To think this is fine to talk about in a work email

[SandAndSeals]

I’ve NC as this is potentially outing.

An awareness email went out to colleagues about the menopause. Is the email, it lists the symptoms inc. hot flushes, low mood etc and also ‘vaginal dryness and reduced sex drive’.

My colleague has put a complaint email in about it as they don’t think it’s appropriate to mention vaginal dryness is a workplace email. However I disagree. It’s a common symptom and should be listed in an awareness article. You would take out ‘difficulty holding an erection’ when discussing prostate cancer, for example.

The Health team send out other emails about out conditions and illnesses depending on what’s being asked for. I’m in the Women’s Network so I know that menopause info has been asked for.

What do you think? AIBU or is she?

So what should they do? Do they assume you are menopausal because you are having hot flushes? Should they discuss it with you? Should they assume you are experiencing other symptoms? Should you confirm it’s your menopause to your boss?

So Divebar as a late 40s woman should I let my boss know my periods are a bit irregular now and I suspect I’m peri-menopausal and possibly my memory is not quite what it used to be and occasionally I feel really bad tempered?

How could you tell if it’s the menopause causing you to be moody or if someone is just being a dick?!

Good point Shirleyphallus, maybe I’m just pissed off and attributing my bad temper to being menopausal. Do you think an email from my employer about the menopause would help?

I really think it would @Margolovebutter. Think I could get some special dispensation for a hangover?

You don’t HAVE to discuss anything with your line manager - it’s entirely up to you in the same way it would be with any other personal issue. I don’t want to wave a big flag announcing the menopause either but I do want to think that a manager would have half a clue about what’s going on if I choose to make reference to it. My friend is a senior prison officer and was in a meeting where she was the only woman. She found herself having a hot flush and one of the other senior officers said in front of everyone “ what’s wrong are you having a hot flush or something?” Talk about compounding the problem. Don’t you think he would have benefited from some information so he could ( had he wished) found a way of excusing her from the meeting until such time as her hot flush had passed?

So in that scenario you described, your friend’s colleague has read the menopause email and because he is clearly an ignorant, rude git, instead of asking her if she’s having a hot flush, he now announces to the room that she’s having a hot flush and maybe she should step outside until she cools down.

He can say he was being considerate of her symptoms but actually he’s still a rude twat of a colleague and she probably still would humiliated!!!!!

So, I’ll ask again, unless an employer wants their staff to take specific action what the fuck are the point of emails about health issues?

Oh yes. Hangover=menopause. Of course.

Christ.

Dear god. A Menopause policy? Really?

I'm going through the Menopause. I don't want to discuss vaginal dryness. I have a fan and a window open when it gets hot. If i feel ill I speak to my Manager. If i feel like snapping someone's head off I take 5 minutes away and don't use it as an excuse.

I would assume most reasonably intelligent people have an idea what it is and could look it up on wikipedia and don't need it explaining in an email.

I don’t particularly think an email is the way forward but I think there is a need for education. For some reason women’s health complaints or issues are treated as this great mysterious secret. I wouldn’t have had an attack of the vapours if I’d received that email - I think the intention was good even if the execution was less than ideal.

Margo Be sensitive. And hot flushes can mean red hot face, plus severe sweating on your face. Basically as if you are in a very hot sauna.

Jesus Christ, literally some people complain about anything, I feel they used the correct terminology. It was short and to the point.

Ok, so if employers want employees to be sensitive towards menopausal women, they need to say that. It needs to be a call to action and not just the provision of information.

What should the sensitivity look like? Do you ask your colleague having a hot flush if they want to leave the room? Do you ask if she needs a fan? Do you remove her from client facing meetings until you think she’s no longer having hot flushes? Do you assume all those things as her boss? Or, do you ask her if she’d like to have a chat about her hot flushes with HR? How do you see sensitivity being put into practice in a meaningful and helpful way?

The same way you would about any other personal issue ( disability as an example). unless you actually discuss it how does anyone know? Or should we all carry on pretending it doesn’t happen and burying our collective heads in the sand. ?

(sardine conditions at my hotdesk workplace)
"You're shifting a lot in your chair today."
-Well, it's this vaginal itching you see. I can't get comfy in my seat. Menopause is a bitch!
"Er, ok. Can I get you... a glass of water?"
-Don't be daft! I can't pour that on my fanjo.
"... um, ok. Look about those figures that finance sent thru yesterday..."

I can just see that convo at work tomorrow (not).

It had been raised in the Women’s network that a Menopause policy was required and many managers (men in particular) are clueless of the symptoms and haven’t been showing any understanding

Manager type "encounters" vaginal dryness... remembers work email.... heaves a sigh of relief....

And there’s the thing Divebar. As I said many posts ago I expect my employer to have an HR team who can work with me and my boss or me and my staff to help us with any personal issues we may have that are affecting our ability to do the work we’re employed to do. I want HR to be knowledgeable and helpful and ensure they support everyone in a confidential and discreet way.

What I don’t want is an email about a health condition that someone in my team may or may not have that just provides me with information I could have found on Google but doesn’t give me any bloody clues what sense I make of it in the workplace but gets my employer some big tick in their IIP box or welfare reporting box because they’ve provided me with ‘wellbeing’ information.

I certainly don’t want those emails if it looks like it is targeting certain members of staff and making them feel uncomfortable because they think it is about them and their dry vagina and that because they’re 52 and female everybody else thinks it is about them too!

People are being deliberately dense.

Raising awareness of health issues is not necessarily about how your manager, colleagues etc deal with you nor how it affects you at work.

It's just a responsible employer having good employee relations and raising awareness.

That. Is. It.

Noone is expecting managers to start asking women about vaginal dryness, it's merely one of the potential symptoms

The same way you would about any other personal issue ( disability as an example). unless you actually discuss it how does anyone know? Or should we all carry on pretending it doesn’t happen and burying our collective heads in the sand. ?

That's exactly it, though.

These things are normally done by HR to brief colleagues on how they can support a colleague.

But why is it the role of an employer to "raise awareness" of certain health issues if they have no impact on your work nor how your colleagues are expected to treat you?

Especially if staff are made actively uncomfortable by that awareness raising. As we know at least one, female, member of staff is here.

I find it frustrating that, in the name of feminism, women's right to have their privacy and personal dignity respected is being belittled.

It's not necessarily their role, some just choose to do it. Maybe don't work for that type of employer if having health concerns discussed is so difficult for you?

Noone is disrespecting personal rights.

Pretty sure my employer doesn't raise awareness of health issues in the name of feminism either.

Full disclosure – my workplace has a menopause policy, I was one who pushed for it, instigated it, and have spoken out about it in other places.
This thread's a really interesting read, especially the comments about not understanding the need for a policy. There’s just been a two-day menopause conference in Perth, focused on the workplace, and the idea of specific policy’s gathering steam. It was also recommended in a UK Government report last year, as part of reflecting the changing demographic of our workforce.
The vast majority of women will sail through it (relatively speaking), but some will experience severe symptoms. But it’s not recognised as a long-term health condition, which means that clinic appointments and absences at work can be treated as separate events, causing women to run into HR problems.
The STUC and Welsh TUC have been working away on this – and women are sharing stories of how they’ve struggled at work, and menopause had been treated as a joke or a taboo subject.
Look at Menopause Café, or Mandy Rhodes on Twitter to get a flavour of the conversations that are happening.
The SNP (party in administration in Scottish Parliament) conference has just agreed to call on the Scottish Government to look at model policies for employers. Worth noting that one STUC survey said 95% of respondents said model policies were a good idea.
Just because some might not personally experience extreme, debilitating symptoms, doesn’t mean others don’t.

Yes, delivery is key, and some delivery of information sounds questionable. I agree with the last pp who said it has the potential to make women uncomfortable, and that's compounding the very problem unions have recognised.
But that’s very different from having policies in place which protect women, which enable them to function effectively in the workplace.

I think it's a bit odd. I'm peri menopausal but I'd probably be sniggering a bit at this if it came round my work!

Well I think yr workplace needs a policy on what should be included in yr policies. Someones got too much time on their hands me thinks. Ooh policy on the effect of nickel on bare skin....

Well...this is a surprising contentious thread.

"No one is disrespecting personal rights."

At least one woman in the OP's workplace is uncomfortable enough with how the issue has been addressed to raise a complaint. The OP has clarified that this woman is perfectly happy to have menopause discussed as an issue is general.

It seems incredibly dismissive to say that just because you would be happy for certain medical issues to be treated a particular way in the workplace that all women must feel the same.