Menopause
Menopause typically occurs between 49 and 52 years of age. The majority of women have their last period between the ages of 48 and 55. The average age of the last period in the United States is 51 years, in the United Kingdom is 52 years, in Ireland is 50 years and in Australia is 51 years. In India and the Philippines, the median age of natural menopause is considerably earlier, at 44 years. The menopausal transition or perimenopause leading up to menopause usually lasts 7 years (sometimes as long as 14 years).
Germaine Greer
Natalie Angier, writing in "The New York Times", called "The Change: Women, Ageing, and the Menopause" (1991) a "brilliant, gutsy, exhilarating, exasperating fury of a book ... tantalizingly close to being a potential feminist classic on a par with "The Female Eunuch"." In it, Greer writes of the myths about menopause—or as she prefers to call it the "climacteric", or critical period. "Frightening females is fun," she wrote in "The Age" in 2002. "Women were frightened into using hormone replacement therapy by dire predictions of crumbling bones, heart disease, loss of libido, depression, despair, disease and death if they let nature take its course." She argues that scaring women is "big business and hugely profitable". The book, including the medical information, was updated and reissued in 2018.