Why “We Do Not Care” became a rallying cry for menopausal women
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 19 January 2026
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
The phrase “we do not care” may sound flippant—but for many women, it’s a form of freedom. Melani Sanders, founder of the We Do Not Care Club, joins The Excerpt to explain how her viral posts opened up overdue conversations about perimenopause, vulnerability, and self-worth and why midlife women are redefining what—and who—they’re willing to show up for.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What you're about to hear might sound like a joke at first, but for millions of women, it landed more like a truth bomb. |
| 0:11.0 | Hello and welcome to our new and existing members of the We Do Not Care Club. |
| 0:16.3 | I started this club for all women in paramedopause, menopause, and postmenopause. |
| 0:23.6 | That's Melanie Sanders, the creator of the We Do Not Care Club. |
| 0:27.6 | Hello and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. |
| 0:31.6 | I'm Wendy Noggle, USA Today executive editor of entertainment. |
| 0:35.6 | What started as a meme has exploded into a cultural moment. |
| 0:39.8 | We Do Not Care has become a rallying cry for visibility, for setting boundaries, and for rejecting |
| 0:46.1 | expectations, women, specifically perimenopausal and menopausal women, are told to quietly carry. |
| 0:53.6 | Melanie's new book, the official We Do Not |
| 0:56.3 | Care Club Handbook, is in bookstores now. Melanie, we're excited to have you here today on the excerpt. |
| 1:02.7 | Thank you so much for having me. I wanted to start off. You're the mother of three boys. Most of |
| 1:08.5 | them are grown, so they know what's happening on social media right now. |
| 1:12.9 | How are they reacting to this phenomenon that you created and seeing their mom out there in this |
| 1:17.7 | way? I think they are probably just as shocked as I am, but also the attention can be away from |
| 1:25.1 | them and more so me focused on the book and the movement. So |
| 1:28.3 | they're benefiting greatly. And your videos have become so much more than social media posts. |
| 1:34.3 | They really are this rallying cry across zip codes, across demographics. How do you see the |
| 1:40.8 | We Do Not Care Club impacting conversations beyond social media when you're talking to so many women? |
| 1:47.1 | Within the WDNC, the We Do Not Care Club, this has become a sisterhood in just being able to support each other and being able to have the conversation of what paramedopause, menopause, and postmenopause |
| 2:01.9 | looks like, the familiarity of just everyone rallying together and just say, we do not care much |
| 2:09.0 | anymore. And when you've talked to women across the country, what stories have impacted you the |
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