‘I’m in Menopause!’ Halle Berry Seeks to End a Stigma and Win Funding

TIME

Halle Berry is joining a group of bipartisan senators to push for legislation that would put $275 million toward research and education around menopause, the significant hormone shift women go through in middle age.

Transcript

00:00 One, two, three, four.

00:03 Thank you.

00:05 I can't think of a topic that should not be politicized.

00:09 I can't think of an issue that's more of a human rights

00:12 issue than anything.

00:14 So to have support from both sides of the aisle

00:16 is really important for all women.

00:17 I said, I'm in menopause!

00:20 OK?

00:21 And that's why I'm having this issue!

00:23 And he said, oh my god, I could never say that to you.

00:25 Look at you.

00:26 You don't look like you're in menopause.

00:27 I could never say that.

00:28 And if I said that to all of my female clients,

00:30 they'd punch me.

00:32 And again, I knew that is why I'm here doing this work.

00:35 Because it has to be de-stigmatized.

00:37 The shame has to be taken out of menopause.

00:40 We have to talk about this very normal part of our life

00:43 that happens.

00:44 Our doctors can't even say the word to us,

00:47 let alone walk us through the journey of what

00:50 our menopausal years look like or look like,

00:52 or our years after that.

00:54 That's why I'm here.

00:54 I'm here as a citizen of the United States,

00:57 as a woman who is demanding that our government give us

01:02 what we need, because we deserve it.

01:03 We have been overlooked.

01:05 We have been discarded for far too long.

01:09 And I'm so grateful to have a team

01:10 of powerful, strong, smart women who are saying,

01:15 enough is enough.

01:16 Because guess what?

01:18 It's enough!

01:19 Why is it so stigmatized?

01:21 The bottom line is, for too long,

01:23 menopause has been overlooked, under-invested in,

01:28 and left behind.

01:29 It is well past time to stop treating menopause

01:33 like some kind of secret and start

01:36 treating it like the major, mainstream public health issue

01:40 it is.

01:40 Menopause is not a bad word.

01:42 It's not something to be ashamed of.

01:45 And it is not something Congress or the federal government

01:48 should ignore.

01:49 Why haven't we focused more on menopause?

01:53 Why has it become this issue that seems to be a little taboo?

02:01 Now, I would just suggest one little thought,

02:05 that if men went through menopause,

02:07 we would have adequately and appropriately funded

02:10 the research to menopause decades and decades ago.

02:13 So there's no time like the present

02:16 to get moving, to get forward on it.

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