Esther McCarthy: So why is the word 'men' in 'menopause' anyway?

Let's give men a taste of their own medicine, here are three male health issues I'd gladly name

When clinicians use language that implies an inadequacy or failure, it shapes how they think about patients. When we women internalize terms like these, it shapes how we think about ourselves. 

My youngest son recently asked me why ‘ menopause’ has the word men in it. After a snakey search on my phone, I confidently imparted the knowledge that it’s actually from the Greek ‘mēn’, meaning month, and ‘pausis’ meaning cessation.

His question gets me thinking about medicine and our bodies, and how we diagnose and talk about them. I watch a reel from a GP, Dr Ceri Cashell, talking about women dying from heart attacks.

Not because our hearts are weaker, but because the symptoms women experience, such as jaw pain, nausea, fatigue, and a vague sense that something is deeply wrong (I call that last one a regular Tuesday), were classified as atypical.

Err, yeah, FOR MEN, maybe. But for women these are entirely typical. We just had the misfortune of being the footnote in someone else’s medical textbook. Doesn’t that seem bonkers?

Medicine, for most of its history, was built on the male body as the default for drug trials, device design, and diagnostic criteria.

Another social media post (on this, the week I vowed to cut back on my screen time) catches my attention. The Female Quotient, a US organisation working on gender equity, compiled a list of medical terms used around women’s bodies. 

Can I ask that you read these out loud, as I did? I want to see if you feel what I felt, and if you can read them aloud in a neutral tone, without your voice descending into incredulous rage, culminating in you hurling your coffee cup across the room: inhospitable womb; lazy uterus; habitual aborter; incompetent cervix; senile vagina.

That last one hits close to home. My poor foofoo has adopted a bewildered air of late, and regularly experiences a vague sense that something is deeply wrong, usually on a Tuesday.

Esther McCarthy. Picture: Emily Quinn

But let’s look at these descriptors. Incompetent, lazy, inhospitable, habitual, senile. I’m no medical expert, but I do respect the power of words, and these don’t seem to be neutral, clinical terms, right?

These feel ... judgy. Like moral verdicts dressed up as diagnoses. You are being told your body didn’t just experience a miscarriage, it failed habitually.

Your cervix isn’t just facing a medical challenge, it’s incompetent. Your post-menopausal body isn’t simply changing, it’s senile.

I do my best to avoid f-bombs in this column, but can you bear with me when I say this needs to fuck right off? 

I remember being classified as a geriatric mother on my third pregnancy. I was in my late 30s. I had, at that point, held down a few jobs, got approved for a mortgage (to be fair they were handing them out like Skittles back then), given birth to two other children, and managed to keep several houseplants alive for an impressive stretch of time. And not just the easy ones, like spider plants. We’re talking orchids, a finicky ficus, and a string of pearls that I lost sleep over. I was in my freaking prime.

Like it or not, words shape perception. This is not me being huffy about my age, it’s a documented, studied, peer-reviewed fact. When clinicians use language that implies an inadequacy or failure, it shapes how they think about patients. When we women internalize terms like these, it shapes how we think about ourselves. 

The woman who’s been told she has a lazy uterus doesn’t just have a medical diagnosis, she has an image lodged in her understanding of her own body. Like a ‘must try harder’ on the report card.

What if we applied the same creative energy to male medical terminology?

Sticky Mickey Syndrome (SMS)

Odorous phallus neglecta.

A chronic presentation characterised by malodorous emissions from the penile region, typically resulting from inadequate hygiene compliance. Left untreated, SMS may progress to the more serious complication of Infectytestes, commonly known as Grossy-Scrotes. Prevalence is significantly higher in those who take a shower every four or five days. Clinical intervention involves soap and approximately 90 seconds of effort. Patient resistance, however, remains high.

Competitive Couch Paralysis (CCP)

Horizontalis stubbornicus.

A debilitating neuromuscular condition presenting as sudden inability to achieve a vertical position during trigger events such as live sporting broadcasts, scheduled lawn maintenance, or spousal family visitation. The condition has been observed to worsen with age and access to a large-screen television.

Phantom Pain Amplification Disorder (PPAD)

Malingering viralus dramaticus, colloquially: Man Flu.

A highly contagious syndrome occurring exclusively within XY chromosome holders, characterised by catastrophic symptom amplification in response to otherwise mild upper respiratory infection. Presenting features include dramatic vocalisation, writing of last wills and testaments, and fake death rattles in the throat region.

See how they like it.