Parting the Red Sea: Sociotechnical Systems and Lived Experiences of Menopause

Menopause is a major life change affecting roughly half of the population, resulting in physiological, emotional, and social changes. To understand experiences with menopause holistically, we conducted a study of a subreddit forum. The project was informed by feminist social science methodologies, which center knowledge production on women's lived experiences. Our central finding is that the lived experience of menopause is social: menopause is less about bodily experiences by themselves and more about how experiences with the body become meaningful over time in the social context. We find that gendered marginalization shapes diverse social relationships, leading to widespread feelings of alienation and negative transformation — often expressed in semantically dense figurative language. Research and design can accordingly address menopause not only as a women's health concern, but also as a matter of facilitating social support and a social justice issue.