Male Menopause: What's In A Name?

The reason for Andropause or Male Menopause is to signal the end of the first part of a man's life and get him ready for the second half. Male Menopause is not as many fear the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning. It is the opening to the most passionate, powerful, productive, and purposeful time of a man's life.

The term "male menopause" is obviously inaccurate. The word "menopause" was introduced by French doctors in the 1870s, combining two Greek words-menses ("periods") and pausis ("stop"). Men don't have a period, so they don't stop having one. I chose to use male menopause when I wrote my books on the subject because I found there were so many similarities between what women and men go through. The major difference is that men can continue having children following this change of life, where women's reproductive life ends. There have been several names which have been used to describe this inevitable life transition: male menopause, Andropause, viropause, the male climacteric, penopause, and andropenia. Each of them indicate that there is a change or ending that happens in male functioning. Increasingly I am using the term Andropause (andro from the Greek word meaning "male" and pausis from the word meaning "stop.") It also focuses on the fact that there is a drop in male hormones, particularly the androgens (andro, "male" and gen "to give), like testosterone at this time of life.

I often think this time of life as climbing up a mountain. At some point we reach our highest point and begin coming back down. It's no surprise that we are scared of the changes associated with the down-side of the mountain. For most of human history we died when we reached the bottom. The average life-span was only 47 years of age at the turn of the century. Those of us who hit 50 can expect to live another 30 years. Lots of us will live to be 100 or more.

There is a second mountain for us to climb, one that allows us to be more peaceful and less ambitious, more playful and less serious, more accepting and less demanding of ourselves and others. However, in order to get to this second mountain, we must go through the Male Menopause valley. We can't jump from peak to peak.

But in order to be successful on this second mountain we have to recognize that it is quite different than the first. One of the most startling, and disturbing, aspects of this shift is that our whole sense of manhood changes. It's as if the polarities of life had abruptly reversed themselves. It is a time to construct a new definition of what it means to be a man, a challenge that is confounding to many of us.

Dr. Jed Diamond has been helping men, and the women who love them, for over 40 years. He has written 9 books, including Male Menopause, The Irritable Male Syndrome, and Mr Mean. He is passionate about helping transform relationships and make the world a better place for us all.

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