Actor and activist Robyn Malcolm has made a documentary about menopause in a bid to understand the “hot mess” that defined her own experience and prevent more women from suffering in silence. She talks to Julie Hill about estrogen, rage and the soul-enhancing value of feeling no shame.
What was your experience of menopause as someone who has to remember lines?
The weird thing is that I can forget the names of my kids and my sisters but I never forgot lines. It’s such a well-honed muscle that my safe place was often working. There was a period where I went through quite a lot of depression and anxiety, and I suspect I probably got a bit rattier to work with sometimes, but my memory was fine.
After the Party came out of that. I wanted to tell stories about women my age who I can relate to, not these ones that you see in Hollywood who wear white and laugh a lot and keep their clothes on when they’re having sex. There is a brilliantly unpalatable 55-year-old woman out there and I'm really interested in telling her story.
The Western world has made us think menopause is dreadful but that’s not the case in all cultures.
Hell no. The way Hera [Cotter, Mātauranga Māori practitioner] talks about it – it’s a completely different view of older women and what their role is. The Chinese call menopause the ‘second spring’ and in so many indigenous cultures the older woman is someone with a lot of power.
We had a pure [purification ritual] where they took me out to the ocean. It was extraordinary because I’d spent the morning releasing a kiwi into the wild with Capital Kiwi. I was travelling to Europe the next day for work but I didn’t want to leave. I was like, this country is incredible.
The hot flushes get a lot of PR but how about the frozen shoulders and itchy ears?
I’ve just come back from an ultrasound where my shoulder has been diagnosed as frozen. My other one was frozen two years ago. And yeah, the itchy ears, the lack of balance. I've always liked river hopping across stones. We did that not long ago in Scotland and I was like, wow, my balance is really off and I’m scared of falling over. And I’ve done Pilates and the gym all my life.
There’s an essay in Granta by an American writer called Mary Ruefle called Pause, documenting her menopause. It begins with what she calls her cryalog, where she marks whether she cried or not that day and how many times. It’s brilliant. She really reflects the crazy.
You mention that women were once put in mental asylums for displaying some of these symptoms.
You can go back centuries to stories of women who were regarded as lunatics and popped in asylums for being unruly, crazy, overly emotional. And here is [Melbourne psychiatrist Professor Jayashri Kulkarni, who Malcolm interviews in the documentary] saying there’s a direct relationship between that and the loss of estrogen. I was absolutely blown away by that.
You talk to the punk band Cootie Cutie who sing about hot flushes. How important is it to let the rage out?
Rage is such an important part of life. I feel so lucky because I grew up through the punk era and the whole point of all of that was rage. For me, it’s always been at the forefront, particularly because it’s that one emotion women were not meant to express. So the menopausal woman, when she gets really, really, really f***ed off, that’s an amazing energy.
How well are GPs doing when it comes to dealing with menopause?
I think it's varied. My GP was incredible. But I still hear stories of women feeling like they're not really being listened to. Because the symptoms of perimenopause are so weird and it’s often quite difficult to put them into words.
How do you wish people would talk about it?
Firstly, I wish people would talk about it. And if they’re told they’ve talked about it enough, to laugh and keep talking about it. And to trust that any weird changes they might feel, there's probably something going on there and to investigate it, because your instincts will be right.
Years ago when I was very menopausal I would go and see my partner in Glasgow. It would be snowing and I would be inside with all these blokes, his pals, and I would get a hot flush. I’d say right, everyone’s coming outside. I’d rip off my jumper and go and stand in the snow, and they would all come and chat.
The fact that they were quite happy to do that was a real boon for me and it was a lesson for me to go, OK, we need to frontfoot this stuff, feel no shame around it and when people tell us to shut up, talk louder.
Menopause and Us screens on TVNZ 1 on Monday (September 7) at 8.30pm, and streams on TVNZ+.
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