It’s not your job to “fix yourself,” says the author of “When in Menopause,” a new book arguing that this hormonal transition is a public policy matter—not just a private health journey.

Menopause is having a moment. 

After centuries of medical neglect and decades of cultural stigmatization, this period of hormonal decline and cessation is being taken more seriously as a topic of open conversation and health research. Some state laws now require insurance to cover hormone treatment for menopause. 

When in Menopause: A User’s Manual and Citizen’s Guide, a new book by the legal scholar and women’s health advocate Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, argues that menopause must also be taken up more widely as a public policy issue—and not treated solely as a private health matter.

Estrogen options and access have improved more or less continuously for the past century, since German scientists first injected menopausal women with cow ovarian tissue. But, as Dr. Sharon Malone writes in the book’s foreword, in 2002 “a nuclear bomb” dropped: The NIH abruptly halted a major, eight-year study on the health benefits of estrogen-plus-progestin treatment after five years over concerns of heightened breast cancer risks. 

The findings turned out to be limited, and the relative danger for different kinds of patients was badly miscommunicated to the public and doctors alike. But the cancer news out of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) research turned estrogen into a “medicinal pariah.” A generation of women were left to suffer through menopause with little support. 

Weiss-Wolf belongs to the generation that has clawed back their access to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after later studies demonstrated not only its safety for most people but also its benefits to heart and brain health. Gen X women are now benefiting from new research and the rise of menopause specialists—and Weiss Wolf hopes her book will spur her cohort to demand even more. 

“I’m really hoping that a lot of those people are fired up by what they went through, and are beyond letting it just be their problem that they had to solve, and really want to invest themselves in helping solve this for everybody, so that we’re all better off,” she said.

Weiss-Wolf spoke with Rewire News Group ahead of her Oct. 6, 2026, book........

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