Welcome to My World: A Menopausal Woman’s Take on “Male Menopause”

I remember a line from my younger years, about how men don't suffer from PMS once a month; they suffer from it all month, every month. Now that we're not worried about PMS and periods any longer, we could probably make a similar joke about men going through menopause, since as a rule they seem to get crankier as they get older, Except that it wouldn't actually be a joke. It's for real.

There's a certain karmic justice in the idea that men can suffer what menopausal women do.

It's not officially called "male menopause," though that's a helpful shorthand to describe the issue and timing. The medical term is andropause. One thing that can bring it on is stress, and since the world today is nothing if not a bubbling stew of anxiety and dread, brace yourself for this to become a national emergency. Indeed, researchers estimate that one in five men over 50 are in some stage of andropause.