Did you know that a postmenopausal woman has up to twenty times the amount of testosterone per unit of estrogen than an ovulating woman? After a woman’s ovaries have essentially ceased production of estrogen, the adrenals continue to manufacture testosterone. This amazing fact means that midlife women typically become more male-like in our attitudes and behaviors. We are more likely to turn our focus from an outward one, trying to please others, to an inward focus: trying to please ourselves. In fact, we strong-willed old broads exhibit a far greater urge to express our independence, self-assertion, and mastery.

In Gail Sheehy’s seminal work, The Silent Passage, that brought menopause blasting out of the closet, she wrote: “Once the ovarian transition is complete, a woman enters a new state of equilibrium… Think of it as discarding the shell of the reproductive self—who came into being in adolescence—and coming out the other side to coalescence… It is a time when all the wisdom a woman has gathered from fifty years of experience in living comes together. Once she is no longer confined to the culture’s definition of a woman as a primarily sexual object and breeder, a full unity of her feminine and masculine sides is possible. As she moves beyond gender definition, she gains new license to speak her mind and initiate action.”

So, my postmenopausal friends, ask yourself the following:

How are you speaking your mind?

How are you coming up with new ways to express yourself?

How are you honoring your own needs and values?

How are you initiating action?

Just a few questions to ponder as you take your own, unique, and self-defined journey into the second season of life.