Make no mistake, a woman like Jolie using the scary M Word is a hugely symbolic breakthrough. Just as the seven-month pregnant Demi Moore, posing naked on the cover of Vanity Fair back in 1991, caused outrage because an actress, whose movie career was built on being sexy and desirable, dared to show what sexy and desirable commonly leads to in real life: a baby. Who knew?
Being a mother in Hollywood means you are generally ruled out for "the Girl" parts, which is pretty much all of them, except supermarket cashiers, the mentally unstable and long-suffering wives of astronauts or detectives. Moore's defiant cover pose said: "This is what women's bodies are for. It's beautiful. Get used to it."
Angelina Jolie's candour is of a different order, because her confession is not beautiful, nor is it about youth and fertility. After discovering that she has a genetic mutation which gives her an 87 per cent risk of breast cancer and a 50 per cent risk of ovarian cancer, the star had a double mastectomy two years ago. Now, following a recent scare, she has had her other female bits removed - although her womb remains, because there is no family history of uterine cancer. (She lost her mother, aunt and grandmother to cancer.)
Yes, you could argue that it's easy for a woman of such deafening beauty and power to own up to the M Word without being written off as a dried-up old prune, particularly as she holds the juicy position of Mrs Brad Pitt. But that is rather the point, isn't it? In 2015, cancer, which was once a shameful secret, is now out and proud. By contrast, menopause, which will affect half the population, is still in the closet with its baggy cardie on, looking for its reading glasses and feeling shattered and past it.
I started to write my new novel, Sandwich Woman, because I felt that such a huge part of women's existence was muffled and denied. Trust me, if men had to go through the M Word (the kind that gives you hot flushes, not the one that makes you buy a Harley-Davidson and leave your family) then there would be drop-in help centres on every high street and Emeritus Professors of Menopause.
At the weekend, I was in Suffolk with five other women to celebrate a doctor friend's 50th birthday. After a couple of bottles of bubbly, we began to share our M Word experiences. Clare had recently been diagnosed with osteoporosis and said the medication she was on was "vile". A consultant (male) had just suggested that she go on HRT instead, but her GP (female) had said she would never allow her to go on HRT. So that's perfectly clear, then. My quest goes on to find a dose of thyroid medication that doesn't make me a) fall asleep while standing up delivering a speech or b) want to machete my loved ones into small pieces if they open the Jordan Country Crisp a little too noisily.
Between the six of us at the party, we clocked up an impressive list of M-Word symptoms, including:
1. Irritability. Changes in mood so sudden and violent that you can see the skid marks on your husband's face. (I am not alone!)
2. Hair loss. Katie, a breast-cancer specialist, said her patients could handle a mastectomy. It was the thought of shedding their crowning glory that reduced them to despairing tears. (We all agreed that was exactly how we'd feel, too.)
3. Joint pain. Back pain. Foot pain. Getting out of bed in the morning pain. Total pain in the arse, quite frankly.
4. Exhaustion and insomnia. See Irritability.
5. Depression. No one could tell if this was caused by hormonal imbalance or was a perfectly sane reaction to a menopausal female still being regarded in wider society (and movies) as some tottery old crone, instead of a fabulous woman in her prime.
Hell, even our side-effects have side-effects. Stevie Nicks, the great lead singer of Fleetwood Mac, once said: "Rock and menopause do not mix. It is not good, it sucks and every day I fight it to the death, or, at the very least, not let it take me over." Those are my feelings exactly, and sometimes I wonder how you are supposed to bear it.
Two doctors at that 50th party confessed that the M Word had played little or no part in their medical training. "It's dreadful, but it's seen as something that happens to women and they're supposed to just get on with it and suffer in silence," said one.
Well, this week, the silently suffering found a champion. No longer does the M Word need to be a code for loss of allure and decline. If Angelina Jolie says she is "in menopause", what have we got to fear? Forget the baggy cardie and let that hot flush be one of anger, not embarrassment. It's time the change of life was treated with all the seriousness and the tender care it deserves.
