September 18, 2024 • 16 mins
Part 2 of Patsy’s chat with Author Kathy Lette rounds out this debut series of Rage Against The Menopause. They talk about the challenges of raising teenage daughters and that ever present Guilt Gland! Also what’s on the other side of Menopause, or the Post-Menopause. Go forth and be fabulous!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
I'm Petrina Jones and this is my new podcast, Rage
Against the Menopause. We go into this final installment of
series one with a bang and part two of my
interview with author Kathy Lett. Like her book Husband Replacement Therapy,
Episode eight had plenty of laugh out loud moments, definitely
helping us to see the lighter side of menopause, but
(00:23):
also offering hope that over the Rainbow Bridge awaits the
best time of a woman's life. Enjoy carpe the hell
out of DM.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So getting back to what's great about postmenopause? Okay, first
of all.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
No period craps. Yeah, no pregnancy scares.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
You've got all that tampon money to spend, right, and
you're no longer sort of being judged constantly by men.
Even though I think women come into their sexual prime
from fifty onwards.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I'm still waiting for that, Kathy. I have to say,
I'm still waiting.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
The other great its secret is HRT. I think HRT
is the rocket field that you need.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Oh, look a lot of women I've spoken to previously
that they've got the patches and it's changed their lives.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, because I mean, in evolutionary terms, the menopause is
a new phenomenon because once we're all dead at like,
you know, twenty five thirty two, right, and so in
evolutionary terms, to live this long is a new phenomenon.
So I don't think the most menopause, you know, is
why wouldn't you want.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
To just go back to feeling how you did? So
that's all it does. It just brings your hormone levels
back to where they were. And the new area of.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Medicine and everyone's exploring now is actually hormone treatment for men,
because the opposite happens to blokes as they old, their
estrogen comes up and their testosterone drops, which is why
they suddenly start.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Crying in the movies and whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And the divorce rates in Australia are really, really are
really high. And the two top times most of uses
in Australia and initiated by women, and the two peak
times is when the last child finishes high school and
when the husband retires. Because I think men want different things,
like men are like I want to stay at home
and nest and women are like I've nested, I've roasted
(02:14):
four thousand flocks of lamb, you.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Know, billion acres of toast. You know, I want to
go up Everest and down the Amazon.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Think Ruby in your book exactly the same, exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And I think men pull up their psychological socks. They
are going to find themselves left behind. And we know
that marriage suits men much more suits women. I don't
know if you've been across all this, Patsy, but married
men live longer than single men have his heart disease
and mental problems, where single women live longer than married
women have this heart disease and mental problems. So I
think it's young women who are getting PMT post monogamy tensions.
(02:53):
So you know, men need to make themselves more attractive
to us.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Right now, you like this some sort of Buddha that
you give me so much hope because I'm still sort
of too smack bang in the middle of it, and
you think, you know what's on the other side.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
How old is your daughter thirteen? She's just turned thirteen thirty.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Well, that's the other difficult thing for women now, is
we have our children later.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yes, So just when our.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Hormones are leaving, yes, in our fifties, their hormones are
kicking yes.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yes, like a hormone sandwich.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
That's right, and mothers and daughters can have a lot
of fights at that time because it's just like a
hormonal hurricane. Yes, and also I don't know if your
daughter has she hit the terrible teams yet?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Oh what do you think?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yes? Oh my god? Okay, yeah, but you know.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
What we bring our daughters. We don't want them to
be weeping violets because I wouldn't want her to be
like that. I wanted to have some fire in her cuts.
So you know, as long as she does it compassionately.
She's a very kind little girl. I shouldn't say little
girl here, I am. She's a young woman. She's very kind,
and that's what Chris and I hope for her most
of all, is just to be kind to people and
(04:03):
have empathy and the rest will come. And be yourself,
stand up for yourself. Certainly. I've taught her to stand
up for yourself because I really didn't. I'm the youngest
with three brothers who always stood you know, did the
talking for me because they were protecting me, probably over protective,
but that didn't arm me very well right through even today.
(04:23):
You know, I'm not good at standing up for myself.
So I've really tried to turn make it different, hopefully
for her, because it's a bloody tough world it is.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Well, yes, I mean, I'm going to give talks in schools.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I always said to girls, stand on your own Tuesday
letters and don't wait to be rescued by some night
in shining ARMANI yes, be your own independent, strong self.
But getting back to the teenage thing, I mean I
was a terrible teen Obviously.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I was like a tiller the team because I.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Was going through the whole Puy Blues saga. And so
when my daughter hit her teens and she became really difficult,
I think my mother was just having a good old cackle,
you know, the haha, your turn. But I do want
to say to any mum's listening that teenage girls get
taken hostage by their hormones at like thirteen, but by
about eighteen seventeen eighteen, they are coming out the other side.
(05:19):
But it can be really tough. But I've got one
fabulous survival tip for you. If your daughter ever hits
you and kicks you and says I wish you'd just die,
you just take a big drag on a cigarette, a
big gulp of wine and say I'm doing my best dance.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
That's my top TiO.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
How old is your daughter now?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Oh, she's great, she's thirty one now, But she was
when she was very judgmental.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
They get very judgmental in their mom's.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I think it's because they have to define themselves by
breaking away from their mom absolutely, so you know, it's
like living with the Taliban.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I wasn't allowed to laugh seeing dance where she was good. Yes,
I know, And yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I remember one day I was going out and I
had a short, pink, leopard skinned miniskirt on. I knew
she wouldn't approve, so I crept out of the front
door and I opened the front door, and she heard me,
and she suddenly came running after me and said, what
are you wearing?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Go back to your room. You're not going out dressed.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
And I remember I said, surely my legs are okay,
I can still wear a short skirt. She said, it's
not the legs, Mum. The skirt doesn't go with your face. Oh.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Ouch, that that's a burdow.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah, that's a bird.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Low self esteem is her redditary? You get it from
your teenage daughters.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Well, I put a lipstick on the other day and
came out and Ordrey goes, oh, you wearing that lipstick?
Are you today?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It's a beautiful red?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
What's wrong with it? Well, you know, Mama thought, oh,
your little cow.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
That was terrible.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Your self esteem sings down is limbo low. It sings
down lower than Kim Kardashian's bikini.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I thought I was doing so well last week. I
even put ear rings on. I thought, you know what,
I was exhausted enough. I'm going to put a pair
of earrings on. That will help brighten my mood. And
you know, so I'm all happy and smiley. Look up
in the rear vision mirror. I'd put two different bloody
earrings on, hadn't I?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Oh, my god, I know that that's the brain fog.
What I was going to say to women about the
sensational second Act.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
My whole message to women is to go forth and
be fabulous, you know, and don't feel any guilt about it,
because our whole lives.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
We never put ourselves first.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
No, I mean, this is first all problems, but we
always take the bird chop, yes, never get them.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I always say burnt chop syndrome. It's sort of my
favorite sayings.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Exactly so we've never put ourselves first, but as your
kids grow up, and as your daughter, when your daughter
actually cuts the psychological umbilical call that's kept her tethered
to the kept you tethered to the kitchen by your
heart and your apron strings. First of all, we've been
so time poor bums. It's something you have time and
(08:03):
your freedom. And don't let your guilt gland throb. Women
have we feel guilty about everything? You know, should I breastfeed?
Should I bottle feed? Should should I send at the
right school?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
You know?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Or should I Are they getting there enough dose of
calcium in their broccoli? Like we're all sagonizing about we're
doing the We're being the best mother. But this is
so forget all that now. Don't let your guilt gland throb.
Just do what you want to do. We have a
window between about about you know, when you get through
(08:34):
the menopause fifty seven to I don't know seventy seven. Way,
just get that bucket list, or the fucket list, as
my character called it, and start ticking off those adventures
and I call it adventure before dementia. I don't mean
to be facetious about but make sure you car pay
(08:55):
the hell out of dim carpe dem like there's no tomorrow,
because you never know why it's coming, and you deserve
to have, you know, this sensational second act and to
have fun and frivolity female camaraderie. If your husband or
partner male partner won't travel with you, go with your girlfriends,
go with your sisters. You know, don't ask permission, and
(09:16):
book the bloody thing. You do it because you you
have earned it.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, that's so. Do bole, be beautiful, be fun, be fabulous.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Do ruby, book the cruise, and off you go.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
That's right in the Book of godse she accidentally books
a cougar crew.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yes, I just don't want to do the research on that.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Oh no, it was. It was such a great serious,
laugh out loud moments and it was just burled through
it in like two days.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I was going to say, if I have any gift
at all, I think it's writing down the way women
talk when there's no men around. But it's also sometimes
putting into words what women think.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
But have it necessarily had the hoodspur to say.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Out loud, yeah, And I think I get that strength
because I've got three sensational sisters and a wonderful mum.
There's been a lot of girl talk always in my
home and also a lot of female camaraderie and support.
So when you've got three sisters, you've got three brothers
and they probably protect you in a different way. But
when you've got three sisters, whenever there's any trouble, you know,
(10:25):
the wagons circle, no, not not wagons, the flame retardant,
you know, super tanks circle in protection. So I think
that's what has always given me the confidence to say
what I'm put what I'm thinking on paper.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And that's very evident right through the book with Emerald
and Amber and just that, as you say, the camaraderie
like it's there right through the book, and it was
really refreshing for me because obviously having been brought up
in a house full of stinky boys. That and I
love that you refer to Chinese burns because we don't
talk about I don't know if anyone here knows what
(11:01):
a Chinese burnie's anymore. They were assholes down and do
the Chinese burn And the other thing I loved I
was saying on air with Christian the other day and
he was taking the pe out of me because I
called it the linen the linen press, and he goes,
what's a linen? Yeah, he goes, you mean he didn't know.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
What it was.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
And I said, you know where you keep the sheets
and the towels and the pillow cases.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
He goes, linen press.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Are you from downtown abbey or something?
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Oh that is funny, isn't that funny?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I didn't think about that, but it's true. Yeah, it
was the best place to hide them, place to hide
from three brothers.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
That's right. No, any other listening who.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Don't have sisters, I would just reiterate that we you
know there is the sisterhode as well. You know how
important it is to be to cherish your female friends.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
You know that you let your cups, bra cups running
over with love. That I'd be very flat without my
human wonderbras.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So it's you do have a lot of Australian women
are lucky in that regard that we have that really
deep and loyal and loving sense of sisterhood. For example,
two women in Istraet who've slept with the same man
are called stick sisters. Oh, I have a sense of
camera right, Yeah, Rather than rivalries like you slept with
him too, wasn't he terrible?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
You know? And so really lean.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Into the sisterhood as you're going through the menopause and
on the other side, because husbands come and go, but
you know, your friends last forever. And in the book
I've just written now, The Revenge Club, that's about four
middle aged women who get back together to take revenge
on the men who sabotaged their careers. Because what menopause
(12:49):
or women have to understand is that you are going
to now find yourselves being sidelined at work and being
put out to career pasture for the crime of no.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Longer being you know, deemed to be attractive.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
And you know, part of the problem why women buy
into cosmetic surgery, et cetera, is we never see women
who look like us on television. Eighty five percent of
people on Australian television over fifty men.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
The women just get disappeared. And when I wanted to
when I was writing.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
The Revenge Club and I talked to my agent about it,
my agent was like, yeah, I don't know. So people
don't want to read about middle aged women. They're just
not that sexy. And a publisher then said, get this.
A publisher then said to me, middle aged women are
like you know, Mogadishu and Sudan.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
We know they exist, but nobody wants to go there.
Oh my god, So just be prepared for what is
coming your way.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
You'll be dismissed at work as a metopausal hot mess,
offered redundancies and all of that. And just to get
back to the brain fog in menopause, the new medical
research that says, yes, there is brain fog, but it
reduces a menopausal woman's cognitive abilities to the same level
as the average man because normally were Abut isn't that hilarious?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I love that you didn't know that that anyone dismissed
you and writes you off.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Cathie Lette rounds out my debut series of Rage Against
the Menopause. I highly recommend her book Husband Replacement Therapy
through Penguin Books in Australia or all great bookstores. I
want to thank you for downloading my episodes and reaching out.
As we build our Rage community of support, women are
telling me they feel heard, like Fiona, who says, hey, Pats, sorry,
(14:42):
that's really familiar, but hey, I listen to you every morning,
so you do kind of feel familiar to me. I'm
a longtime listener to the Christian O'Connell show, so have
obviously heard and seen all the advertising for Rage Against
the Menopause. But I'm not a podcast kind of person. Well,
I wasn't a podcast kind of person till Saturday. I
don't know what prompted me to put your podcast on
(15:04):
as I was driving to work. Looking back, I'd say
it was a bad menopause weekend and maybe I just
needed some sort of validation. By the time I got
to work, I was sobbing. For the first time in
five years. I didn't feel alone. I didn't feel crazy
or misunderstood or old or useless or unwanted. I finally
(15:29):
felt heard and seen.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
I'm now on.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Episode four, and every episode has brought out a different
reaction from me, usually goosebumps because I feel like you're
reading my mind, or tears because, like I said, I
finally feel seen. Fiona and everyone else on here right now,
I hear you, I see you, and together we can
(15:55):
get rid of the stigma surrounding menopause. I'm Petrina, Joe.
This app
I'm Petrina Jones and this is my new podcast, Rage
Against the Menopause. We go into this final installment of
series one with a bang and part two of my
interview with author Kathy Lett. Like her book Husband Replacement Therapy,
Episode eight had plenty of laugh out loud moments, definitely
helping us to see the lighter side of menopause, but
(00:23):
also offering hope that over the Rainbow Bridge awaits the
best time of a woman's life. Enjoy carpe the hell
out of DM.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
So getting back to what's great about postmenopause? Okay, first
of all.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
No period craps. Yeah, no pregnancy scares.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
You've got all that tampon money to spend, right, and
you're no longer sort of being judged constantly by men.
Even though I think women come into their sexual prime
from fifty onwards.
Speaker 1 (00:56):
I'm still waiting for that, Kathy. I have to say,
I'm still waiting.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
The other great its secret is HRT. I think HRT
is the rocket field that you need.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Oh, look a lot of women I've spoken to previously
that they've got the patches and it's changed their lives.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yeah, because I mean, in evolutionary terms, the menopause is
a new phenomenon because once we're all dead at like,
you know, twenty five thirty two, right, and so in
evolutionary terms, to live this long is a new phenomenon.
So I don't think the most menopause, you know, is
why wouldn't you want.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
To just go back to feeling how you did? So
that's all it does. It just brings your hormone levels
back to where they were. And the new area of.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Medicine and everyone's exploring now is actually hormone treatment for men,
because the opposite happens to blokes as they old, their
estrogen comes up and their testosterone drops, which is why
they suddenly start.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Crying in the movies and whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
And the divorce rates in Australia are really, really are
really high. And the two top times most of uses
in Australia and initiated by women, and the two peak
times is when the last child finishes high school and
when the husband retires. Because I think men want different things,
like men are like I want to stay at home
and nest and women are like I've nested, I've roasted
(02:14):
four thousand flocks of lamb, you.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Know, billion acres of toast. You know, I want to
go up Everest and down the Amazon.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Think Ruby in your book exactly the same, exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
And I think men pull up their psychological socks. They
are going to find themselves left behind. And we know
that marriage suits men much more suits women. I don't
know if you've been across all this, Patsy, but married
men live longer than single men have his heart disease
and mental problems, where single women live longer than married
women have this heart disease and mental problems. So I
think it's young women who are getting PMT post monogamy tensions.
(02:53):
So you know, men need to make themselves more attractive
to us.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Right now, you like this some sort of Buddha that
you give me so much hope because I'm still sort
of too smack bang in the middle of it, and
you think, you know what's on the other side.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
How old is your daughter thirteen? She's just turned thirteen thirty.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Well, that's the other difficult thing for women now, is
we have our children later.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yes, So just when our.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
Hormones are leaving, yes, in our fifties, their hormones are
kicking yes.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Yes, like a hormone sandwich.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
That's right, and mothers and daughters can have a lot
of fights at that time because it's just like a
hormonal hurricane. Yes, and also I don't know if your
daughter has she hit the terrible teams yet?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Oh what do you think?
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yes? Oh my god? Okay, yeah, but you know.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
What we bring our daughters. We don't want them to
be weeping violets because I wouldn't want her to be
like that. I wanted to have some fire in her cuts.
So you know, as long as she does it compassionately.
She's a very kind little girl. I shouldn't say little
girl here, I am. She's a young woman. She's very kind,
and that's what Chris and I hope for her most
of all, is just to be kind to people and
(04:03):
have empathy and the rest will come. And be yourself,
stand up for yourself. Certainly. I've taught her to stand
up for yourself because I really didn't. I'm the youngest
with three brothers who always stood you know, did the
talking for me because they were protecting me, probably over protective,
but that didn't arm me very well right through even today.
(04:23):
You know, I'm not good at standing up for myself.
So I've really tried to turn make it different, hopefully
for her, because it's a bloody tough world it is.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
Well, yes, I mean, I'm going to give talks in schools.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
I always said to girls, stand on your own Tuesday
letters and don't wait to be rescued by some night
in shining ARMANI yes, be your own independent, strong self.
But getting back to the teenage thing, I mean I
was a terrible teen Obviously.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
I was like a tiller the team because I.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Was going through the whole Puy Blues saga. And so
when my daughter hit her teens and she became really difficult,
I think my mother was just having a good old cackle,
you know, the haha, your turn. But I do want
to say to any mum's listening that teenage girls get
taken hostage by their hormones at like thirteen, but by
about eighteen seventeen eighteen, they are coming out the other side.
(05:19):
But it can be really tough. But I've got one
fabulous survival tip for you. If your daughter ever hits
you and kicks you and says I wish you'd just die,
you just take a big drag on a cigarette, a
big gulp of wine and say I'm doing my best dance.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
That's my top TiO.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
How old is your daughter now?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Oh, she's great, she's thirty one now, But she was
when she was very judgmental.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
They get very judgmental in their mom's.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
I think it's because they have to define themselves by
breaking away from their mom absolutely, so you know, it's
like living with the Taliban.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
I wasn't allowed to laugh seeing dance where she was good. Yes,
I know, And yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I remember one day I was going out and I
had a short, pink, leopard skinned miniskirt on. I knew
she wouldn't approve, so I crept out of the front
door and I opened the front door, and she heard me,
and she suddenly came running after me and said, what
are you wearing?
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Go back to your room. You're not going out dressed.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
And I remember I said, surely my legs are okay,
I can still wear a short skirt. She said, it's
not the legs, Mum. The skirt doesn't go with your face. Oh.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
Ouch, that that's a burdow.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
Yeah, that's a bird.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Low self esteem is her redditary? You get it from
your teenage daughters.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
Well, I put a lipstick on the other day and
came out and Ordrey goes, oh, you wearing that lipstick?
Are you today?
Speaker 3 (06:45):
It's a beautiful red?
Speaker 1 (06:46):
What's wrong with it? Well, you know, Mama thought, oh,
your little cow.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
That was terrible.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Your self esteem sings down is limbo low. It sings
down lower than Kim Kardashian's bikini.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
I thought I was doing so well last week. I
even put ear rings on. I thought, you know what,
I was exhausted enough. I'm going to put a pair
of earrings on. That will help brighten my mood. And
you know, so I'm all happy and smiley. Look up
in the rear vision mirror. I'd put two different bloody
earrings on, hadn't I?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Oh, my god, I know that that's the brain fog.
What I was going to say to women about the
sensational second Act.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
My whole message to women is to go forth and
be fabulous, you know, and don't feel any guilt about it,
because our whole lives.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
We never put ourselves first.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
No, I mean, this is first all problems, but we
always take the bird chop, yes, never get them.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I always say burnt chop syndrome. It's sort of my
favorite sayings.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Exactly so we've never put ourselves first, but as your
kids grow up, and as your daughter, when your daughter
actually cuts the psychological umbilical call that's kept her tethered
to the kept you tethered to the kitchen by your
heart and your apron strings. First of all, we've been
so time poor bums. It's something you have time and
(08:03):
your freedom. And don't let your guilt gland throb. Women
have we feel guilty about everything? You know, should I breastfeed?
Should I bottle feed? Should should I send at the
right school?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
You know?
Speaker 2 (08:14):
Or should I Are they getting there enough dose of
calcium in their broccoli? Like we're all sagonizing about we're
doing the We're being the best mother. But this is
so forget all that now. Don't let your guilt gland throb.
Just do what you want to do. We have a
window between about about you know, when you get through
(08:34):
the menopause fifty seven to I don't know seventy seven. Way,
just get that bucket list, or the fucket list, as
my character called it, and start ticking off those adventures
and I call it adventure before dementia. I don't mean
to be facetious about but make sure you car pay
(08:55):
the hell out of dim carpe dem like there's no tomorrow,
because you never know why it's coming, and you deserve
to have, you know, this sensational second act and to
have fun and frivolity female camaraderie. If your husband or
partner male partner won't travel with you, go with your girlfriends,
go with your sisters. You know, don't ask permission, and
(09:16):
book the bloody thing. You do it because you you
have earned it.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Yeah, that's so. Do bole, be beautiful, be fun, be fabulous.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
Do ruby, book the cruise, and off you go.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
That's right in the Book of godse she accidentally books
a cougar crew.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yes, I just don't want to do the research on that.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Oh no, it was. It was such a great serious,
laugh out loud moments and it was just burled through
it in like two days.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
I was going to say, if I have any gift
at all, I think it's writing down the way women
talk when there's no men around. But it's also sometimes
putting into words what women think.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
But have it necessarily had the hoodspur to say.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Out loud, yeah, And I think I get that strength
because I've got three sensational sisters and a wonderful mum.
There's been a lot of girl talk always in my
home and also a lot of female camaraderie and support.
So when you've got three sisters, you've got three brothers
and they probably protect you in a different way. But
when you've got three sisters, whenever there's any trouble, you know,
(10:25):
the wagons circle, no, not not wagons, the flame retardant,
you know, super tanks circle in protection. So I think
that's what has always given me the confidence to say
what I'm put what I'm thinking on paper.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
And that's very evident right through the book with Emerald
and Amber and just that, as you say, the camaraderie
like it's there right through the book, and it was
really refreshing for me because obviously having been brought up
in a house full of stinky boys. That and I
love that you refer to Chinese burns because we don't
talk about I don't know if anyone here knows what
(11:01):
a Chinese burnie's anymore. They were assholes down and do
the Chinese burn And the other thing I loved I
was saying on air with Christian the other day and
he was taking the pe out of me because I
called it the linen the linen press, and he goes,
what's a linen? Yeah, he goes, you mean he didn't know.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
What it was.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
And I said, you know where you keep the sheets
and the towels and the pillow cases.
Speaker 3 (11:27):
He goes, linen press.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Are you from downtown abbey or something?
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Oh that is funny, isn't that funny?
Speaker 2 (11:34):
I didn't think about that, but it's true. Yeah, it
was the best place to hide them, place to hide
from three brothers.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
That's right. No, any other listening who.
Speaker 2 (11:44):
Don't have sisters, I would just reiterate that we you
know there is the sisterhode as well. You know how
important it is to be to cherish your female friends.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
You know that you let your cups, bra cups running
over with love. That I'd be very flat without my
human wonderbras.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
So it's you do have a lot of Australian women
are lucky in that regard that we have that really
deep and loyal and loving sense of sisterhood. For example,
two women in Istraet who've slept with the same man
are called stick sisters. Oh, I have a sense of
camera right, Yeah, Rather than rivalries like you slept with
him too, wasn't he terrible?
Speaker 3 (12:24):
You know? And so really lean.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Into the sisterhood as you're going through the menopause and
on the other side, because husbands come and go, but
you know, your friends last forever. And in the book
I've just written now, The Revenge Club, that's about four
middle aged women who get back together to take revenge
on the men who sabotaged their careers. Because what menopause
(12:49):
or women have to understand is that you are going
to now find yourselves being sidelined at work and being
put out to career pasture for the crime of no.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Longer being you know, deemed to be attractive.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
And you know, part of the problem why women buy
into cosmetic surgery, et cetera, is we never see women
who look like us on television. Eighty five percent of
people on Australian television over fifty men.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
The women just get disappeared. And when I wanted to
when I was writing.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
The Revenge Club and I talked to my agent about it,
my agent was like, yeah, I don't know. So people
don't want to read about middle aged women. They're just
not that sexy. And a publisher then said, get this.
A publisher then said to me, middle aged women are
like you know, Mogadishu and Sudan.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
We know they exist, but nobody wants to go there.
Oh my god, So just be prepared for what is
coming your way.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
You'll be dismissed at work as a metopausal hot mess,
offered redundancies and all of that. And just to get
back to the brain fog in menopause, the new medical
research that says, yes, there is brain fog, but it
reduces a menopausal woman's cognitive abilities to the same level
as the average man because normally were Abut isn't that hilarious?
Speaker 3 (14:11):
I love that you didn't know that that anyone dismissed
you and writes you off.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Cathie Lette rounds out my debut series of Rage Against
the Menopause. I highly recommend her book Husband Replacement Therapy
through Penguin Books in Australia or all great bookstores. I
want to thank you for downloading my episodes and reaching out.
As we build our Rage community of support, women are
telling me they feel heard, like Fiona, who says, hey, Pats, sorry,
(14:42):
that's really familiar, but hey, I listen to you every morning,
so you do kind of feel familiar to me. I'm
a longtime listener to the Christian O'Connell show, so have
obviously heard and seen all the advertising for Rage Against
the Menopause. But I'm not a podcast kind of person. Well,
I wasn't a podcast kind of person till Saturday. I
don't know what prompted me to put your podcast on
(15:04):
as I was driving to work. Looking back, I'd say
it was a bad menopause weekend and maybe I just
needed some sort of validation. By the time I got
to work, I was sobbing. For the first time in
five years. I didn't feel alone. I didn't feel crazy
or misunderstood or old or useless or unwanted. I finally
(15:29):
felt heard and seen.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
I'm now on.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Episode four, and every episode has brought out a different
reaction from me, usually goosebumps because I feel like you're
reading my mind, or tears because, like I said, I
finally feel seen. Fiona and everyone else on here right now,
I hear you, I see you, and together we can
(15:55):
get rid of the stigma surrounding menopause. I'm Petrina, Joe.
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