumor fed on oestrogen, a hormone that women are replete with during their child-bearing years. To keep my cancer at bay, doctors put me into a chemically induced menopause.
The effects were immediate: hot flashes, mood swings, brain fog, depression and more. I felt like I was falling apart.
I was probably just a few years from menopause, but I had no idea what it would mean for my body.
I started talking to other women, I heard the same question over and over: How could I not know what what was going to happen to me?
Half the world’s population goes through menopause. Yet its often crippling symptoms are largely misunderstood, with insufficient information trickling through to those who need it most. Somehow puberty and pregnancy have gotten more air time.
There’s lots of confusion and misinformation on the topic. Hundreds of thousands of women are struggling with potentially unnecessary life changing symptoms.
Historically it had not been seen as being something important enough to need proactive attention, as women didn't live far beyond their child bearing years. Today, women live on average 20 years after the end of their reproductive cycle.
It’s important to provide information to help women make decisions about their health and wellbeing.
We are only now beginning to contest the study published 20 years ago that linked the use of HRT to breast cancer and cardiovascular disease. New evidence shows that HRT can help lessen women’s risks for diabetes, dementia and even some cancers.
The imagery available is scarce, lacking in diversity and uninspiring, there is little representation of black women, south Asian women or anybody other than a white demographic if you enter the word menopause on your web browser.
You could be forgiven for thinking that black women didn't necessarily go through menopause. Represented in the media are mostly white women. You just don’t see diversity,
I begun photographing what menopause looks like in the small English town where I live, but each portrait took me further a field, meeting campaigners, researchers, doctors, activists, lawmakers, workplace leaders, a transgender poet, men and children affected by Menopause. This natural hormonal transition doesn’t just affect the women experiencing it touches everyone who has a mother, wife or a female work colleague who is experiencing any of these symptoms. With this series I attempt to illustrate some of these symptoms and coping mechanisms.
Culture and ethnicity, geography and social economic status impacts how we deal with Menopause.
One of the biggest problems in women’s health is visibility, I hope those looking at a more diverse sample of images, the viewer might recognize themselves, their mothers or their wives and seek help. I want to spark curiosity and start a conversation on this largely unspoken subject which for many years has remained taboo.
The effects were immediate: hot flashes, mood swings, brain fog, depression and more. I felt like I was falling apart.
I was probably just a few years from menopause, but I had no idea what it would mean for my body.
I started talking to other women, I heard the same question over and over: How could I not know what what was going to happen to me?
Half the world’s population goes through menopause. Yet its often crippling symptoms are largely misunderstood, with insufficient information trickling through to those who need it most. Somehow puberty and pregnancy have gotten more air time.
There’s lots of confusion and misinformation on the topic. Hundreds of thousands of women are struggling with potentially unnecessary life changing symptoms.
Historically it had not been seen as being something important enough to need proactive attention, as women didn't live far beyond their child bearing years. Today, women live on average 20 years after the end of their reproductive cycle.
It’s important to provide information to help women make decisions about their health and wellbeing.
We are only now beginning to contest the study published 20 years ago that linked the use of HRT to breast cancer and cardiovascular disease. New evidence shows that HRT can help lessen women’s risks for diabetes, dementia and even some cancers.
The imagery available is scarce, lacking in diversity and uninspiring, there is little representation of black women, south Asian women or anybody other than a white demographic if you enter the word menopause on your web browser.
You could be forgiven for thinking that black women didn't necessarily go through menopause. Represented in the media are mostly white women. You just don’t see diversity,
I begun photographing what menopause looks like in the small English town where I live, but each portrait took me further a field, meeting campaigners, researchers, doctors, activists, lawmakers, workplace leaders, a transgender poet, men and children affected by Menopause. This natural hormonal transition doesn’t just affect the women experiencing it touches everyone who has a mother, wife or a female work colleague who is experiencing any of these symptoms. With this series I attempt to illustrate some of these symptoms and coping mechanisms.
Culture and ethnicity, geography and social economic status impacts how we deal with Menopause.
One of the biggest problems in women’s health is visibility, I hope those looking at a more diverse sample of images, the viewer might recognize themselves, their mothers or their wives and seek help. I want to spark curiosity and start a conversation on this largely unspoken subject which for many years has remained taboo.
