The palm trees along Ocean Avenue are veiled in mist as I walk toward the Proper Hotel in Santa Monica, California, on a Saturday morning in March.
Inside the glass-and-cement building, where more than 300 women’s voices beckon, I’m confronted with an electric rainbow of statement blazers—Barbie pink, blush pink, velvety mauve, lime green, highlighter green, ’70s plaid, leopard print. The “festive casual” dress code didn’t mention power dressing, but it didn’t have to. We’re here for a symposium on menopause, dubbed “The New Pause,” and the women of a certain age who are in attendance have earned the confidence that their clothes convey.
How old these women are is hard to say. In the U.S., the average age at which women officially enter menopause, or a year without experiencing a menstrual cycle, is 51. (Throughout this article, we use the word women to refer to people with ovaries and a vagina.) But here—among women who have dropped $195 on a day spent exploring the latest research around menopause, while learning how to optimize their bodies through diet, exercise, supplements, prescription drugs, and intentional gratitude—the specific age associated with menopause feels less material than the life stage it represents. These women are parenting teenagers, or have recently become empty nesters. They have careers. They have sex lives. And they have disposable income.
That makes them among the most enticing demographics today. And over the past few years, spurred by a generational shift that has made older women more vocal and more visible, a fast-growing world of products and prescriptions has emerged to ameliorate the trials of menopause and the period preceding it, known as perimenopause. While the most notorious symptom is the hot flash, the full list includes nearly three dozen possibilities, from fatigue to thinning hair to joint pain. A 2020 analysis, published by Female Founders Fund, an early-stage venture firm, tallied women’s spending on menopause-related doctor’s visits and treatments at $2,000 a year, on average. If true, that would suggest that menopause—as both a medical condition and a life stage—could be as much as a $600-billion opportunity. The menopause market, once invisible to investors, is on its way to hitting $16 billion by 2025, according to CB Insights.
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