The Menopause Transition

Introduction

Market Representations and the New 'Meno Awareness', Special issue of the Journal of Marketing Management; Deadline 3 Jun 2024

INTEREST CATEGORY: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
POSTING TYPE: Calls: Journals

Author: Jennifer Takhar

JMM Special Issue

Call for Papers

Deadline for submissions 3 June 2024

The Menopause Transition, Market Representations and the New ‘Meno Awareness’

Guest Editors: Jennifer Takhar,ISG International Business School, France;Luciana Walther,Federal University of São João del-Rei, Brazil;Shona Bettany,University of Huddersfield, UK;Anna Schneider-Kamp,University of Southern Denmark, Denmark

In 2016, Bettany et al. bemoaned the “eerie silence” in marketing, and indeed the market, relating to menopause. Others later proclaimed that “the menopause appears to be one of the last female taboos to be tackled by anyone – let alone marketers and advertisers” (Kemp, 2018). Since then, something of a revolution has occurred in this regard (Ducourtieux, 2022; Jacobs, 2023) with the vicissitudes of the menopause transition being discussed by celebrity talk show hosts (Jacobs, 2023), raised in popular media series (Muir, 2022), on daytime TV, and even by politicians debating access to hormone replacement therapy and the establishment of menopause as a health priority in parliament (Orgad & Rottenberg, 2023). What has been called the menopause market gold rush has emerged (Geddes, 2022), highlighting a rapidly expanding market for products and services reportedly worth as much as $600 billion annually (Hinchcliffe, 2020).

The menopause transition, a natural part of biological ageing, involves a decline in estrogen levels that may cause adverse physical and psychological symptoms in women and usually begins with changes in the menstrual cycle (Davis et al. 2022; Gunter, 2021). Management scholars have focused attention on menopause in the workplace and how women’s bodily experiences are overlooked in structures, processes, and practices within organisations (Atkinson et al., 2021; Beck et al., 2021; Jack et al., 2019). In marketing, Stevens et al. 2020 have evaluated gendered ageing practices, Bettany et al. (2016) have critically assessed the menopause void in marketing and offered new conceptual avenues to explore the so-called “pinkification” of the menopause market (Bettany, 2023). However, despite the growing market for menopause, disciplinary debate about its emergence, development, and implications is lacking and warrants rigorous investigation.

Our special issue draws attention to the menopause transition, inviting contributions that evaluate how this biological change is being processed by marketers and sold back to consumers. We are interested in work that evaluates the contemporary construction of visual cultures around this transition (Muir, 2019), as well as analyses of marketized, middle-aged body representations (hair, skin, hormones and bones) that may or may not undermine consumers’ self-perception and self-esteem. We also see significant potential for knowledge transfer and cross-fertilization with closely related topics such as social media-amplified resistance to the consumption of hormonal supplements (Schneider-Kamp & Takhar, 2023) and gender-specific logics of everyday consumer self-care (Schneider-Kamp & Askegaard, 2021).

The special issue is international in scope and equally welcomes conceptual and empirical research from marketing researchers and social scientists. We encourage contributors to submit traditional academic papers, but also encourage other dissemination forms that include essays, videographic work, personal introspections, and autoethnographies. Ultimately, we are looking for diversity in terms of content, methodology, and the presentation of ideas. Specific topics/areas of enquiry may include, but are not limited by the following:

  • The influence of digital menopause activism on marketing strategies
  • The potential for marketers and advertisers to subvert pathological perceptions of the menopause/mid-life transition
  • The types of rhetrickery (misleading advertising discourses) utilized against consumers
  • The deconstruction/construction of mid-life bodies in the context of meno-advertising
  • The efficacity of menopause influencers in disseminating reliable health knowledge to consumers
  • Risks of popular media MHT (menopausal hormone therapy) recommendations
  • How menopausal commercial cultures are tied to celebrity culture
  • The lack of intersectional menopausal transition market representation
  • Overmarketing of hormone replacement therapies/natural remedies

Submission Requirements:

Authors should submit manuscripts of between 8,000–10,000 words (excluding tables, references, captions, footnotes and endnotes). All submissions must strictly follow the guidelines for the Journal of Marketing Management. These are available at:

Please note the requirements to include a Summary Statement of Contribution, and to place figures and tables at their correct location within the text. Please also read the following guidelines prior to submitting your manuscript:

  • Use of images:
  • Use of third-party material:
  • Ethical Guidelines:

Manuscripts should be submitted online using theT&F Submission Portal for Journal of Marketing Management ().Authors should prepare and upload two versions of their manuscript. One should be a complete text, while in the second all document information identifying the author should be removed from the files to allow them to be sent anonymously to referees.

When uploading files authors will be able to define the non-anonymous version as “Manuscript – with author details”, and the anonymous version as “Manuscript – Anonymous”. Only use alpha-numeric characters or underscores in the filename. To submit your manuscript to the Special Issue choose “Research Article” from the Manuscript Type list in the Submission Portal. On the next screen (Manuscript Details), answer ‘yes’ to the question ‘Are you submitting your paper for a specific special issue or article collection?’. A drop down list will then appear and you should select the Special Issue Title.

Informal queries regarding guest editors’ expectations or the suitability of specific research topics should be directed to the Special Issue Editors:

The closing date for submissions is 3 June 2024.

Technical queries about submissions can be referred to the Editorial Office:rjmmeditorial@westburn.co.uk

References

Atkinson, C., Beck, V., Brewis, J., Davies, A., & Duberley, J. (2021). Menopause and the workplace: New directions in HRM research and HR practice.Human Resource Management Journal,31(1), 49–64.

Beck, V., Brewis, J., & Davies, A. (2021). Women’s experiences of menopause at work and performance management.Organization,28(3), 510–520.

Bettany, S., Davies, A., & Snijders, S. (2016). Menopause and the Market: understanding the transitions to post-menopause through the lives of professional women. In 13th Conference onGender, Marketing and Consumer Behaviour, Paris, France.

Bettany, S. (2023). The “pinkification” of menopause: The silences and omissions of the menopause market gold-rush,Consumer Culture Theory Conference, Lund, Sweden

Davis, S. R., & Baber, R. J. (2022). Treating menopause—MHT and beyond.Nature Reviews. Endocrinology,18(8), 490–502.

Ducourtieux, C. (2022, May 26). Britain has its Menopause Revolution.Le Monde.

Ferguson, S. J., & Parry, C. (1998). Rewriting menopause: Challenging the medical paradigm to reflect menopausal women’s experiences.Frontiers,19(1), 20-41.

Geddes, L. (2022, January 26) It’s the great menopause gold rush.Guardian.

Gunter, J. (2021).The Menopause manifesto: Own your health with facts and feminism.Piatkus.

Hinchcliffe, E. (2020, October 26). Menopause is a $600 billion opportunity, report finds.Fortune,

Jacobs, E. (2023). The menopause makeover — what to make of a ‘gold rush’ of new products.Financial Times.

Jack, G., Riach, K., & Bariola, E. (2019). Temporality and gendered agency: Menopausal subjectivities in women’s work.Human Relations,72(1), 122–143.

Kemp, N. (2018, September 12). Marketing’s Menopause: It’s time to disrupt ageing.Campaign.

North, A. (2021, June 3). Menopause is having a moment.Vox.

Muir, K. (2019, June 13). Killing Eve and the rise of the older screen queen.Financial Times.

Muir, K. (2022).Everything You Need to Know t the Menopause (but were too afraid to ask).Simon and Schuster.

Orgad, S., & Rottenberg, C. (2023). The menopause moment: The rising visibility of ‘the change’ in UK news coverage.European Journal of Cultural Studies.

Schneider-Kamp, A., & Askegaard, S. (2021). Do you care or do I have a choice? Expert authority and consumer autonomy in medicine consumption.Consumption Markets & Culture,24(5), 419–438.

Schneider-Kamp, A., & Takhar, J. (2023). Interrogating the pill: Rising distrust and the reshaping of health risk perceptions in the social media age.Social Science & Medicine,331, 116081.

Stevens, L., Maclaran, P., & Kravets, O. (2020).Reclaiming the crone: Reimagining old age and feminine power.ACR North American Advances.

Tadajewski, M. (2010). Towards a history of critical marketing studies.Journal of Marketing Management,26(9-10), 773–824.

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