To think that menopause talks at work might not be an entirely good thing?

This!

it was also manufactured by younger HR types and 30 something blokes in unions because they had literally run out of things to virtue signal about. They'd done sexuality (also no relevance in the workplace), gender, disability to death, to the point that everyone under 35 in every workplace was disabled with anxiety and identified as enbie. Now that the tide is turning on pronouns and weird men pretending to be women, what's next?

Ah yes, lets try and make things worse for the women who have been quietly getting on with things and trying to play down that they are women in order to progress for 20 years, and have survived the pregnancy and maternity years, and just about got off the mummy track survived the jibes about maternity leaves and pregancny appointments and just about got their careers back on track. Ah yes, lets highlight menopause as the next thing we can use to try and find a chink in their armour and portray them as weak and unable to do their jobs as well as the young people coming through that are cheaper and we want to replace them with.

Well I disagree with that. There is quite a lot of messaging that pregnancy should be a glorious time and all new mothers should have an amazing bonding experience with their babies, childbirth should be intervention free and a defining and special moment in life.

If this happens to be true for you then great, doesn't actually do you any damage to see it's not the case for everyone. But for those where it is not the case, there is a lot of pressure to be 'making the most of every moment' and feeling you've come up short in some respect, childbirth intervention is a failure. That's pretty damaging.

In reality, 3rd degree tears, incontinence, pelvic floor problems etc are not uncommon. It should be talked about more. There should be wider understanding of women's health issues. How are we ever going to fix them or get more research funding if the scale of the problem isn't talked about ?

Similarly the menopause - if you've sailed through embracing the next stage then wonderful for you, but there are a lot of people who struggle along feeling isolated and not knowing what's wrong with them. Increased awareness of what's going on and what you can do to help it has been a big step in the right direction.

Isn't the issue discrimination because of menopause / pregnancy/ children rather than women trying to reframe their vaginal stitches, Postnatal depression, hot flushes, mood swings and vaginal atrophy into something positive if that's not actually the case for them?

I agree. Why don't we also have talks on marraige breakdown affecting work, or a life limiting illness diagnosis, or long term sickness?

It's all just manufactured to make women of certain age seem incompetent.

If they really cared they would just offer confidential work/life balance discussions to anyone that needs it, for every circumstance.

I think this is pointless HR virtue signalling.

What should be in place is real, individual support if a female employee is struggling.

My experience as someone with long term health isues/disabilities is that employers make a lot of noise about being inclusive and supportive but when you actually need that support you become a liability.

So women who struggle with menopause don't need random talks, they need real action behind these empty words.

I am so fed up with the current culture of everything needs to be discussed at work. What happened to everyone just goes to work, does their job and goes home again and keeps everything personal private. If there are problems around discrimination or accommodations needed those need to be dealt with by HR/management and are nothing to do with the workers. It's all a load of old crap. It's management and HR that need to do better, not individual workers.

It’s virtual signalling bollocks. I’m in a massive global company (since we got taken over) and we have a massive DEI dept , with lots of these talks. How to be a good ally and blah, blah, blah.
I was chatting with a female colleague yesterday, who is my age, nearly 60 and she was rolling her eyes too.
Just as an aside my company was pushing ‘women’ in top jobs as part of the shiny DEI goals - but I had it clarified, in numerous emails that this could also mean men in dresses! Now , since the Supreme Court ruling maybe the slides have quietly changed into stating ‘females’ in the top
jobs. I was so infuriated back then when the top HR man was so mealy- mouthed about the issue , just like a politician - that I lost the will to live.
we have tons of surveys that come out to employees all the time - I refuse to do another one.

Did they really say gender, not sex? Because that in itself suggests they don’t have their facts right.

Over the last couple of years my periods have gone from one every 6 months (fine) to one every 2 weeks (wtf) but that’s more or less the only effect. And if my work were becoming menopause aware I might suggest having towels & tampons available in the women’s toilets for emergencies.

I cannot stand the constant need to portray women as victims and this is a good example of this.
There are whole industries built around 'supporting' women deal with their percieved issues and they show no signs of abating.
My generation (i am 59) fought for equality in the workplace but we seem to be edging towards demanding special treatment.

The whole mindset of the corporate world (and society actually) is that the male default is the “normal” and anything women have to deal with is “other” and problematic. You can imagine what many men really think.

“Halfblindbunny · Yesterday 18:52
Honestly I'm glad someone else has had this thought. I'm glad there is recognition of the problems that it may cause some women and that there is more help available now than previous generations have had. However the way this is being dealt with in my workplace is, I feel, putting equality in the workplace back by a few decades. It now seems to be the general opinion that as soon as a woman hits early 40s they are a ticking time bomb for needing allowances made as to their ability to do their job, learn new skills, even attend work everyday. When reality is women have been holding down jobs and going through the menopause for a long time now and if anything women of today are better equipped to do that successfully than they have ever been before.”

I agree with this. I’m mid-50s and post-menopausal and loving life. My main symptom during menopause was stress so i was lucky overall. My old workplace which was a fab place with very considerate management also went a bit overboard and put posters up in our work kitchens listing menopause symptoms including dry vagina which i just thought was an unnecessarily personal symptom to put up there (and i speak as a massive oversharer).

Surely your workmates have better things to do than wonder about your possible vaginal dryness?

It would be ok if you also got prostate talks telling you that older men might need to nip to the loo more frequently than others or talks on men's hormones and the impact they have on the workplace.

I've said this for years. Its a bad idea and will come back to bite us. Its just another stick to beat us with.

To be honest I think the whole menopause thing has gone too far, both in work and generally. I'm looking at you Davina Mcall.

It feels like it's everywhere now. More information is good, but it's gone too far and creates fear for women on how bad it will be

as well as another way to mark women out as lesser

We never hear about men's prostate issues or dropping testosterone levels . Why not have talks about how men need understanding because they need to wee more or feel less confident?

I'm 53 and don't feel menopause had any impact on work. If anything i am now more successful than I've ever been. I have a confidence I previously didn't have.

I also think the numerous symptoms supposedly attributed to menopause could just as easily be life..

Some women suffer of course, but the vast majority don't.

Yeah I don’t think it’s appropriate to discuss vaginal dryness and libido in a professional situation.

It is horribly patronising.

Exactly this. I’m 55 so been through it. I have also recently been moved within my workplace to take on a more demanding role that I have never done before, doing something I’m passionate about - thankfully they didn’t decide I was past it!

I see a lot of posters on here talking about how they have bad memories and they are basically a bit dotty because of menopause or per menopause and then they turn out to be 45 or whatever

I would find it annoying enough if people thought that about me in the workplace at 70! I bet nobody said it about Clint Eastwood when he was directing films in his 80s - "oh he's a bit dotty it's his age".

So why are there some women encouraging these thoughts? And when do they think the next stage will be in their career? Do they think people will be falling over themselves to hire someone age 60?

It's good to see so many understanding remarks on here. I'm sure it's been discussed before and I didn't dare to comment because people were furious that you wouldn't want to talk about menopause at work. I didn't want to talk about contraception at work either. Sometimes managing that can be difficult and you've got to go to work with side effects.

I declined the invitation to one of these talks when it turned out to be a bloke giving it.

If anybody's going to be talking in a crowded, overheated room (with men in there as well) about the clitoris going on strike and the labia majora disappearing when not itching like there are a thousand fire ants up your foof, I'd really rather it not be a 26 year old whose only experience of the entire process was his Mum's hot flushes when he was taking his A Levels.

I wouldn't expect blokes to listen to a woman lecturing them with a crappy powerpoint deck about what it feels like to have prostate trouble or how to check their bollocks for lumps and varicose veins and it's fine to go to the GP if they can't get it up anymore. We shouldn't have to put up with the 'I'm such a Good Guy, I even teach people about Menopause' types.

We recently had a round of redundancies and a number of people commented that the vast majority were women in their late 40s…

Dong… ding.. ding… This is exactly the problem

Hard agree. I’m 50 and so far the menopause has been kind to me. I’ve not been debilitated like many of the work talks suggest. I function entirely normally.

Although I was hot the other day and someone suggested it was the menopause, rather than a warm day and wearing a jumper….

I’m sick of women always being to blame for something.

I agree. It is great that support is available where women are struggling and that businesses are recognising some women may need adjustments but I do think we are potentially undoing decades of fighting for equality in the workplace by making it sound like all middle aged women become incapable of doing their job.

I hate it . It makes people think any woman over a certain age is not reliable. It’s also to personal. Accommodationsvia hr and privately is fine but this whole education thing for all is counterproductive imho.