Menopause legislation - helpful or not?

[Runor]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-68366519

Firms must make reasonable adjustments for menopause. Great for women, or another reason for a business to recruit a man instead?

Speaking as a middle-aged woman who would like to get back into the workforce, I’m not sure this is going to help! What do you think?

Exactly. People struggle due to unmanageable workloads, unreasonable expectations and lack of care wrt life balance. This is ok when you're in your twenties and don't have dependents, it's harder when you're older and do. Fuck all to do with whether you're a menopausal woman or not. Lots of middle aged men also suffer burn out.

@Floofydawg I am all for choice around HRT, but I think legislation like this will mean women truly are expected to take HRT if they want to be considered 'serious employees' who do not disrupt business in any way. It feels very off to me.

As long as the managers are men or younger women, nothing will happen positively.

Yeah I understand your point. And as someone has already said, it's no-one's business at work what medication anyone is taking for whatever reason.

I would choose an option to have more uniforms so that I can change during a shift if needed. I would definitely like cotton or linen uniforms, I don’t think that is an option though. More uniform would help.

An option for shorter shifts and ideally to be rostered for late shifts rather than earlies due to feeling like I can never get enough sleep when getting up at the crack of dawn or at this time of year well before it.

It feels patronising to me. It also seems to reinforce the stereotypes and prejudices against older women in the workforce.

Women in their fifties are far more likely to drop hours/responsibilities at work not just due to menopause symptoms but also all the other shit that we’re dealing with. Children going through exams. Elderly parents and in-laws needing care. Husbands having their mid-life crisis own health issues. We become the default support unit for everyone around us and somehow we’re the ones that pay for it with our careers.

What would be more useful if debilitating symptoms of menopause were treated more seriously as one of the reasons amongst many (medical or otherwise) that any employee can ask for reasonable adjustments. Lots of employees could be more productive/avoid breakdowns with a more imaginative approach from employers. Acknowledging they employ humans and treat them with a bit of respect and dignity all round and then you wouldn’t need to separate out people into “special” groups.

Any initiative, no matter how well meaning, that marks women out from "default human" is going to have some negative impacts. Some things, like maternity leave, are important enough that they counter balance the downsides (though I still think increasing pat leave will be even better).

I don't think this policy is going to be an overall positive in the slightest.

Jesus wept. How utterly patronising. Normal life cycles are not a disability.

My irregular periods and flooding made it almost impossible to work as a teacher at my previous job, but due to concessions at my new workplace I’ve fared much better. Having a fixed base that I could adapt and store a change of clothing, and supportive colleagues who would watch my classes if I needed to dash out to change a pad made the difference between me being able to work or not.

As someone who isn't there yet, and so who still no doubt has a lot to learn, the current menopause narrative and focus feels very double-edged to me. More awareness is clearly positive and needed, and there are heart-breaking stories of women who have really struggled and had no support from anyone, including HCPs. But it can feel very doom-laden and it does sometimes feel that I'm essentially a write-off, particularly career-wise - I'll just get over being flaky because I have small children then menopause will hit...

No, I don't like this either. Insofar as menopause is debilitating for some, it can be managed like any other medical condition in the workplace.

And the stuff like opening windows and uniforms is stupid. Yes, it can be good to open a window for a hot employee. But it has to be balanced against the needs of the business, other employees, and customers or clients too! The fact that it is menopause doesn't make it more (or less) important than the needs of any other person in the workplace. The current trend to decide certain people's needs and even preferences are more important than others is a little disturbing, IMO.

I also think there needs to be some discussion around the limits of workplace accommodation - some of it makes me rather uncomfortable. My aunt has a condition that means she takes a medication that requires her to be really regular in her sleep habits if she isn't going to have a flare up. She had been in a job that was shift work, and found it impossible to manage. She went to her employer to see about the possibility of a days only job opening up, or was going to resign. He manager told her that she could claim medical need for an accommodation, so she was put on days only. Of course this meant that the other two people in the job did not get first dibs on day shifts, and in fact had to rearrange the night shifts. One was happy enough with that, the other, with small kids, also had hoped to move to more days - too bad for her. I am not totally comfortable with that approach, there seems something off about the overall effects, and my aunt wasn't totally happy either, although she accepted the position.

Can you tell potential employers you’re past it and you’re safe to be employed? 🤷‍♀️

This sounds like a great accommodation from a reasonable employer and I’d hope it could be made to any woman of any age who suffered similar debilitating issues with their periods.

I agree with this. Expecting women who are struggling to soldier on in silence is rightly no longer tolerated, but as a mid-40s woman the barrage of messages about the menopause really makes me feel like I’m about to be hurled off a precipice. Life as I know it will end, I’ll no longer feel or look like myself and I’ll be assailed by myriad symptoms before emerging just in time for old age.

It’s only by looking around and seeing older women who look healthy and happy that I don’t feel utterly despondent about all this.

I heard this on the radio yesterday and instantly took against the idea as I felt it was infantilising, patronising and counterproductive for women. I thought I'd be in a minority though and that perhaps I felt that way because I was fortunate enough to have sailed through the menopause. Really interesting to see all the comments.

I went through the menopause at 42. Overnight I had terrible joint pains,hot flushes, and my memory vanished. Couldn't even remember to feed the animals. Because of my age, until I was 50, it was Prempac C, which caused really heavy bleeding.Was on HRT for 17 years,then moved. New gp wouldn't prescribe. Hot flushes were the worst thing then..I was night nursing in a busy hospital ward. Plastic gloves, apron, synthetic uniform. I used to drip with sweat, scrubs would have been nice, but we weren't allowed to wear them on the wards..I still don't view menopause as a disability. A lot of small firms wouldn't be able to afford these changes.

Whilst accommodations for heavy periods could be made at any age, I certainly did not have periods that were three weeks long and required the use of an entire pack of super plus tampax in addition to an entire pack of pads in a single day. My ferritin levels did not drop to 4 at any other point in my life. This would be vanishingly rare for most women outside of the perimenopause.

It’s easy to see the menopause as a natural part of aging, but as one of the one in ten women who left their job because of it, think some kind of protection for women is needed. People here say they don’t want to think their career will be placed on a scrap heap because of the menopause - this is exactly what is happening to some of us already. Having worked for my employer for thirteen years, the moment my productivity dropped an inch, I was placed under massive pressure. Due to budget constraints, there is already impetus from schools to replace upper pay scale teachers with cheaper freshly qualified staff. It’s extremely easy and common for staff to be managed out.

It’s all very well saying that you don’t want your employer to think that your productivity is going to drop around the menopause, but where does that leave those of us whose productivity does drop around the menopause?

As someone who really dislikes the making of what is normal a pathology, I'm really glad about these comments.
I sympathise with those who have a bad experience, but that isn't the norm, and shouldn't be treated as such.

No, it isn’t the norm. It’s the experience of 10 % of women. That’s not the norm, but it’s sizeable enough to require action.

But where does the figure of 10% come from?

That's nothing to do with menopause. That's him being a poor manager and a nasty person.

Was my first thought. I had to drop down even more than my already dropped part time to cope.

It's mostly women in teaching and drastic changes to workplace stress and work load needs to be made. Thankfully my workplace already does this but I know many schools where it doesn't.

And as in a lot of teaching it's often the men who work their way up quickly to the top positions in academies (not always but very common) and then dictate the status quo.

It’s all very well saying that you don’t want your employer to think that your productivity is going to drop around the menopause, but where does that leave those of us whose productivity does drop around the menopause?

Isn’t that what reasonable adjustments are for, to enable you to maintain an agreed level of productivity? It sounds like your current employer has the imagination to do that and thus gain an experienced employee.

This isn't legislation and it isn't new

Conditions that are a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act are already provided for in law as reasonable adjustments. Same as always.

This is just another opportunity for companies to score virtue signalling points by creating special little menopause rooms and putting the pictures of it on linked in 🙄

The disability aspect - there are a lot of women who are dealing with menopausal symptoms due to anti cancer treatments and chemo. Which is classed as a disability. But you'd be protected under cancer diagnosis as the disability.

Similarly a lot of chronic conditions are classed as disabilities under law eg hypothyroidism. However, that might be because it's chronic. Without medication most with hypothyroidism would eventually die. And can fluctuate. Particularly during menopause.

I suppose it makes sense to find a way to protect against discrimination due to menopause. Oc health should make reasonable adjustments.

What I'm against is the idea that you just whack on a patch / gel and think that fixes it rather than looking at what the workplace can do. Also, a lot of women can't take hrt or it just doesn't work.

I have a friend who was a ceo and very high up in her profession. She developed extreme anxiety as peri symptoms became unmanageable. Started hrt. Assumed that was that. Symptoms went away but she then had a full mental health breakdown and had to resign. Is currently putting herself back together and looking at next steps but half her issue, she acknowledges, was the actual demands of the job.

I think the conversation needs to be bigger than menopause. And I think the nhs needs to get its act together on helping women with their health in really radical ways.

I'm off hrt now and now know what I needed to do to manage. Some of that was taking some time off which wasn't something I had a choice about but in retrospect was the most helpful thing from a menopausal pov.