Oct 19, 2026 · 32 min · 14 segments
Sick of hearing “that’s normal” in the exam room while feeling like a stranger in your body? Pilar Guzmán, editorial director of Oprah Daily and three-time magazine editor-in-chief (Condé Nast…
Pilar GuzmánGuest
Katie FogartyHost
The Book of Menopause opens with a forward from Oprah, also with a very personal story that you experienced at a cocktail party on a cold winter night when you ran into an old friend who was flushed and fanning herself in the middle of a hot flash.
Her doctor had said to her, "This stuff is normal," yet she felt like she'd aged a decade overnight.
Tell me more about that moment and why it prompted you to ask what kind of menopause experience we could all be having if we'd been listening to women all along.
Women say, "I feel like I've aged 10 years overnight." I mean, I feel like if I have a dime for every time I've heard that at a dinner party or elsewhere, and I think it really does feel that way.
In some ways that can be very positive, but can feel very tumultuous, as we know.
And I think what happens routinely is that women go to the doctor, they give their list of woes that they're not connecting to this phase of life, and they get the, they'll say, "Oh, well, this is just aging." And I think that crushes me every time I hear it, every time I hear a woman blindly accept that and not feel like she has the authority to push back because the doctor said this is just normal.
This is for so many stages of life, which I think we will probably touch on, that th- it's not just this one, but it happens to be a momentous one because it's at a ti- comes at a time when women are already feeling like they're being sidelined anyway.
And so this kind of minimizing of symptoms and minimizing of what's going on in her body is perpetuated at every part of her life, uh, professionally, in the doctor's office, a place where she's supposed to be, feel safe, and then she's basically just told, "Yep, live with it." [laughs]
That medical gaslighting is so real, and the big blockbuster New York Times article several years ago about how women have been misled about menopause really puts their finger on that when they say, we have a big cultural tolerance for women's suffering.
We are menopausing out loud and demanding better solutions, and we're seeing people rush in to help us.
I wanna hear from you what sets this one apart and how somebody of Oprah's stature and interest, and the wonderful editorial team that you have, how you've created something that differs from other books that are out there.
For starters, I think we're standing on the shoulders of many great doctors and experts in this space, and I think what we do as journalists is distill and highlight and message in clear ways, and cherry-pick from all of this great information that's out there.
So I think what we do well is message in a way that lands so that people can walk away with some clear learnings, and also clear marching orders for when they go to the doctor and need to self-advocate.
It is a distillation of mind, body, spirit, relationships, all the ways in which this stage of life impacts women, all women.
We are a kind of, in some ways s- Clearing house [laughs] for all of this, and a trusted place to start
What did creating this book, what did reporting on this topic, and women's health more broadly over the many years you've been doing it, what did it teach you about what effective self-advocacy looks like in the exam room?
I think we all walk into an exam room and we're, many of us, I mean, we have sometimes women who don't have high blood pressure go into the exam room, and all of a sudden they have high blood pressure.
The Book of Menopause opens with a forward from Oprah, also with a very personal story that you experienced at a cocktail party on a cold winter night when you ran into an old friend who was flushed and fanning herself in the middle of a hot flash.
Her doctor had said to her, "This stuff is normal," yet she felt like she'd aged a decade overnight.
Tell me more about that moment and why it prompted you to ask what kind of menopause experience we could all be having if we'd been listening to women all along.
Women say, "I feel like I've aged 10 years overnight." I mean, I feel like if I have a dime for every time I've heard that at a dinner party or elsewhere, and I think it really does feel that way.
In some ways that can be very positive, but can feel very tumultuous, as we know.
And I think what happens routinely is that women go to the doctor, they give their list of woes that they're not connecting to this phase of life, and they get the, they'll say, "Oh, well, this is just aging." And I think that crushes me every time I hear it, every time I hear a woman blindly accept that and not feel like she has the authority to push back because the doctor said this is just normal.
This is for so many stages of life, which I think we will probably touch on, that th- it's not just this one, but it happens to be a momentous one because it's at a ti- comes at a time when women are already feeling like they're being sidelined anyway.
And so this kind of minimizing of symptoms and minimizing of what's going on in her body is perpetuated at every part of her life, uh, professionally, in the doctor's office, a place where she's supposed to be, feel safe, and then she's basically just told, "Yep, live with it." [laughs]
That medical gaslighting is so real, and the big blockbuster New York Times article several years ago about how women have been misled about menopause really puts their finger on that when they say, we have a big cultural tolerance for women's suffering.
We are menopausing out loud and demanding better solutions, and we're seeing people rush in to help us.
I wanna hear from you what sets this one apart and how somebody of Oprah's stature and interest, and the wonderful editorial team that you have, how you've created something that differs from other books that are out there.
For starters, I think we're standing on the shoulders of many great doctors and experts in this space, and I think what we do as journalists is distill and highlight and message in clear ways, and cherry-pick from all of this great information that's out there.
So I think what we do well is message in a way that lands so that people can walk away with some clear learnings, and also clear marching orders for when they go to the doctor and need to self-advocate.
It is a distillation of mind, body, spirit, relationships, all the ways in which this stage of life impacts women, all women.
We are a kind of, in some ways s- Clearing house [laughs] for all of this, and a trusted place to start
What did creating this book, what did reporting on this topic, and women's health more broadly over the many years you've been doing it, what did it teach you about what effective self-advocacy looks like in the exam room?
I think we all walk into an exam room and we're, many of us, I mean, we have sometimes women who don't have high blood pressure go into the exam room, and all of a sudden they have high blood pressure.
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