Whose menopause revolution? Investigating the UK’s ‘Davina effect’ and the contemporary menopause market

Having made two documentaries about menopause, broadcast on Channel 4 in the UK 2021 and 2022, enduringly popular British TV presenter Davina McCall’s films are perceived to have had such a social impact that she now has the rare distinction of having an ‘effect’ named after her. The first film, Sex, Myths and the Menopause , is credited with diminishing the stigma historically surrounding menopause, while extolling the benefits of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) for some to treat menopause symptoms. Hence, when requests for HRT spiked after the first film, ‘the Davina effect’ was adopted by the media to explain the widespread ensuing HRT shortage. This article is not focused on interrogating the films themselves but unpacking the media narrative that followed in the uses of the term ‘the Davina effect’. Its corpus comprises UK press coverage of the ‘menopause revolution’ and of the Davina documentaries; textual analysis of the films; and testimonies and research drawn from the medical and health professions, while utilising existing media and cultural studies paradigms to provide conceptual context, situating the ‘Davina effect’ as the latest novel entry in a long-standing history of media effects debates. While the films have been praised for bolstering a new era of menopause awareness, this article considers how ‘the Davina effect’ instantiates and services how the so-called ‘menopause revolution’ (Gordon, 2021) has evolved largely in neoliberal terms, regularly centring the need to respond to the perceived crises of middle-class white women, rather than a more intersectional and inclusive conception of menopause. Furthermore, it apportions knowledge, fear and blame around HRT shortages in a manner which deflects attention from the larger economic, political and cultural contexts that have nurtured the ensuing alarm. Yet, importantly, the Davina effect may also facilitate a transgressive image of menopausal women as determinedly contesting their marginalisation.