On World Menopause day it seems very fitting to look at the menopause from a historical angle and link it to women’s experience today. It hasn’t been an easy ride for middle-aged women over the centuries.  We’ve proven to be quite a mystery to the medical community, which has led to some unusual, hilarious and often very distressing assumptions about what’s going on with the female body. 

To help us unravel all this, I’m joined by oral historian Dr Helen Foster of the East Midlands Oral History Archive at the University of Leicester. As well as being an expert around menopausal themes throughout history, she’s also developed the Silent Archive, working with a group of volunteers to record women’s stories of menopause through interviews, personal audio diaries and conversations. I first heard her give a talk about The Bloody History of Menopause last year at The Old Operating Theatre Museum in London, and I was fascinated so I just had to snap her up for the podcast!

Helen takes us through the history of menopause, explaining the confusion and superstition about menstrual blood that built up over the centuries – did you know that we could turn milk sour and cause all manner of other domestic upheaval during our period? 

We talk about vilification of post-menopausal women who didn’t fit into the norm, which led to many of the witchcraft trials in the 16th century and women being shut up in asylums in later centuries. She also explains the utterly bizarre medical theory of the “wandering womb” which could apparently cause a whole host of mental and physical health issues! 

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