Is awareness of menopause and its horrific to start backfiring on us ?

[Bobbyewingshowerscene]

Is the current awareness and better understanding of menopause and its ruddy awfulness going to start backfiring on us on the workplace?
Undermining faith in the competency of women in their 40s and 50s? because there is better understanding of how the body, hormones, sleep, mood, ability to focus, mental health are affected?

Not dissimilar to how employers have historically (and I would argue still currently) viewed mothers/ women of child bearing age- for concerns about future mat leave/ child care issues/ sick days etc.

Is it an unfair irony that promoting more information about the menopause and its negative effects, and this being more publicly understood, is going to set us back to being seen as less capable than our male counterparts?

Sorry I misunderstood - yes totally agree with your point x

So was I ! X

there are them that avail themselves self of all the above and those that - bar mat leave and odd bug or flu over the years -do not

Ive seen people managed out when I worked in the private sector and the relief was immense as rest of team
picking up slack

Very luckily!!!!

Valid concern. I didn’t believe menopause impacted my ability to do my job and would be aghast if promotion etc was denied on the basis of an assumption that I was going to turn into some kind of half person because of my menopause needs. If I felt menopause was that impactful / which I know it is for lots of people and also less so for others, I’d expect to make my own life choices.

i do understand that workplaces need to be mindful of the impact of menopause but also I’m twitching that it’s just another reason to not employ women? “If they’re not on maternity leave they’re under contributing due to menopause “

YANBU Op. I’m utterly sick of the capable and impressive 40/50 something senior women I work with constantly making reference to their poor addled peri brains. To a woman they are more on the ball than the senior men( who would never draw attention to their shortcomings because of course they don’t have any)..
Fuck that. Women get so powerful in middle age. To me this constant corporate wanging on about menopause is just a convenient way of undermining us.

If not “horrific” for every woman.

or male where they can …

Quite!

Amen!

And, actually, men age too. It is the 'brain fog' symptom that I am fed up of hearing about
Amen. Actually a well respected consultant told me than in studies they have found men and women have the same cognitive functions in middle age.
Hormone fluctuations can affect memory etc but when a man goes into a room and can’t remember why he is there he just thinks “ oh well, I’m still awesome”.
Also, if you think about it, women do so damn much in late 40s/ 50s. My friends are running businesses, looking after sick parents, wrangling both teens and younger kids, renovating houses, starting new hobbies. If anything it’s the men who really seem to be slowing down and not able to cope with much.

I saw on LinkedIn a woman talking about her hormonal cycle and how she only feels able to do certain parts of her freelance job during certain bits of her cycle. And making a joke that her ideas she had when ovulating can often seem dreadful during another bit of her cycle. Loads of women agreeing. I think this is terrible for women’s reputation.

I have become concerned with how much 'peri' is chucked about. I'm hoping it's mainly a Mumsnet thing but I think it has the potential to damage the careers and health of many women.

At work we see constant reference to 'brain fog' which I agree is damaging. We don't have 50 year old men saying they can't meet clients for long because their prostate will mean they need to wee every 5 mins but we have HR telling everyone how women are suddenly confused idiots after 40.

Health wise I think it's great in some ways we have more awareness but I think we run the risk of "it's probably peri" being the tagline of GP services. How many other medical conditions are going to go missed because peri is the new catch-all explanation?

It could be make or break to be fair …

At 64 and from about 50 for me, on the plus side:

No more periods
No more headaches
No more cyclical bloating
No more hormonal ups and downs
Less vaginal discharge - knickers last three times longer
Far less sweaty
Far less hairy
Can't get pregnant

A bit greyer but I have a very good hairdresser.

I’m super pleased that’s the case! And so it should be! X

I agree. I also think it reflects the DEI industrial complex trying to justify their existence. We know that pointing out the fact that women are women leads to worse outcomes, so why do people think it’s helpful to bang on about menopause is beyond me.

good grief!

Yes it just came out of nowhere -‘peri’
replacing the equally unhelpful ‘the change’

And was always thus…

I do think most of 'brain fog' is just cognitive load. Often in a senior role at work, managing kids schedules, school exams elderly relatives, the stock take of the home (we'll run out of loo roles by Saturday so I must order them in the shop etc.) often with poor sleep. Maybe it is exacerbated by hormonal change but I suspect most of it is normal for this amount of cognitive juggling.

I think it's worse than 'the change' I think it's replaced 'health anxiety'. As in "have you always been this anxious about your health" from the GP. Now it's "well it's probably peri". I.e. A simple way to ignore all women's health concerns.

Not really, as our job took us out of the office a lot anyway. No other women on my team. Two older women on different teams were sympathetic.

So, I take it your experience of menopause has been at the milder end of symptoms and experiences? For some women it is huge, life changing, thinking they’re going nuts, not being able to focus, flooding month after month for potentially years…I mean, more than an eye roll. Flooding was a massive issue for me in teaching, cos I can’t just leave a class whilst I change pads, underwear and clothes. Leaving stains everywhere when sitting down. Literally dripping onto the floor at one point.

It is massively important that the menopause is not just ignored or brushed under the carpet. Employers have a responsibility to make adjustments and take it seriously. Pretending it’s a fuss about nothing seriously undermines the position of other women. We need women in the workplace, in all industries at all levels. Inevitably, this will involve maternity leave and dealing with the menopause. So work on normalising it, not hiding it.

I just wish they would shout 'not all women'.
I do not have anxiety, I do not have brain fog. I do not want treated as mentally inferior to my male counterparts.
Well seeing the celebrities shouting about it get more work, while the rest if us get less.