On national menopause day, some Philly women are sending a powerful message.

FemmePharma founder Gerianne Tringali DiPiano smiled inside when film director Jacoba Atlas asked her to contribute her expertise to a documentary demystifying menopause.

Talk of menopause and perimenopause — the years of hormonal fluctuations signaling the end of menstruation — is the topic du jour as celebrities from Oprah Winfrey to Michelle Obama to Shania Twain to Tracee Ellis Ross continue to chat about the change. DiPiano, founder of a Wayne-based pharmaceutical company that makes prescription and over-the-counter medications to help deal with hot flashes, vaginal dryness, and brain fog, is somewhat of a menopause evangelist.

Her message: Those of us who have ovaries need not suffer through the physical and emotional symptoms of menopause alone.

“It’s fundamentally important that women understand what is happening to them,” DiPiano said. “Women do not lose their value when they are no longer able to bare children.”

DiPiano joins health care experts, everyday ladies, and Tony Award winner Audra McDonald in the new documentary The (M) Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause, that, in honor of World Menopause Day — Oct. 18 — debuts this weekend on PBS. The film will be a featured on PBS through the end of the year. There are watch parties around the country, including one in Philadelphia on Nov. 14.

The (M) Factor is the passion project of powerful women in film and industry insiders including cofounders of Women in the Room Productions, Atlas and Denise Pines; former Today show producerJoanne LaMarca Mathisen; and former CBS3 and WPIX reporter and anchorTamsen Fadal.

Menopause, according to the 56-minute documentary, is more than the end of our reproductive lives. Experts in the The (M) Factor explain in detail how lower estrogen impacts heart, brain, and oral health. We learn that medical professionals — including gynecologists — spend less than a month studying the impact of menopause on the body, and menopause research isn’t well funded. The (M) Factor is the first documentary centering menopause that health-care professionals can earn continued medical education credits if they watch and participate in a seminar.

“Gen Xers and early millennials who are coming into menopause and perimenopause are very vocal about what is happening to them,” Fadal said. Fadal, 53, author of the soon-to-be released How to Menopause, started her menopause journey in her mid-40s. “Menopause is a natural transition that we should be educated about, not taught to fear.”

According to the National Institute of Aging, more than one million people enter menopause each year and 85% of them have symptoms that include depression, weight gain, joint pain, and the dreaded hot flashes. However, The (M) Factor feels particularly relevant during this presidential election as the Republican vice presidential candidate, JD Vance, is linked to comments questioning a person’s value beyond their childbearing age.

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“If we have an administration that only values women in their reproductive years, then what happens to the older population of women?” DiPiano asks. “Will they have the same access and opportunities to health care? Will federal dollars be earmarked to study menopause? Reproductive health is important, but it can’t be the only women’s health-equity issue.”

And then there is me. A card-carrying member of Gen X, I have to admit, I’m feeling a little warm as I write this column. I’m starting to experience some of the weirdness that comes with perimenopause, and it is frightening. I’ve been taught to fear the end of my period my whole life.

The [M] Factor is real talk — the natural decline of estrogen is no joke — but it‘s comforting, giving women hope that our best years aren’t behind us.

“It’s something new and fierce,” said Mathisen.

Mathisen, who started experiencing the symptoms of menopause when she was in her early 50s, wasn’t always this confident. “I’d never been an anxious person, but I was anxious all the time and I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn’t let other generations of women go uneducated.”

Mathisen met Fadal through mutual friends back in 2021. Both women were complaining about their menopause symptoms and discovered they knew nothing about it. So, they decided to work on a movie, filming experts with their iPhones. A year later they teamed up with Atlas and Pines. Financing the film wasn’t easy.

“We were repeatedly told menopause was a topic people just didn’t want to hear about,” Mathisen said.

Then, Mathisen said, a funny thing happened. The drug maker Astellas spent $24 million on a Super Bowl commercial for its hot flash medication, Veozah. Celebrities continued their menopause mission: Oprah dedicated an entire issue of her quarterly O magazine to menopause. On Sept. 24, Drew Barrymore gave menopause an entire half-hour show. More and more ads appeared on social media hawking products that help with symptoms, not to mention the emergence of virtual menopause care companies like Evernow and Gennev.

“Menopause has hit its sweet spot,” Mathisen said. “We hope our film helps to change how women see themselves and their future and make menopause into a movement.”

The (M) Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause will air in Philadelphia on PBS WHYY on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings at 7 p.m.