Presenter: Cathy Breish

Faculty Sponsor: Angela Bateman

School: Cape Cod Community College

Research Area: Sociology and Anthropology

Session: Poster Session 2, 11:30 AM - 12:15 PM, Auditorium, A70

ABSTRACT

Menopause is commonly framed as a universal and biologically determined life stage, governed primarily by hormonal change and managed through individualized medical intervention. This paper challenges that assumption by arguing that menopause is a socially mediated transition structured by race, class, and gender. Drawing on intersectionality, reproductive justice, and medical sociology, the analysis shows menopausal experiences among women of color reveal the cumulative effects of health disparities within U.S. health systems. First, the paper critiques the dominant biomedical model of menopause, showing how clinical norms have historically centered around white, middle-class women and rendered other marginalized populations and their lived experiences as peripheral or invisible. It then examines how chronic stress exposure, environmental inequality, health care access gaps, and implicit bias—contribute to differentiated biological aging and unequal clinical treatment. Class inequality further stratifies menopausal management, shaping access to paid leave, specialist care, hormone therapy, and alternative supports. In clinical interactions, racialized gender stereotypes and underrepresentation in research produce patterns of underdiagnosis, dismissal, and inadequate treatment for women of color. By situating menopause within a life course framework and extending reproductive justice beyond childbirth to aging bodies, the paper argues that midlife health disparities are patterned outcomes of interlocking systems of power rather than individual variation.