Removing the mystery from the 'M' in Menopause by talking about it.

Dear reader, you may have been in a lot of rooms and you may have talked to a lot of people but can you say that you've been in a room full of people to openly discuss menopause outside of an academic setting? I can.

If you think about it, a 24-year-old going to attend a talk on menopause sounds a bit out of place but that is exactly the point. We think that because something is not relevant to us right now, we don't need to talk about it or get more information on it. And that's how things get swept under the carpet.

Say the M Word: Menopause, a session held at the Women of the World Festival at the Beach Luxury in Karachi on Sunday, made us say the 'M word' and acknowledge it kindly, instead of calling on it the way you would Bloody Mary. After a short breathing exercise in order to ground ourselves and 'remember where we are', the two moderators, Dr Tabinda Sarosh and Madiha Latif, welcomed us into the circle of chairs. The talk ended up being an interactive exchange where we discussed the M words i.e. menopause and menstruation and why it was that the former is shrouded in so much mystery.

Dr Sarosh asked us what the word for it is in Urdu only to be met with deafening silence. The audience consisted of women from three different generations and none of us knew. Sunyaas, Dr Sarosh finally said, explaining that when we break it up, sun in Urdu means year and yaas comes from mayoosi, referring to hopelessness or sadness. The year/age of hopelessness. I felt quite stung by that and agreed when Dr Sarosh said, 'That's how we in our society define menopause. We need new names, new terminology for the M word.'

Next, we delved deeper into the language surrounding menstruation and menopause. The audience came up with phrases like 'she has passed her prime', 'she needs to get married quickly, have children fast' and 'she's too emotional'. Dr Sarosh pointed out that the Urdu term sathya jana, which refers to a person being loose in the head, literally means a person has crossed 60 and several people in the audience had a verbal reaction to that.

We addressed the similarities between these two major biological processes in a woman's life - the hormonal, emotional and physical shifts - and pointed out that women are not taken seriously. They are going through changes that are altering their bodies yet they're just being labelled as 'emotionally charged' and 'irrational', being constantly invalidated.

Some women shared their experiences - a girl my...