World menopause day for 50% of people

[OhDear2200]

This has pissed me right off

www.acas.org.uk/menopause-at-work

Interestingly under the law bit gender reassignment is before sex.

The menopause is a natural stage of life which affects around half of the population.

(For the EA2010 protected characteristics, they're often listed alphabetically, and that seems like what they've done there.)

@NecessaryScene oh of course (about A-Z)

Sounds pretty bad though about the menopause. Are any countries doing better than our 50% stat?

How do we know which 50%? Could my husband be peri menopausal? If so God help us all that the two of us are going through it!

Very pleased to say that at my workplace 'women' was used, and in addition to awareness training (men encouraged to come and listen), our chief executive wrote everyone an email saying how important it was that women were supported at work!

@Summerhillsquare brill well done your chief exec

The menopause is a natural stage of life which affects around half of the population.

What about my 8yo niece and nephew (twins), are they in the half that are affected?

Language matters.

Best inform my husband he has a 50/50 chance…Selfishly, I hope he gets it and not me.

This is just ridiculous now. Information relating to a condition which only effects the female body, and they daren’t even mention the word ‘women’.

[quote OhDear2200]@Summerhillsquare brill well done your chief exec[/quote]
Yes, I'm feeling lucky to work there now - public sector, traditional culture, no attention grabbing stuff just gradual improvement of policies. It always comes from the top in my experience.

The weird thing about this is they don’t even say what the menopause is - they don’t mention it’s the end of periods. It’s just cryptically referred to as a “natural stage of life”. It affects 50 percent of the population ? Which 50 percent and why? It’s just so depressing to see the erasure of the word “women”.

There's a bit at the bottom of the website which says something like "did you find the information you were looking for?". In clicked no, said that I didn't understand it and why have they erased the word "women". It's anonymous.

My husband is also wondering whether he is in the 50% and I don’t know what to advise. How can we possibly tell?

Seriously, I’m shocked by how upsetting it was to read that rubbish.

I got this language today at work on the headline text and rolled my eyes but then they used the words women and occasionally "women and some trans and non-binary people" throughout the rest of the copy, so I did wonder if it was more an attempt at the front end to make not "a women's issue" so men could ignore and more "look this will affect half the workforce so pay attention!"

Perhaps I'm being charitable!

Sorry to be clear - I don't mean the acas link - but the headline text "50% of people" was used in my work also

@Xanaduyourenotthatfar

Sorry to be clear - I don't mean the acas link - but the headline text "50% of people" was used in my work also

Also being charitable, perhaps it was an attempt to point out that women do in fact constitute a whopping 50% of the population, i.e. we’re not some weird sort of niche group.

@WeeBisom

The weird thing about this is they don’t even say what the menopause is - they don’t mention it’s the end of periods. It’s just cryptically referred to as a “natural stage of life”. It affects 50 percent of the population ? Which 50 percent and why? It’s just so depressing to see the erasure of the word “women”.

That’s what I was thinking. If you really didn’t know what the menopause was, and just read that it affected 50% of people, that info wouldn’t give you any idea if you were in that group. It makes it sound like a chance thing, like 1 in 3 people will get cancer, 1 in 2 will go through menopause.

@Piapiano

There's a bit at the bottom of the website which says something like "did you find the information you were looking for?". In clicked no, said that I didn't understand it and why have they erased the word "women". It's anonymous.

Done! That was q terrible communication.

I know this is entirely irrelevant, but it's probably less than 50%, because unfortunately some women won't reach menopause. This would have been even more true in the past.

I have not been working today. I don't know what words I will or won't see on my return on Wednesday. There had been no mention of it at work up till now, which is quite unusual.

It's depressing. However many pages about the menopause and not one mention of women. I've also submitted an 'unhelpful article' comment.

(I mean, they're usually keen on celebrating any day that comes by, however pointless or not.)

I wrote "Who gets menopause? This article does not explain."

@Piapiano done!

Just posted 'Which 50% of the population, is there a test you need to go through to see if it’ll affect me?' where they ask you why you don't find the information helpful. This stuff is beyond comedy, perhaps I can persuade hubby to call the information line provided to see if they'll recommend a test to reassure him?

@Piapiano

There's a bit at the bottom of the website which says something like "did you find the information you were looking for?". In clicked no, said that I didn't understand it and why have they erased the word "women". It's anonymous.

Yep. I have done the same. I doubt it will make a difference but you never know.

“… if an employee or worker is put at a disadvantage and treated less favourably because of their menopause symptoms, this could be discrimination if related to a protected characteristic…”

Well it won’t be related to a protected characteristic, will it? Reminiscent of the case Crenshaw studied in one of the early articles on the concept of intersectionality, if men between the ages of 45-55 are not disciplined for taking time out from work to deal with hot flushes, then there is no age discrimination. And if women outside those ages are not disciplined in this way, there is no sex discrimination.

If the menopause has nothing to do with women stopping ovulation, it’s just a load of nothing, really.