Avanti trains tonedeaf menopause insult

[Jeannne92]

Who thought this was OK?!

And I have seen some of the most sexist crap perpetuated by women in the work force. And these days, there is the ridiculous chance that this was suggested by a male on a menopause committee. Who the fuck knows?

Useful things for perimenopausal women in the workplace;

Control over the temperature in their immediate working area - a window that opens, a fan provided, no expectation to wear heavy, fully (and poorly) fitting clothing.

Sanitary towels and tampons available in the toilets - including superplus, no perfumed stuff, no monitoring of the time spent in there. Privacy.

No light coloured seating (also more practical for all female staff).

No questions asked if a member of staff says she needs to go and change.

Information about symptoms/NICE guidance/medications that doesn't require attending sessions where some 20 something or bloke is paid shitloads to lecture you or your male manager sits there being all feminist. An area on the intranet or a discreet noticeboard that people can look at without it being drawn to everybody's attention.

No potential punishment/disciplinary/refusal of time off due to medical appointments or symptoms such as flooding.

An absolute ban upon sexist banter/shit about being over emotional, needing biscuits, falling apart, losing your intellectual capacity and generally being a pathetic husk of a woman at the mercy of her withering ovaries and rapidly encroaching dementia.

I don't know how many times I need to post this to people like you and @IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads who haven't bothered reading the thread, but it was the idea of a menopausal woman employee.

I hate it as much as the next person, but you don't have to look for a man to blame.

Completely agree. I appreciate it was thought up by a woman who was going through the menopause but Avanti should not be letting her take her experience and have her running a company wide awareness campaign on an amateur basis, other women working for Avanti deserve a more professional approach.

Women who have reached senior levels are only too aware how showing you are going through the menopause will be used to undermine your authority.

And I hate twee landfill items

I googled. This is what Avanti is doing (as well as the pointless crap)

https://newsdesk.avantiwestcoast.co.uk/blog/its-important-to-share-what-were-doing-on-a-topic-that-affects-women-while-raising-awareness

So bloody offensive

The paper clip reminded me of that deeply disturbing scene in The Dark Half by Stephen King. I won't elaborate but it seems a bad idea to give one to people Avanti think have potential anger issues. I would definitely have anger issues if given that demeaning 'gift' by an employer.

Tossers.

I read both articles before I posted.

The article said :

”An Avanti West Coast spokesperson said: 'This is a gift bag designed and created by our own in-house Menopause Support Group and derived from a suggestion from a colleague based on her own personal experience.”

And the press release didn’t refer to who came up with it. What did I miss?

Just because it says ‘her’ doesn’t mean it is a female person necessarily. More directly, I believe I was clear that even women could have come up with this idea in the posts above.

Maybe you take your own advice and read the thread?

Oh god can you imagine that? You are having a crap day because you have a pretty tough job, and arse for a boss, and your toddler has kept you up all night.

You are 40 and no spring chicken but not ready for the scrap heap.

then some 20-something HR person put this on your desk with a sympathetic smile and a ‘there there’

oh yes, what could possibly go wrong?

When do we get our painted train then?

This ! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

I would also add access to a shower and if possible an area to store spare clothes / change.

It must be fucking awful to work on a train or in a busy station when you have menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, joint pain/stiffness, or flooding.

That's a good point! I had an overnight menopause at 40 as a side effect of other medical treatment that I didn't tell colleagues about and I hope I am not being ridiculous in saying that I looked a bit younger than 40 so think I am unlikely to have been considered menopausal by my colleagues (of course, HR would have my DoB). I didn't visibly have any of the most well known symptoms and probably appeared as a youngish, vital person (at work more recently have been asked to loan a tampon etc. to colleagues so presumably they think I am menstruating.)

If I’m being charitable I’d say they meant well but missed the mark spectacularly.

But I’m not being charitable, because I’m a menopausal woman with a short fuse and no amount of fucking jelly babies or candles will assuage my irritation at cackhanded patronising nonsense from whichever shitwit dreamed this up.

Perfect. I was musing in my head about the sort of support that really would be useful, but you've nailed it there.

It's almost impossible to imagine a world where women are actually respected for having the complicated, magical biology that sustains life on this planet.

But being given a jelly baby to divert them might be a start.

I think it was well meant so I’m not going to be too cross about it. I am glad that women’s issues such as menopause are being talked about more, I just feel that menopause is so personal and I do get cross when companies use it as part of an agenda without engaging properly with it. We need real help and support. A bag of jelly babies isn’t doing it for me when I can’t get the medication I need or the basic courtesy I need from other human beings. “You on the change love” is just the same as “you on the rag love”, both misogynistic put downs to put us in our places.

One teabag? ONE? I drink gallons of tea every day. One just isn't going to cut it.
And I hate any kind of jelly sweet. How about a gingerbread man?
Or, better yet, how about you DON'T assume I'm a boiling cauldron of menopausal rage?

Actually I feel a bit let down on that front. I was promised rage but so far no rage has manifested. I was looking forward to it too. I haven't had a good rage since puberty.

The big wheels at Avanti should learn that not all opinions and ideas are created equal.

That this got past the 'idea' stage is horrendous.

Raising awareness of menopausal symptoms with staff and managers is good. Educating managers on their equality obligations and individual staff support is good.

Maybe some very generic 'treat' token (gift voucher? An actual useful pamper pack rather than this jokey piece of shit) would be good.

Employers... do the difficult thing and do it properly. I can see right through this Equality gift-wrapping shit.

That would be the same ASLEF that pushes self ID and is very much TWAW presumably

Edit: thinking about it, they’re probably pissed off because the person organising it keeps talking about women.

BackToLurk

I think nearly all unions are TWAW, so they will be tying themselves in knots on this one.

I suspect this union don't really care either way it was just a good opportunity to give a rail company a bit of a kicking.

I would feel massively insulted by this. It's so condescending - apparently when it comes to women's health, no one ever seems to think that the best approach is to provided straightforward help or information couched in neutral language. (See also that ridiculous cervical screening campaign recently.)

I do sometimes think that women are their own worst enemies though. It's almost always the case that this kind of shit was dreamt up by a woman or team of women who think the best way to talk about women's health is to make a (not very funny) joke out of it.