Menopause: some interpretations of the results of a study among a non-western group

This paper presents an analysis and interpretation of the reasons that older immigrant Sikh women in a Canadian city perceive menopause as a positive event in their lives. Traditional psychological and psychosomatic symptoms ascribed to menopause in the literature were notably absent in this group of women. The positive attitude that the women displayed toward the menopausal experience was investigated within the ecology of their particular lives. Prior to and after immigration to Canada, participants lived in a traditional Indian/Sikh ideological setting. Only within this ideological system and world view could the cultural symbolism and the meaning ascribed to menopause be understood. The physical/biological symptoms and the meaning ascribed to them was not addressed (George T. There is a time for everything: A study of the menopausal/climacteric experience of Sikh women in Canada. Doctoral dissertation, University of Utah, 1985).