Jokes about Menopause....

[Crowdblundering]

Not sure if I am being a bit precious.

I am 41 I have almost grown up children and happily entering next stage of my life.

Every time I merely mention being hot in the office (we have really dodgy heating at work) my boss (nearly 60 yr old women) makes jokes about it being "that time of life" or similar - which TBH I find really offensive and fucking tedious.

On top of this there is another lady in our office who is a year younger than me who has just moved in with her partner and hopes to start a family.

So do I carry on smiling and nodding or tell her she's out of line?

Go and play Mrs Headmistress somewhere else.

yes Margy , piss off.
Anyone who starts talking about 'banter' can get to fuck.
It's not 'banter' it's offensive bullshit.

Oh come on, you are a woman with wimmens things
Let's all point and make fun

Margy, so if we bantered back "oh I'm not having menopause or aches and pains, im much younger than you are...do your specs need upgrading" that would be fine?

or if we 'bantered ' back 'get lost you are old and wrinkly' would that be OK?

Why people find it acceptable to ask about such things is a mystery to me.

The lady in the chip shop asked me about the menopause because she assumed I was older than her and would know.

My (normally perfectly nice) sil asked me loudly, on the train, if I had symptoms of the menopause. I put it down to her being menopausal with memory lapses and having forgotten about good manners.

As you will all be very interested to know, I'm 59 and most parts are still operative, though slowing down a little now.

Of course menopause shouldn't be a taboo, and suggesting that someone is going through the menopause isn't an insult. But any repetitive personal remarks at work get right up my nose, even when the person is clearly only joking. I'm 5'1", and once had a colleague who I swear at times seemed to have based his entire conversational repertoire on me being short . In your circumstances, where it's inaccurate as well, it would be doubly annoying.

(I'm 47 and nobody has made this type of remark to me yet.)

To be fair I also really hate any type of repetitive joke/joker.

To have to watch what you say about something as inane about the temperature in the office is just fucking irritating and I know it upsets my other colleague who is very anxious about conceiving at 40.

my Menopause when it happens will not be subject to office discussion.

This ^^

I don't hide my menopausal status at work. Just as I didn't share tales of my periods with colleagues. It is a normal part of my life, and every woman's life, which doesn't impact on my work performance so I don't need to discuss it.

That would fuck me off too op. It's very personal and quite distasteful.

Agree with all of Beryls posts.

I am not my hormones thankyou.

Meant to add I am not my hormones and if I am having a rough menopause that's my bloody private business and no one else's

limited your user name resonates on this thread. Made me chuckle.

I started with odd bleeding and irregular cycles in my early forties, and now at 46 am pretty much through the menopause, though. I wish some people would realise that not all women get to their fifties before they go through it. I feel slightly odd as it is.

Agree with all of Beryls posts.

My sister does this to me and has been for years.

She's fifteen years older than me so has been going through her menopause since I was in my mid-thirties.

Every time I tell her I haven't slept well/have a headache/forgot something etc she's all "Oooooh, it's starting! That's how I started!"

I wish she'd tell my ovaries that, because they keep firing off the eggs like clockwork and it's a pain in the arse, frankly.

The constant repetition of something inaccurate is annoying enough. But I think Yvaine's comment about her sister is another thing that I've noticed in other women (although so far not directed at me). It sometimes sounds like there's an aspect of slight excitement involved that I find intrusive and a bit creepy. Why would one woman get excited at the notion of another woman going through menopause? There are certainly new life stages where I'd be excited for a friend/colleague/family member - engagement, pregnancy, retirement maybe - but stopping their periods wouldn't be one of them

If you really think it might be upsetting your colleague, OP, you could always point it out to her as a strange thing that your boss does - defuse it by making it something humorous rather than a thing to worry about? (Personally I'd consider getting up a set of Menopause Bingo cards and taking turns in trying to score a mention from your boss, but I'm horrible.)

Round "Why would one woman get excited at the notion of another woman going through menopause?"

Because that kind of misery is nasty enough to want to inflict a problematic menopause on someone else. You've taken us full circle, round!