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??

Unlike menopause considerations, maternity legislation is an absolute necessity: not just for the women concerned but also - for obvious reasons - for society generally. And I think it’s naive to assume that women are not discriminated against for being of childbearing age, even if many women never have maternity leave from work.

All women do go through menopause though, and to insist on highlighting the difficulties that some women have, and insisting on special measures and considerations, just makes for more employers feeling justified at favouring men over women.

There is much research out there on the impact on the brain because the reproduction system and brain are connected and linked. Brain scans show the impact

leading, Neuroscientists like, as just one example, dr Lisa Mosconi shows this emphatically . As do others.

and I never said all women 50+ leave as a result. But many do and again there is data to support this.

if people are ignorantly if this and don’t want to do there own research to understand this that’s on them but doesn’t t make it less correct

im all for educating companies and policies to support, just as I am for pregnancy, maternity and parenting.

if individuals don’t want to partake or talk, thats fine, but these things shouldn’t simply be stopped because a few people don’t like it

And the discrimination of women over men has not been mine my friends experience- but as stated , we work in large corporates so maybe they are different

nobody is saying menopause isn't a medical thing, and im sure there are all sorts of studies. So what? that doesn't mean all women cant work effectively while experiencing it or that we need, or appreciate, our workplace HR weighing in on it. GPs and menopause specialists should be reviewing this research and directing appropriate legislation, not individual HR teams.

well it was exactly mine in a large US investment bank in London 10y ago. Maybe things have dramatically improved since then. Or maybe you haven't yet hit the point when you're seen as redundant.

No one is that

but just because YOU don’t want it to be discussed or talked about as a workplace thing doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be.

and noone talks about your individual experience, symptoms etc. if you are fine, great. Carry on. But doesn’t mean others don’t and aren’t benefitting. And I’ve never been seen as incapable or useless where I work thanks.

and just because YOU thibk it should be discussed at work doesnt mean it should or the majority of actual menopausal women want or welcome it. Try listening to those women, many of whom have come on here and urged caution, for very valid reasons related to their lived experience.

Just to be clear, I don’t work in HR and never have done. I’m not in a bubble.

I lead a very profitable, successful group of companies.

We lead by example compared to other companies in our industry. People leave their jobs to come and work for us. As more and more companies also adopt not only family-friendly policies but also policies that see that someone isn’t just a number on a payroll report but is a person who will occasionally have external pressures, the working world will become a better place.

One of our competitors has recently gone down to a 4 day working week. This is something I’m currently weighing up too.

I don’t see how companies and organisations becoming more progressive and understanding that their employees may have challenges outside of work can be a bad thing.

Those companies that would discriminate someone for not feeling their best whilst going through menopause wouldn’t have a menopause policy in the first place, surely? It’s not like they are mandatory.

I had massive health problems that I didn’t realise were potentially fixable. I had frequent, long, flooding periods that were hard to manage, and was permanently tired and miserable. Everything felt awful- pointless, hard, overwhelming.
I had raised peri previously at GP and he said it wouldn’t be that, so didn’t raise it again. It would have been good to be more aware, myself, so I could advocate for myself better.

It isn’t true that all women can work effectively while experiencing menstruation.

A colleague of mine had extremely heavy menstrual bleeding during perimenopause, to the point that she needed to change her sanitary protection every 30 minutes. Part of our role involved being out on site for several hours at a time with no access to toilets. During those periods, our employer allowed her to work in an area with better toilet. The was a reasonable and practical adjustment that was only allowed because our employer had a good understanding of menopause.

Without she would genuinely have been forced to leave our workplace.

I mean that's a good point. If its a genuinely non discriminatory workplace then perhaps it could be neutral. But are you going to have prostate awareness policy and an erectile disfunction awareness policy as well for balance and to ensure it isn't disproportionately affecting perception of senior women only?

Your colleague received good and appropriate care from your employer, but surely it was individual consideration for her individual problem that was important? Darren with IBS and diarrhea would need the same consideration as regards toilets. Are they having IBS awareness drives too?

There doesn't need to be menopause specific measures and awareness courses, just adjustment for anyone who needs it for any medical reason.

Oh yes. Our lot walk the walk and talk the talk, but it's obvious the male senior leadership relax professionally with male colleagues (at any level) in ways they don't with women. They treat us "well" but there's always a slight formality.

Subconsciously, it seems like we feel to them like harder work and that does impact promotability. It is not fair but this is the truth of it. So highlighting more reasons to feel uncomfortable with us is not ideal.

Though got to admit I LOVE the PP's suggestion that there should be equivalent focus on older men's erectile issues. After all, that has significant psychological impacts on many men which feed into work, depression etc - no reason to highlight menopause but not ED.

Well if a man was suffering from prostate cancer then he would be supported as much as a woman suffering from breast cancer.

We’re not in the line of business where ED would impact any man from being able to carry out his job to the best of his abilities!

By referring to prostate and ED in men, all you are doing is highlighting that there isn’t a comparable significant bodily change that men go through in the same way as women do. You will not find a comparison. There is no 1 condition that all men go through at a certain time of their lives where a huge proportion of them also struggle with complications with very little advice and support from their GP’s. There just isn’t. Menopause affects women physically, mentally and emotionally. All women. Some to a greater extent than others, but it is all women.

We all go through menopause but we don't all have debilitating effects, and I think you are underestimating the frequency and psychological impact of ED on older men.

I think if it's worth making colleagues aware of the medical changes a midlife woman may be dealing with, it's also worth making them aware of what may be affecting their male peers.

Once the “what about the poor men” line comes up, it feels less like a serious point and more like posters have run out of any real logic.

It’s a diversion, a way to shift the focus without actually addressing the argument at hand. Instead of engaging with the substance, it’s implying that highlighting women’s issues somehow ignores men’s when in reality, recognising one problem doesn’t erase the other.

You have entirely misunderstood.

It's not "what about the menz", it is that a workplace environment that highlights the aging and challenges of middle aged women but not of middle aged men creates an atmosphere many middleaged women find belittling and marginalising.

The point about ED is to get posters thinking about the different treatment of men and women. Professional middle aged men's weaknesses and aging are not being publicised in the same way, and I'm pretty sure the professional middle aged men who overwhelmingly make up c-suite level would be utterly horrified at the idea.

You’re right, we don’t have all debilitating effects. Therefore the support and awareness is there for those that do. It’s also there for those who have mildly irritating symptoms some of the time which is probably most women.

In my experience, men as a gender have never struggled to get ahead in the workplace. There are probably not many companies who sit around and wonder how they can get more men on their boards, promote more men to partnership, get more men to apply to the senior positions in order to address organisational imbalance.

The world is already well set up for addressing any obstacle a man might face, including ED. The little blue pills have been extremely easily available for anyone who wanted them as soon as they were developed. No fobbing off by GP’s for years for them.

What the fuck has ED got to do with anything?? Why is ED even being compared to menopause?? By women of all people!

If Dave in my team is suffering with ED and it’s getting him down then he can go talk to his GP or even just pop to his local pharmacy and get some pills that will fix it instantly.

How is that the same as Lynda who was up all night with hot flushes, woke up to a soaking wet bed, has crippling anxiety out of no where, brain fog where she can’t remember what she was supposed to be saying in today’s meeting and is running to the loo every hour to change yet another Maxipad and is constantly worried she is going to leak through onto one of the office chairs?!?! All whilst her GP is telling her that as she is 44 she probably isn’t in perimenopause but she does sound down so would she like some antidepressants!

@Blueskiesnotgrey "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"

yes, I think you have a point
These sorts of people need to justify their existence, don't they?

They can't predict the health of individuals. It only takes a limited time to have a policy in place for somebody who has suddenly broken their ankle or got glandular fever

So they need something to bang on about all the time so annoying

Can't we get them onto men's testosterone levels? And prostate.

@Franpie so Linda is unwell and she needs a workplace to support her while she finds a better doctor and some treatment

That doesn't mean that that people people get to bang on about menopause, that people should assume it's going to be a problem for everybody, in fact the time they spend on that would be better taken up doing an individual plan for Linda so she can carry on doing her job

Also maybe Linda really can't do her job
Maybe she's not in a fit state to do her job
Maybe the impact of her illness on the job is going to impact on all of her colleagues as well

And then maybe if we decide that most women are going to have this experience, people wont hire women at all if they can get out of it

Yeah, that is not a good outcome

@Batties

A colleague of mine had extremely heavy menstrual bleeding during perimenopause, to the point that she needed to change her sanitary protection every 30 minutes. Part of our role involved being out on site for several hours at a time with no access to toilets. During those periods, our employer allowed her to work in an area with better toilet. The was a reasonable and practical adjustment that was only allowed because our employer had a good understanding of menopause.
Without she would genuinely have been forced to leave our workplace.

See this is a good example of a smart, pragmatic approach to managing menopause. Looking at it on a medical, case by case basis which takes account of individual circumstances and doesn’t apply a one size fits all approach. That sounds like a good employer.

A company wide “menopause talk” is performative and pointless. At least half the people in the room will be wondering why it’s relevant to them, the ones for whom it is relevant will know it all anyway and will find it embarrassing. And as discussed on here, is just likely to fuel the suspicion that women en masse are governed by their hormones.

Companies can educate the relevant staff on the impact of menopause without having to turn it into a kind of hot button HR circus.

Theu did have a session on the andropause at my place for international men's day (which autocorrect wanted to have as internment day...) There have also been sessions on prostate cancer and on men's mental health. I don't know how well attended or useful they are.

I think almost all education of this sort is useful. But making it mandatory is counterproductive.