How to change societies image?

I have seen shows with anorexic women whose body image is totally askew to the fact of what their body actually looks like. They may be so thin that all you can see is the outline of their bones, but they truly believe they are still fat. I think society has the same skewed image of aging and menopausal women. Being 52 myself and having gone through surgically induced menopause 17 years ago, I can tell you that the truth of menopause is much better than societies view.

I can honestly say that the year I turned 50 was the best year of my life. The only one better was 51 and I gotta tell you I think 52 is gonna top it! My family is raised, my career is taking off and I can finally focus on me! Going back to school to get my degree is something I have always wanted to do, but family and other commitments always came first. Now for the first time in my adult life, I come first. That doesn't mean I have turned into a selfish person who ignores all my other responsibilities, it just means my responsibilities have changed, so that I am now free to explore new and exciting things.

How do we get this message out to society? We are going to have to have people who stand up and make their voice heard. How did women get the right to use contraceptives? There were a few women who were brave enough to stand up and make their voices heard. Yes, they suffered persecution because of it, but if they had not had the courage to fight, we still wouldn't have contraceptives available to us today. So you may ask what are we going to stand up and say and to whom? My first thought is as wives and mother's our first audience is our husband and children. Notice I didn't just say daughters! Yes, we need to teach our daughters how to respect themselves and have healthy self-images, but we also need to teach our sons how to value women. If we can bring our sons up to have healthy self-images then maybe they won't be as intimidated by the strong independent women we are bringing our daughters up to be. The best way to get this message across to our sons and daughters is by having healthy enough self-images of ourselves that we command respect from our husbands and everyone else in our lives. If we don't love and respect ourselves, how do we expect anyone else to?

I received several cartoons on menopause this week, but if I included those in my blog, then I would just be perpetuating the myth of how bad menopause really is. Don't worry though, I haven't totally lost my sense of humor, I did laugh at the cartoons!