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A review by julenetrippweaver
Flash Count Diary: Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life by Darcey Steinke
5.0
Flash Count Diary: Menopause and the Vindication of Natural Life, by Darcey Steinke.
is a striking book that examines menopause in wide strokes. A book of creative nonfiction, she explores the natural world of mammals in the later years of their long lives: whales, elephants, gorillas, horses. She writes, "In turning to animals, I wanted to study a few female mammals in middle age, hoping they might be a conduit to what the philosopher William James in one of his lectures called, the "more.""
Female whales live thirty to fifty years after menopause and they are the matriarchal leaders of their family pods. She goes to Friday Harbor, goes kayaking to meet Granny, the grandmother whale who sadly died in her 90s. She goes to protest at SeaWorld in Florida for holding Lolita, at the time fifty years-young, and the second-oldest whale in captivity. She is a Southern Resident killer whale Latin name Orcinus orca. She exposes the conditions Lolita lives under, a small tank, not fed enough so she'll do tricks. The male whale battered his head against the walls till he died. She compares herself to Lolita: "I recognize the feeling of being held captive, not literally, like Lolita, but metaphorically. A female captivity always binding but that without fertility, tightens further. I am restricted, stuck in the box the greater culture uses to enclose and reduce older women. Lolita must be what Seaquarium defines, a creature who does not want to be free, a prisoner who must be grateful to her captors, a female who does tricks in order to be fed."
She travels to visit Ambika, a sixty-eight-year-old elephant at the National Zoo (Ambika was euthanasia in March 2020 at age 72). She was captured in 1959 at age eleven in India so lived 59 years in captivity. Elephant elder females also lead their family groups, their fertility slows but they do not lose their fertility, at the zoo they put Ambika on birth control. "In the wild, elephants as old as sixty have been known to give birth, after a gestation period that lasts twenty-two months, and most live six to twelve years after their last baby was born. Their post-reproductive life is short but rich. They not only lead the greater herd but also help their individual offspring. A recent study found that the older the matriarch, the longer her daughters lived and the higher their reproductive rates."
When horses are no longer able to breed they are often sold at action to slaughterhouses. "Broodmares are bred each year and, like Premarin mares, whose urine is used to make hormone supplements, are kept continuously pregnant,...." And yes, she discusses Premarin and the effort to keep women's vagina's pliable for men even though it was shown in the 1970s it is linked to uterine cancer. "In 2002, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study was stopped early because conditions that hormones were supposed to decrease—uterine and breast cancer, strokes, heart disease-all increased slightly when woman took hormone replacements." She reviews book that advocated hormone therapy, "It wasn't so much the hormones, I eventually realized, as the tone. Each book is the literary equivalent of submissive dog offering its jugular to the more powerful species: man."
My summary is brief, this is an important book for women, including transgender women, to read and for men who care about the women in their lives. A critical quote near the end is from Germaine Greer, "The menopausal woman is the prisoner of a stereotype and will not be rescued from it until she has begun to tell her own story." And one from the philosopher Avital Ronell, "If feminism is anything it has to be a rigorous call for justice. As long as it excludes certain people, animals and even plants—it's not delivering on its promise." Powerful.
is a striking book that examines menopause in wide strokes. A book of creative nonfiction, she explores the natural world of mammals in the later years of their long lives: whales, elephants, gorillas, horses. She writes, "In turning to animals, I wanted to study a few female mammals in middle age, hoping they might be a conduit to what the philosopher William James in one of his lectures called, the "more.""
Female whales live thirty to fifty years after menopause and they are the matriarchal leaders of their family pods. She goes to Friday Harbor, goes kayaking to meet Granny, the grandmother whale who sadly died in her 90s. She goes to protest at SeaWorld in Florida for holding Lolita, at the time fifty years-young, and the second-oldest whale in captivity. She is a Southern Resident killer whale Latin name Orcinus orca. She exposes the conditions Lolita lives under, a small tank, not fed enough so she'll do tricks. The male whale battered his head against the walls till he died. She compares herself to Lolita: "I recognize the feeling of being held captive, not literally, like Lolita, but metaphorically. A female captivity always binding but that without fertility, tightens further. I am restricted, stuck in the box the greater culture uses to enclose and reduce older women. Lolita must be what Seaquarium defines, a creature who does not want to be free, a prisoner who must be grateful to her captors, a female who does tricks in order to be fed."
She travels to visit Ambika, a sixty-eight-year-old elephant at the National Zoo (Ambika was euthanasia in March 2020 at age 72). She was captured in 1959 at age eleven in India so lived 59 years in captivity. Elephant elder females also lead their family groups, their fertility slows but they do not lose their fertility, at the zoo they put Ambika on birth control. "In the wild, elephants as old as sixty have been known to give birth, after a gestation period that lasts twenty-two months, and most live six to twelve years after their last baby was born. Their post-reproductive life is short but rich. They not only lead the greater herd but also help their individual offspring. A recent study found that the older the matriarch, the longer her daughters lived and the higher their reproductive rates."
When horses are no longer able to breed they are often sold at action to slaughterhouses. "Broodmares are bred each year and, like Premarin mares, whose urine is used to make hormone supplements, are kept continuously pregnant,...." And yes, she discusses Premarin and the effort to keep women's vagina's pliable for men even though it was shown in the 1970s it is linked to uterine cancer. "In 2002, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study was stopped early because conditions that hormones were supposed to decrease—uterine and breast cancer, strokes, heart disease-all increased slightly when woman took hormone replacements." She reviews book that advocated hormone therapy, "It wasn't so much the hormones, I eventually realized, as the tone. Each book is the literary equivalent of submissive dog offering its jugular to the more powerful species: man."
My summary is brief, this is an important book for women, including transgender women, to read and for men who care about the women in their lives. A critical quote near the end is from Germaine Greer, "The menopausal woman is the prisoner of a stereotype and will not be rescued from it until she has begun to tell her own story." And one from the philosopher Avital Ronell, "If feminism is anything it has to be a rigorous call for justice. As long as it excludes certain people, animals and even plants—it's not delivering on its promise." Powerful.