[Debit and credit. Menopause between illusion and reality]

Middle-aged women in patriarchial societies are still widely considered as deficient and damaged and therefore can easily become objects of medical attention. The authors seek the reasons for this in fact that the different changes of male and female potency in the 45 to 55 age-group provoke defense mechanisms. These are meant to ensure the intactness of the male--who then is supposedly in his 'best age'--for the sake of both men and women. Apart from this, psychoanalytical theories--like the one of the "depressive position", held by Melanie Klein--confirm the prejudice that a woman going through the change of life is damaged, and thus has to mourn the "desease" of menopause.