Embrace the physical signs of age, claim old age as a gift, take advantage of the positive aspects of maturity and question social mandates that harm older people, especially women. These are some of the recommendations and reflections of Anna Freixas, writer, doctor in Psychology and researcher on topics such as female aging, coeducation or feminism.
Freixas, a leader in her field, is the author of books translated into several languages, such as The New Older Women of the 21st Century (Paidós), Without Rules. Erotica and feminine freedom in adulthood (2018) and Old me. Survival notes for free beings (2021). She now publishes a review of the 2007 title Our Menopause. An unofficial version (Capitán Swing) and also Jo vella (Ara Llibres, in Catalan). She helps us reflect on the challenges of maturity and old age, especially for women.
"Being old is cool," "it's a gift," he says... It's not a common discourse, in these times when everything "anti-aging" triumphs.
You either live or die (laughs). If you don't want to be old, the only remedy you have is to die. Living for many years is a gift of life, just a century ago we died at 60. What we cannot do is live a life without meaning from 60 to 90. Those 30 years are also life!
In fact, as he explains in his book, studies say that happiness increases after 50... Does good things come in maturity?
Yes, life happiness has a U-shaped curve, according to research: we start out happy, and the curve declines, the hardest stage of life is adulthood, from the end of adolescence to entering the world of work. and parenting. The happiness curve increases again as responsibilities lose strength: the children leave, you know what the couple is about, work loses meaning, and you recover your self. At the end of life, as you approach retirement, you become yourself again, you recover time for yourself, you take stock of what you have experienced and what you can live from now on.
That reflection, that balance on how to live the post-retirement stage, is important...
When you become yourself again, you need time to evaluate what you have achieved and what you want to achieve. Thinking about the idea of how old you want to be is very relevant, and should be considered at 40. If at 30 or 40 you do not design your life and consider where you are going to go, when you reach 65 and your pension is 612 euros, you're going to have it rough. We began the design of the old woman that we will be in our first professional and vital choices.
One of her pieces of advice to grandmothers: "organize a campaign with your friends under the motto 'no grandmother without a salary'." Should grandmothers be paid to take care of their grandchildren?
Why do grandmothers and grandfathers have to take care of their grandchildren for free, while the same job, if done by another person, a babysitter, would charge? Why this sociocultural mandate that says that grandmothers' work is done for love and is free? That doesn't fit into my head, I don't understand that grandmothers have to take care of their grandchildren for free, if babysitters charge.
Should grandma put a price on her hours?
The grandfather or grandmother does not have to tell the son or daughter “this is worth so much”, but it is the son or daughter who proposes a salary: “Are you interested in taking care of your grandson on Tuesdays and Thursdays, two hours in the afternoon? The babysitter could charge me this and I could pay you as much.” That's how it should be.
In situations of family precariousness, the help of grandparents is key to subsistence...
Yes of course. And many times we are the grandmothers who say “I'll do it for you, it doesn't cost me anything.” Our idea of helping sons and daughters is laudable - I feel it too - but there must be a dialogue between mothers, fathers, sons and daughters (adults), in which needs are compensated, mine to care, yours to receive care. … We must respect the individualities of each case, but there are industrial numbers of grandparents who care when their children could perfectly pay for it. At the expense of grandparents' free labor, children pay the mortgage or go on vacation.
He has just published a review of his book 'Our menopause. An unofficial version'. How is this version different from the official one?
“Ours” already indicates that we are the women we are talking about in this book, those who have experienced or will experience menopause. It is not the official version of the medical class, but an explanation from the experience of the women themselves, and this changes things radically. The official version is the one given to us and does not reflect our experience.
Does the official version of menopause differ much from the real experience? He says that there is a suspicious silence about the benefits of menopause...
Women's bodies are a huge business throughout life, because you always have to look like something you are not, or try to achieve goals. The official version of menopause contains a huge business with a promise of well-being, beauty, happiness, youth, sexual attractiveness... and also the threat that if you are not good and do not take or follow certain aesthetic or pharmacological treatments, you are finished. If you ask women in their 20s or 30s about menopause, they all give you a version of fear, that the beginning of the end is approaching.
Instead, he says that menopause can be the stage of renewal, there can be a burst of momentum.
Menopause is an expected moment in the life cycle - like others - but it is striking that the period and the possibility of having children disappear. All changes in the life cycle involve a transformation or transition, in this case we go from fertility to another in which this is not the objective. In Spain we have one of the lowest birth rates on the planet, the reproductive significance is very little, so this should not be so problematic. During that period things happen that are not talked about. Margaret Mead 75 years ago already spoke of the “brilliant energy of postmenopausal women.”
What is that bright energy like? What positive aspects of menopause are covered up or ignored, for example?
There are physical advantages. Iron and ferritin deposits improve greatly, our energy is not subject to the cyclical storm, a period opens in which we can look at life with another light, in another way...
You say, “hormones, no thanks.” Never? Hormonal treatments are helping many women…
Neither never nor always. In general, in everything I work on, everything goes from zero to infinity. There are people for whom hormonal treatment is the only solution. I am not a doctor, but I am a critic, reader, observer, and I am clear that the issue of hormones has been and in many cases continues to be a huge business. Certain treatments postpone what you are going to encounter later. If your biology or history leads you to have a lot of hot flashes, you are postponing the moment. The treatments do not allow the body to adapt to the new situation. There may be people who need that help, but in many situations women go through their period with little or no discomfort. In other cases, the discomfort is significant, and should not be minimized. But it is not true that yes or yes, if we do not treat ourselves with hormones, we will have a terrible time. These treatments are not harmless nor do they leave you free of side effects and consequences.
“With menopause comes a lightness for the sexual encounter, which allows for a more intense and free erotic experience,” she writes. How or for what reasons can sexuality improve at this stage?
The first issue is that you can't get pregnant, a huge advantage that makes it possible to not use birth control. It is a stage in which sexuality becomes sensualized. This sexuality is affected by many circumstantial factors: whether or not you have a partner, what type of partner and history you have with them... When Pfizer wanted to look for a female Viagra, it came to the conclusion that it couldn't be done because women's sexuality was not It is hormonally stimulable, but it has to do with the quality of the relationship and other factors. We are biopsychosocial beings and this is very important in sexuality.
Scientific evidence says that female libido in adulthood not only does not decrease, but can increase, there may be more sexual activity and a higher quality of orgasm.
Exact. In my book No Rules, a study of postmenopausal sexuality, a third of women wanted to be more sexually active. This indicates that there may be desire and not having the option to have that relationship, because society does not make sexual relationships easy for older women, especially in the heterosexual market.
In what sense?
In the heterosexual world, men do not consider women over 60 to be sexually eligible as partners. The day they discover it they will see that this is a mistake. The sexual history of women makes many of them not want to enter into this aspect, and that is another topic.
Some women - more than men - begin homosexual erotica at a late age...
It's not massive, but yes. We have lived in the era when we were born heterosexual by decree. In our youth, discovering your lesbian sexual desire was a titanic task. Many who began a heterosexual relationship consider, with the passage of time, that their sexual life is much more satisfactory with another woman, whose activity and discovery implies a hitherto unknown satisfaction.
When they become widows, in many cases they are freed. When they become widowed, they often feel helpless and their quality of life drops...
He who first has a burden is freed. The one who feels helpless is the one who was previously protected. This indicates the inequality that existed in the relationship: she was overloaded, physically and emotionally, taking care of family happiness. They, the older women, express their self-perceived poor health: “I feel exhausted”, “everything hurts”, “I am very tired”, “I can't take it anymore”.
To what extent are social relationships important at this stage of life?
Everything related to social ties and relationships is essential. Women have been able to create bonds, maintain them, we remember birthdays, we celebrate, we take care of ourselves... As we get older we tend to have more networks and friends, it is a crucial capital we have. Social, neighborhood, community, and political participation is very important and, in fact, voluntary work is sustained thanks to the support of older women. And in times of crisis, networks come to our aid.
He recommends not hiding your age, saying it with pride, showing it with gray hair and wrinkles without complexes... If we need to cover the signs of aging, should we reflect?
Yes, some images are pathetic, seeing the sacrifice, torture and ruin that all this entails. I think that in the enormous business that is women's bodies, this is the crudest part of the issue, how women show so little affection for our bodies, by social mandate. In the cities you will still see the number of beauty centers there are, with advertisements for treatments that are outrageous. The ideal of beauty is perverse, and has two components, youth and thinness. An education towards the body and health, not towards beauty, would be needed. Now this is changing, in the gym there are many women who exercise for health reasons. On the street I see women who continue to wear impossible shoes, but there are also others who claim beauty in footwear that allows them to live in a more dignified way.
