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

[Wonderbug81]

We had a talk on menopause today at work. An outside speaker. About 10% of attendees were men (mainly younger) plus a mix of women of all ages.

The speaker went into a lot of detail about how debilitating perimenopause can be and the impact on work. She also talked through the support women can get both internally and through other orgs.

I know I should feel positive about all this but I couldn't help feeling that now people will just wonder whether any woman in their late 30s and above in our company (including me) is forgetting something or is 'off sick' because of their hormones.

I also feel a little uncomfortable that now, a lot more of my colleagues might now assume that if I am perimenopausal, I may have vaginal dryness and low libido among whatever else is wrong with me. Whether you have the symptoms or not it feels overly exposing and I have a couple of team members who would potentially exploit it as a vulnerability.

Please prove me wrong and tell me this is a positive move forward??

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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?

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.

This!

Because if you get a sudden change in your periods to become erratic timing heavier, lighter, it can be a sign of early perimenopause in your late 30s. It can also be a sign of other health problems and an indication you need to see your GP.

As far as I know they do give information about heavy periods in schools. But a change in your periods in your 30s is quite different to always having had heavy periods.

I'm all for building awareness but my god I am sick of hearing about it. I have stopped looking st some of my friends insta stories as its all omg peri menopause this and that, I didn't know the symptoms and its important...blah blah blah.

At work the women's network all they suddenly do on terms of talks is centered on menopause. Like there is nothing else.

Personally I would rather start getting them and go to a GP and be told I have it instead of people second guessing it, me tion you are feeling got or somwthing else then its instantly are you sure your aren't peri menopausal.

It is another box ticking inclusive exercise that alienates the people concerned.
Similarly with the lgbt training, a lot of people who had no problem with the lgbt community became angry at being forced to announce pronouns etc.

I’ve found the opposite

im 52, quite open at work in terms of challenges of menopause and the impact on me ( brain fog, poor memory, anxiety etc) and discuss with the male boss. They’ve been wholly supportive and empathetic and actually my boss said his wife struggling with the same

ive not found any discrimination. Maybe just lucky

personally I think men and employers should know and understand more and put policies in place that support

You say you don’t want colleagues to look at you and wonder if you have vaginal dryness etc. Do you look at your colleagues and think that about them? I certainly don’t! So why would anyone be thinking that about you?

I signed up to become a “Menopause Champion” in my business. The team is mostly made of women, but a couple of men also signed up to it! Our aim is to raise awareness of menopause symptoms, signpost people to where they can get support (internal and external) and be a point of contact for people to ask questions etc. We have also ran line manager training sessions to ensure that they feel equipped to support the women in their team going through this… but also people who might be supporting someone at home going through it but suffering badly potentially that it has an impact on their family members too.

The idea is to make it less taboo to talk about it. It’s also to reduce the number of women who’ve up quitting their job because of debilitating symptoms, when actually some reasonable adjustments might have helped them to continue working.

I imagine if you’re finding you’ve got every symptom in the book it must feel like a spotlight is being put right on you. I’ve got some awful symptoms - but not as many as you have said you have. All of our information sessions has made it very clear that most people won’t get every symptom, some won’t get any and that for those that do get symptoms they can be varying degrees of severity.

Overall I think it’s a good thing to raise awareness and not make it some dirty secret no-one talks about. And if we talk about it, it allows women to flourish at work - because the reasonable adjustments will allow them to be at their best.

I’m very proud to work for a company that has been recognised and awarded for being a menopause friendly employer. We are a HUGE global business, so we aren’t talking about a tiny company where it could be pretty easy to tick those boxes!

“Most of us”? You have evidence for that?

What does “managing symptoms” look like? For me the physical symptoms that can be uncomfortable within myself are managed, but the brain fog and forgetfulness aren’t something that is easily managed. When I’m in a meeting or giving student lectures, and words disappear from my mind, it makes me look like an idiot. So I explain to people before I start where appropriate, or in the moment explain why the word has left me. If people then want to see that part as a weakness, that’s up to them. Those people will never be convinced that women are equal.

We had the same talk a few years ago, I was bored rigid and I was peri at the time. I’m now 58 and looking for work and feel that others having this talk right now is significantly reducing my chances of finding anything. Whereas I’m perfectly fine and would be a great worker, after 36yrs proving it every day!

YANBU at ALL.
I fucking HATE that my public sector organisation wangs on about menopause at every available opportunity, and that I was asked to get involved in some menopause awareness shite.
Yes, because in a profession dominated by young people, and an organisation where the top bods are invariably men, I really want them all to view me as a moody, leaky, emotional mess who can’t think straight.
Of course my 49 year old brain is a bit slower than it used to be, but so is David’s, it’s part of middle age, it’s just that David doesnt worry about it because as a 49 year old man he’s considered to be at the peak of his game.

I more than make up for occasionally being a bit tired after a bad nights sleep with being able to think about 7 different things simultaneously and the experience to make informed decisions.

I am sick of women being defined by their sodding hormones and my alleged vaginal dryness is not the business of my employer, anymore than David’s impotence is!

See the issue there again is discrimination, not the fact that you're menopausal age. It's ageism, for whatever reason, male or female, you encounter that for.

We don't suggest the problem with discrimination against people for being gay is the fact that it is an issue which has been talked about. The solution which is offered is not just that they should hide it away and not discuss being gay.

The idea that awareness of menopause symptoms should be suppressed so as not to cause discrimination seems wrong to me. That's not the right problem being fixed.

It should be - this is the reality for some women, how do we change our practices to accommodate it so that we can keep them in the workforce.

It also shouldn't be that you're only employable if you're one of the people who doesn't experience symptoms.

I agree. We had the same thinking at work and ended up thinking it’s just another stick to beat women with. My menopause was a non event. I had some hot flushes but even tge ‘brain fog’ type issues I attributed to stress rather than tge menopause. Also if you’re aware of it you can adapt.

However it is also very frustrating when women use it as an excuse themselves and think they should be given special treatment. The amount of threads on here that start off as ‘I’m a premenopausal or I’m menopausal’ to excuse some generally irrational behaviour is staggering.

I don't think that's a fair analogy. Being gay doesn't impact on someone's work, at all. The messaging I get about menopause is that I will be exhausted all the time and might well be less mentally acute, have bad judgement due to anxiety, and need lots of time off, and that there's a non-negligible chance I won't be able to work at all. That's terrifying for me - and I can't see how it wouldn't impact on other's view of me, even if only subconsciously.

If the messaging was that 'of course gay people can only produce 70% as much work as straight people - but you should still employ them, because you don't want to discriminate and they can't help it!' then yes, I do think it would hurt gay people's chances of employment. And that is, whether intentioned or not, how some of the 'menopause awareness' comes across.

Also, my God, women are just fucking amazing. We can grow and birth actual humans! After I gave birth the first time, I honestly couldn’t believe that whole religions aren’t set up to worship women as goddesses, so powerful did I feel!
All the middle aged and older women I know are just incredibly capable, open minded and clever, and they get more so with age. Men seem to grow narrower in thought in middle age, more set in their ways and have less energy.
I honestly think the focus on us as defective all the time is to stop us realising how actually amazing we are.
I had horrendous flooding in my early 40s, like, oh god I need a nappy, when I suddenly stood up, and it was pretty awful but even with that I managed to do a masters, professional qualifications and raise 2 kids single handed!

Completely agree with all your points, especially the tendency to blame all shortcomings from the age of about 38 on “peri”

This may depend entirely on the culture of the individual workplace and the demographic of the employees. I work in a very young workplace - most employees are in their mid 20s to mid 30s. Only a handful of older people. So there is no way that I would feel comfortable making a joke about having a hot flush etc.

I 100% disagree with you OP.

Perimenopause can be debilitating for some women and it is vital that employers recognise this, provide awareness for managers and provide support where needed.

I’m exec level and have had women in the organisations I have worked in really suffer. I had one woman a few years ago really struggle to cope with her mental health and was often found crying in the office. The men on the board wanted us to put her on a performance plan and there were several disparaging comments about menopause. It was disgraceful but luckily I was on the board, so I ignored them and provided support instead.

In another organisation, 1 woman who worked for us had about a year of very serious health complications related to menopause that resulted in a full hysterectomy. It was brutal for her but the HR Director and I had already put a menopause policy in place and we were able to support her and she felt able to share with us want she was going through without fear of losing her job.

At my current organisation we are currently refining our menopause policy. We have had presentations by external advisors for anyone who wants to attend. We also have a service where anyone who needs extra support from the external advisors can receive it confidentially paid for by the company.

In our organisation, we have more female leaders than we do male. We recognise that going through perimenopause or menopause can have no impact, a massive impact or anything in between on a woman’s working life but it is never a reflection of how well she can do her job. This is just a season and we will be there to support her if needed.

The alternative is we would end up losing amazing women as all too often women who are struggling decide to step back, reduce hours, take early retirement, take a less stressful part time role etc.

Yeah its got way out of hand. I didnt even think about menopause until my periods started changing at 51. Now all the younger women I know are going on about peri and are attributing every negative thing in their lives at 39, 40 to it. There's no rush ladies, you'll know actual menopause when it comes and it's between you, your partner, close friends and doctor. Nobody at work needs to know if it doesn't impact your ability to work. If it does, then it should be treated like any other medical problem on a case by case basis, discretely, between you, your GP and HR.

Seriously, how people can't see the danger here is beyond me. Menopause awareness talks atbwork have got ageism justification written all over them.

And all this casual assumption that being menopause age automatically equals brain fog and anxiety? No it doesnt! Why are you handing them the stick?!

Again, I don't understand why you needed a menopause policy for this? Surely your workplace had existing policies that could have been used for people who were experiencing significant mental health difficulties or who had a chronic health condition that required surgery? What was different here?