We are very pleased to feature a powerful contribution from Dr. Aruni Samarakoon, who has generously volunteered her time and expertise to write for Menopaus’ull. As a researcher based at the University of Hull and a committed advocate for equity, Dr. Samarakoon brings a critical and thought-provoking perspective to the discussion of menopause.
As a passionate advocate for women’s health Dr. Aruni Samarakoon invites us to look beyond the medical model and consider menopause through a political and intersectional lens—highlighting the lived experiences of working women in England and the societal structures that shape them. Her work challenges us to think differently about perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause.
We’re incredibly grateful for her support and proud to feature her voice as part of our mission to empower and inform through every stage of the menopause journey.
Read her work Political Reading on Perimenopause, Menopause, and Post-Menopause below:
Political Reading on Perimenopause, Menopause, and Post-Menopause
Dr. Aruni Samarakoon, University of Hull and Jacksons’ Bakery Hull
Throughout the existing literature, the conceptualisation of menopause has predominantly focused on its medical aspects, often labelling it as a deficiency disease. Susan Bell in Medicalisation of Menopause (1990) argues that this understanding should go beyond a purely physical reading of the concept—a view with which this article concurs. By defining menopause primarily as a medical issue, the discussion also reveals the political power embedded in how women’s bodies are interpreted and managed. Recognising menopause as more than a biological process highlights its significance in shaping women’s everyday lives. Therefore, this research article aims to reconceptualise menopause by focusing on its social dimensions, particularly through an intersectional lens that accounts for the multiple layers of women’s identities and experiences.
While defining menopause in medical terms offers a universal framework—applicable to women across paid, underpaid, and unpaid labour sectors—this universality is increasingly challenged in today’s neoliberal context, especially among working women in diverse socioeconomic layers. This discussion ties into women’s labour welfare policies. In this article, the focus is narrowed to working women in England, where an estimated 13 million women are currently experiencing perimenopause or menopause. But who are these women, and what are their stories?
To answer this question, intersectionality is essential. These women’s experiences are shaped by intersecting factors such as race, class, religion, nationality, age, immigration status, and histories of trauma, including violence experienced in both public and private spheres. Women situated within these categories bring context-specific narratives that intersect with the universal experience of menopause, offering a more complex and nuanced understanding.
The researcher engaged with women of Sri Lankan, Ethiopian, Iranian, Italian and Nepalese, backgrounds in various settings, including political party meetings, food production factories, universities, and art exhibition centres. All of these women are navigating perimenopause or post-menopause. Their stories reflect not only their daily struggles to survive and thrive as women but also their resilience, self-empowerment, and capacity to manage the crises occurring within their bodies. To maintain research ethics and protect participant confidentiality, anonymity was ensured; however, the cultural and contextual backgrounds of the women were described to provide a broader understanding. This approach illustrates how menopause, while universally experienced, becomes a contextually specific issue shaped by each woman’s unique social environment.
“I was in my 40s, displaced from one place to another due to the civil war in Sri Lanka. The constant displacement, witnessing death around me, and losing my beloved family members to the war pushed me into a state where I questioned the very point of living. Then I noticed my body beginning to change. I was no longer even able to run to save my life. At one point, I wanted to throw away all my clothes and sink into the lagoon, which the Sri Lankan army continuously shelled. I didn’t see the fire; I only saw the water—water that I hoped would cool my burning body.
I managed to escape that daily death trap of war and reach an unknown land where I didn’t speak the language and had no networks. After settling down as a refugee in the UK, I visited a medical practitioner because I was suffering from a burning mouth, hot flashes, constant sweating, fatigue, and an emotional rollercoaster that left me drained and haunted by suicidal thoughts. That’s when I learned I was entering menopause.
Looking back now, after ten years, I still wonder: was the war happening outside my body, or was it raging inside me”- Tamil Sri Lankan refugee woman residing in London.
The narrative of a Sri Lankan Tamil woman, who endured the intense warfare conducted by the Sri Lankan government between 2006 and 2009—marking the end of the protracted civil war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam—provides evidence that when women are forced to choose between life and death amid warfare, the universal medical experience of menopause, though natural and inevitable, intensifies their physical and emotional vulnerability. In her case, the intersection of menopause and war-related trauma compounded her suffering, pushing her into even more critical stages of distress.
Though the Ethiopian and Iranian women I met in Hull shared similar experiences with the Sri Lankan Tamil woman—fleeing warfare, structural oppression, and physical harassment, enduring displacement across countries, and eventually resettling in the UK as refugees—their connectivity with the local environment was further complicated by language barriers. However, both the Ethiopian and Iranian women raised two important points that must be considered when conceptualising menopause as a universal issue.
Despite belonging to different sects of Islam, they both emphasised a shared experience as Muslim women: they were confined to the roles of homemakers, reproducers of human life, and treated as secondary in terms of gender. This religious framing caused their menopausal bodily changes to be ignored, pushing them to tolerate the symptoms rather than recognise and seek remedies for the physical and mental damage they endured.
In addition to the trauma inflicted by war and displacement, these women were forced to silently bear the traumas brought on by menopause—suffering physical pain, mood swings, and emotional exhaustion without acknowledgment or support. How these women’s stories are heard, and whether they are heard at all, is a critical question in examining the supposed universality of menopause among women.
The next woman’s narrative offers another unique perspective on menopause as a universal medical issue, shaped by harsh labour conditions:
“I have five children—two are in Italy, and three are here in the UK with me. I am now 48 and working in a factory as a production operator in the tipping section. It is a boiling hot area, and I have to deal with warm air for eight hours a day, five days a week. Standing on the blue belt, collecting cakes and placing them into baskets in this sweltering environment feels like killing myself alive. Sometimes I want to go to the washroom a couple of times during my shift, and though I am technically allowed, the line supervisor gives me looks if I keep asking. My feet swell, and the hardest part is the sleep disturbance and insomnia. Poor sleep always affects my performance at work, drawing my supervisor’s loud and harsh attention, which I really hate—it causes my mood to shift rapidly. Apart from the usual physical pain from standing for long hours, I suffer from muscle and joint pain brought on by menopause, which makes me physically unstable at work. I try to manage by telling myself that I am stronger than this pain, but it is a constant struggle”- Italian working-class woman residing in Hull.
The above narrative highlights a different aspect of menopause’s impact on women, particularly working-class women, underscoring the urgent need to improve workplace conditions and enhance labour welfare policies. Her working-class consciousness, expressed through her spiritual empowerment in overcoming physical pain, demonstrates how women cope with suffering that could, in fact, be alleviated by changing external environmental factors. However, such changes have not occurred due to the politics of masculinity embedded in the capitalist factory system, which continues to misread and neglect women’s bodily issues.
This provides further evidence that the bodily processes and changes experienced by working-class women have been systematically ignored, raising the question: why?
A Nepalese woman I met in the same factory as the Italian woman shared a similar story, but added a new dimension by saying, “I had a C-section to give birth to my two children, and now that surgical pain has re-emerged in my lower back, together with menopause.” Her testimony prompts us to reconsider: what kinds of medical and clinical support are available—or should be available—to address and reconcile the compounded effects of C-sections and menopause on women’s bodies? Her experience challenges us to rethink how healthcare systems recognize and respond to the intersection of reproductive surgeries and menopausal transitions, particularly for working-class women.
In concluding this research article, the key affirmation is that while menopause is universally recognised in medical terms, its social dimensions reveal a much broader and more complex spectrum—layers that must be critically uncovered. This process of revelation leads to a deeper understanding not only of menopause itself but also of the concept of womanhood, viewed through the lens of intersectionality.
Defining women through intersectionality is not optional; it is essential, especially in today’s global neoliberal economy, which connects women from every corner of the world—whether in paid, underpaid, or unpaid labour—to sustain the everyday functioning of society. In this global context, it is impossible to ignore the realities of women from diverse intersecting backgrounds who, despite their differences, all experience the common and universal phenomenon of menopause. However, their experiences are profoundly shaped by the unique intersections of race, class, nationality, religion, migration status, and trauma, demanding a more nuanced and inclusive reading of both menopause and women’s health as political and social concerns.
