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?

same with pregnancy usually it is in the first or second line ''I am acting totally irrationally and ordering my husband and children around I must be hormonal" or other incidents

I read somewhere that statistically a woman is more likely to take her own life between 45 and 55 years old.

my own mother, who is now 85, was a full time mum so no pressures from the workplace, but I remember how she really struggled when she was around that age. I was a teenager and it was awful for me to experience it.

now as an adult and having gone through the menopause, I can see she was suffering from huge hormonal changes due to perimenopause and menopause. She had no idea at the time. She just struggled through.

i have so much compassion for her now, I am very relieved and grateful that more is known about this now and I can take advantage of regular HRT.

I agree with you about brain fog - it’s the older sister of “baby brain”. I am not yet near the menopause but am constantly having to set myself reminders because with a busy job and primary age kids whose school is endlessly having extra events, dress up days etc. and who do multiple hobbies I can’t remember it all. Plus of course the fact that you are constantly being interrupted in the middle of tasks by the endless cries of “Muuuuum” which makes you forget what you were doing. I think all women with kids (and other caring responsibilities) have this to some extent, whereas men tend to be able to just focus on their job (not all men of course, but in my experience the vast majority).

i agree re men, but the thing is in senior management roles there are no allowances made for that for men, and I can’t see any allowances for menopause really either in big jobs. Short term illness, bereavement yes, all good companies recognise that, but as someone in management the jobs the job. And if I can’t do it for maybe a year or even several due to menopause then that’s going to be a bloody huge problem. I actually expect I will be fine, and if I’m not it’s more likely that menopause is the final straw over all the parenting and life, but the effect is the same.

I’m in the public sector and agree that the DEI (or whatever they are called now) boxes must be ticked and they steer very clear of anything resembling feminism ( even International Women’s Day is very low key and avoids any idea that there is structural sexism) so women’s natural biological changes are a handy tick box to say “ look, we care about women!”
Of course peri and menopause can be brutal. I’ve had some horrendous symptoms ( god the flooding) but I want to be able to mentions any health problems to my line manager and any adjustments made and for it to be somewhat private.
Instead there’s endless “ awareness raising” and women putting themselves down and blaming peri every time they make a small mistake (which everyone makes) and I want to scream “stop dragging us all down!”
I work in teams with a lot of younger people, and a lot of men. I don’t want them to regard me as a leaky bag of hormones who can’t function effectively. I want them to respect me as a woman with vast life experience and capabilities.

Except they shouldn’t be ignoring that. It’s easy to treat and the earlier the better for lots of reasons.

I agree with this and feel a quiet word with line manager should suffice where appropriate.

‘Peri’ very much was a thing. Just women thought they were getting achey/forgetful/ill/old and don’t know there were medical interventions that could make it (mostly) go away. At which point it’s much easier to be an effective employee (and human being).

Perhaps do some reading and realise this isn’t what’s being said, or what’s happening, before leaping in without any knowledge?

@IcedPurple I'm not sure if pathologising women's natural life cycle is a positive thing
Lots of things which we treat and make adjustments for are natural. Menopause is a hormone deficiency, and it’s the only one we don’t treat as a matter of routine. Including the ‘natural’ drop in testosterone in men.

Not everyone can take medical intervention cardibach. There are lifestyle changes that can help, but HRT is not the answer to everything, and in some cases it’s become almost like the menopause is a defect to be fixed when yes actually it is a natural process. I’m not saying it’s not sometimes unbelievably shit, but it is part of life for half the population ( if they are lucky enough to get that old).

That’s true, though it transpires that many more can than was previously thought. Taking medication doesn’t mean it’s a ‘defect’. It means we aren’t getting a hormone we need. There are reasons hormone levels drop off and they aren’t because we don’t need the hormones anymore. Suffering should not be ‘a part of life’ when medicine can help. You wouldn’t say that about other medical interventions.

Did the HRT not obliterate your symptoms ? Either 2 or 3 months since my last periods having the odd ( as in 2-3 a day) hot flush and a bit absent minded. I can cope with this, but have thought about starting HRT as I assummed it would eliminate these issues.

Some of them, yes. I got awful panic attacks for the first time in my life and they stopped immediately.

The hot flushes/night sweats have now started after a good couple of years on HRT so perhaps I should up the dose.

My PSA to everyone is always Local Oestrogen. Either cream or vaginal pessaries. A vital part of the mix IMO.

Please can you explain this a bit cardibach?

That’s true, though it transpires that many more can than was previously thought.

thanks

It was thought that nobody who had previously been diagnosed with breast cancer could take HRT. Turns out that’s not necessarily true - not all breast cancers are hormone driven, so under the correct expert supervision HRT is possible for a number of those women. ‘Many more’ may have been an absent minded rhetorical exaggeration - apologies.

So glad you said this - I am early 40s and tbh am getting sick of hearing about the bloody menopause! Can't open a magazine or news app without it all over it.

It's all anyone I know wants to talk about - it's like they're all expecting it to be so horrific that we have to be assigning every little thing to peri so we can "build a picture for HRT". It's a bit tedious as a conversation now.

I will worry about that if and when it happens! I feel informed enough to deal with it then - I don't need it taking over my life when nothing is going on!

I’m a menopausal woman who exists in our society - I have loads of knowledge.

Potentially. Also, all this constant drama about how "awful" it is is highly misleading, because a significant number of women have no problems with it at all.
But the more we make out that middle-aged women are some kind of "wilting flowers", the more we are understandably going to put off employers, and undo decades of progress towards fair and equitable treatment for women.

It’s not as if women in their 40 and 50s were exactly exempt from discrimination before.

Overall, I think it’s a good thing.

Totally agree. All this "peri" chat covers a multitude of stuff - some of it genuine symptoms, but some of it just nonsense.

Although I'm now post-menopausal, I have no idea if or when I went through "peri", because I wasn't looking for excuses for poor performance or time off work!

Incorrect. I have not had "37 symptoms" at any point in my entire life.
I don't know how often it needs to be said, but everyone's experience is different. If I can recognise that your experience of menopause was difficult, why can't you recognise that my experience (& that of others) was easy?

But nobody is saying menopausal women are “going mad, can’t think straight and feel miserable”. If you’ve lots of knowledge, why say that?

Nobody said everyone (or anyone) has 37 symptoms. Just that there are 37 things which may be caused by peri/menopause. And it’s definitely true that some women have some of them and don’t attribute it to hormonal issues. But of course some women have an easy time (it’s still affecting your bone density and brain tissue though).

Are you kidding me? Why on earth can you not understand that women experience the menopause and the period leading up to the one year when periods stop (the actual length of menopause) as in peri, differently?
I honestly find it incredible that women don’t stand up for other women who struggle?
I am very lucky, I didn’t suffer from endometriosis or PMDD but I do believe other women who say they do. My experience is not theirs but I believe them when they say it’s debilitating and support the idea of adjustments and understanding in the workplace.
Female “issues” are valid, and stop telling us we can’t talk about them because it makes us be seen as weak. We should not be fitting in with men, they should be understanding of us.