classnews - Bowdoin College

Bowdoin is an incredible environment. It is a very safe
environment to be able to explore all the different parts of
your self, and there’s no fear of failure here; I think it’s really
important that you can experiment and not have that fear.
of the book and shoot off to where I really want to go,
which is empowerment and helping women get to the
best years of our life.
BOWDOIN: It’s interesting that it becomes the one
taboo. People seem very happy to talk about all kinds of
things you think they wouldn’t.
SHAW RUDDOCK: Women will tell you anything,
their deepest secrets about their kids that they shouldn’t
even tell you about, but, my God, mention the word
“menopause!” As a friend said, “Well, Jill, everybody in
London is talking about menopause.” I said, “Great, I want
to take it to other places, I want to take it to all of the UK
and to the whole world.” I’m a post-menopausal woman.
Am I excited about my life? Yes. Do I feel like there are
so many more possibilities? Yes. I have more things that I
want to do; I want to write a play, I want to write a second
book, I want to do my center. There’s so much I want to
do, I just want to make sure I have enough time. And, that
I have the energy to do what I want to do.
BOWDOIN: How much to you think this has to do
with identity? Women talk about being invisible (you talk
about that in your book) but also it’s a life stage in which
your working life is coming to an end sometimes, your
parenting life is almost certain to come to an end. Do
you think people just say, “I don’t know who that person
28 BOWDOIN SUMMER 2011
is? Maybe I can pretend I’m not going through it.”
SHAW RUDDOCK: I do think that the years of
perimenopause can be very upsetting because your
hormones, which have been talking to each other very
nicely over all these years, all of a sudden go out of whack.
Sometimes you stop sleeping, you become less interested
in sex, you aren’t really sure you like the way your husband
is snoring. Sorry, it’s true, and you might not like the
way he kisses anymore. Everything changes, your skin,
your mind, and you are unbalanced, and you do feel like
somebody else could be living in your body. Seventyfive
percent of women go through perimenopause with
symptoms, and twenty-five percent don’t. You might be
one of the one-fourth who doesn’t or be lucky and sail
through menopause and you’re done, and you just keep
going. But, for most women it is really scary and, I think
that’s what gives you that sense that you aren’t sure about
the world ahead. That’s the scariest part about aging. How
do we keep our brains active? How do we keep our bodies
strong? How do make sure we do everything in our power
to live the life we want to live all the years that we want
to live? And, I think it’s a visibility thing. I think if women
are holding on to thinking they look like they are 35
when they are 70, they’re missing the point. We all know
that the prettiest woman in the room is the woman who
has the most to talk about, who is interested in the world
around them, who has just gone to a lecture, or gone to