Hi! It’s Micah from Modern Hysteria, your newsletter and podcast revealing the taboos of women’s brains, bodies, and healthcare (subscribe and listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts).
This week’s episode is about some **big** topics, but — I swear — I’ve never laughed so much or so hard as during this interview with Sonia Voldseth of
.Sonia and I are menopausal women with a history of eating disorders, navigating what it means to be a woman with a “belly shelf” in a culture in which misogyny dictates that women should stay young and thin forever … or just disappear.
The Taboo
How menopause impacts body image—especially for women with a history of disordered eating—and naming the shame, fear, and internalized misogyny that fuel it.
⚠️ Content warning: Descriptions of disordered eating and body size.
Time Stamps
[00:12:30] The phrase "you just have to have balls to get through [menopause]" (and how it reveals internalized misogyny)
[00:20:00] Honest conversation about cystic acne, panic attacks, and the emotional toll of perimenopause
[00:30:00] Body image spirals when trying on jeans post-menopause
[00:34:00] We unpack how old disordered eating behaviors creep back in during body changes in menopause
[00:38:00] Reframing eating disorders through a trauma-informed lens: “It’s not what’s wrong with you, it’s what happened to you”
[00:45:00] Pamela Anderson and internalized misogyny: What it means when women stop performing beauty
[00:48:00] Te Ruahinetanga; the Māori word for menopause as a sacred transition.
[00:55:00] Body neutrality vs. body love, and why neutrality is often the more realistic, empowering goal
The Guest Expert
Sonia Voldseth lives in Aotearoa (New Zealand) where she mothers and writes and works as a registered mental health counselor dealing with sexual trauma, PTSD, anxiety, depression and body image. She has two clever and kind teenaged daughters and is married to a Kiwi.
She was born and raised in Montana on a cattle ranch, then worked in national politics and briefly as a lawyer, before she realized “how much it sucked.”
She is excited to be fifty-one years old and finally talking about menopause and misogyny.
“The patriarchy harms all of us. Too often (still), when people hear the word feminist or women upset about misogyny, they think it's about hating men.
Men are also harmed by the patriarchy: By not having permission to feel, by being taught to perform, by thinking they need to engage in toxic behaviors in order to be seen.
Of course, there will be men and women that won't hear it or are invested in not believing it, and those who want to maintain a binary view, but I believe it's an important message that's key to any kind of lasting change.”
Sonia Voldseth,
Links + Resources
Stuff we mention in this episode:
Dr. Mary Claire Haver of ‘The ‘Pause Life”
- of “The Vagenda”
Older women inspo on Instagram: The Silver Lining 1970
The Last Showgirl (2024), featuring Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis
Dr. Gabor Mate and a trauma-informed lens
On Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo: “Yes, We Need to Talk About Wicked Bodies” by
Martha Stewart on Sports Illustrated
Book Recommendations
Hagitude: Reimagining the Second Half of Life by Sharon Blackie
Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by
This Changes Everything by (New Zealander)
Key Takeaways
“It’s not what’s wrong with you; it’s what happened to you.”
Reframing body image struggles and disordered eating in menopause through a trauma-informed lens helps you understand that your reactions aren’t personal failures. They’re responses to decades of cultural conditioning and systemic misogyny (“the water we swim in”).Body neutrality is more sustainable than body love.
Instead of forcing ourselves to love our changing bodies, especially after years of internalized shame, it can be more empowering to aim for neutrality, or acknowledging, respecting, and caring for our bodies without attaching our worth to how they look.Te Ruahinetanga offers a radically different framework for menopause.
Learning from Māori culture, menopause is not a medical problem to "fix," but a sacred life transition into wisdom and elderhood.
Still to come on Season 1 of Modern Hysteria:
Season 1 Ep. 23: The Clitoris x Orgasm x Pleasure with Cindy Scharkey, RN
Season 1 Ep. 24: The Fawn Response with
Season 1 Ep 25: Normal versus Abnormal Vaginas x Vulvas x Pelvic Red Flags with Carla Carpenter, OBGyn
I’ve already got a bunch of experts queued to bust taboos on Season 2 … Can’t wait to share.
‘Til then, subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. ☺️
Talk soon,
Micah
P.S. I made you this silly quiz to find out which feminist banned book you are:
🔮 Which Banned Feminist Book Are You?
You might also like
Sources
Why am I gaining weight so fast during menopause? And will hormone therapy help?
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