BUPA being rediculous avoiding the word woman

[desiringtoremainsane]

A bupa ad in my linkedin feed.
Most people huh? Did anyone tell the men?

If a person is pregnant they are female. No male, XY person has even been pregnant. They may not feel they are a woman but they are definitely female.

We find it hard to believe that your average Joe on the street has no idea what ‘most’ means.

Okay but seeing as women aren't the only ones to go through menopause then what they are saying is correct

This is an issue, when people jocularly use flippant phrases like 'male menopause' to refer to mid-life crises or changes that men will undergo as a normal part of ageing - some people will take this on board and believe that it's an actual biological fact.

To put it very simply, if you are of the sex that will never have a uterus, then you will never menstruate. If you never menstruate, you will never experience the menopause.

Do you think BUPA is referring to male hormone fluctuations in this awareness campaign about menopause? If yes, I think that demonstrates the need to use men or women because these are VASTLY different experiences with VASTLY different real life impact. There are other stats in the campaign. Do you think those include the experiences of males? If not, your on your own campaign to distract from the main point.

Menopause is literally the cessation of menstruation. Men do not menstruate, so they cannot go through menopause.

I accept that 'male menopause' is a lazy term to describe androause or hypogonadism however it is used because there is an immediate understanding of the general impact on a person's life/health/wellbeing. If the argument here is that we can't use 'meno' in relation to a man then I just haven't got the brain space or time for that pettiness.

Nobody at all is claiming that men don't have hormones, or that their hormone levels can't fluctuate and affect their bodies in multiple ways which may cause them distress which medical intervention can alleviate.

Men just don't menstruate, so they can never go through a menopause.

If you read what I said properly you would notice that I mention other people also go through menopause so yes it is most

We can read, and click links. Bupa are not talking about male menopause. Bupa: symptoms of menopause are vaginal dryness, utis. find more information on our womens health hub. (presumably to be renamed shortly) If you did a quick google, you’d find that. HTH.

I think what Bupa is getting at is that 51% of the population is female, so they are correct in saying that "most" people go through the menopause.

I am middle aged bloke and none of my mates have gone through, or are going through the menopause, I've never heard so much nonsense in my life.

The argument is that bupa are not talking about male people when they talk about menopause. Separately you will find bupa information about ‘ andropause, (or male menopause)’: bupas phrasing not mine. The statistic is wrong.

But most people are women. How is the statistic wrong? It just smacks to me of another hobby horse for the permanently offended.

It's just lazy, misleading, condescending, misogynistic and potentially dangerous to men and women to use a term that only ever applies to one sex and pretend that the other sex can experience a version of it as well.

Of course there are terms that many everyday people may not know, but the answer is to use simpler terms that DO apply, rather than calling it another condition that it absolutely is not.

Yes, the NHS will often use the word 'poo' instead of faeces, defectors matter, bowel movements or whatever that some people may nor be familiar with - all well and good; but referring to men's hormone-related health conditions as 'menopause' (even by randomly putting 'male' in front of it) is as stupid, misleading and potentially dangerous as referring to any kind of heavy bleeding as 'diarrhoea'.

Yeah it's lazy but also means more to most then saying hypogonadism. It's just a way of describing something that has had way less attention ( for good reason as it impacts a smaller percentage of men than menopause impacts women). I just don't get the need to jump on the like of this as being highly offensive. Actual misogyny is dangerous. Bupa saying most people (most people are women) will experience menopause is not dangerous.

But obfuscating language in health is dangerous. It risks people not getting the right help through failure of communication.

Why are they deliberately using confusing words, then?

They possibly could be there smugly twiddling their bowties at their showing off their understanding of simple statistics, but their job is in providing health care and not giving people potentially very ambiguous brainteasers - especially ones that could lead to people wasting their valuable resources in seeking assistance in health matters that could never affect them.

You could truthfully say that, statistically, the majority of people aged under 27 are not allowed to buy alcohol, or to marry, or to vote - but you'd be very weird, clickbaity and deliberately seeking to confuse to go public with an advert targeting all under-27s sombrely warning of this, when it clearly is completely irrelevant to the oldest 33% (or so) of the people in that 'group'.

Ok maybe I'm completely ignorant on this one. What is the danger here?

Sometimes I think there isn't a single damn thing that men let women have for themselves.

No menses = no menopause.

Just for one example of the issues that can be caused when an illness or condition is ascribed to something that is very different, take the word 'flu'.

People who genuinely get - and often suffer greatly from - influenza will be mocked, called pathetic, maybe even face disciplinary action from employers for taking sick leave, because the vast majority of people think that 'flu' is a bit of a snuffly cold.

Same as many folk who like order and things to be a certain way will tell people that they are 'quite OCD', with no actual knowledge or experience at all of the many difficulties of truly living with OCD.

See also "Ooh, I think we're all a bit autistic, aren't we?!"

The reluctance to use the term women means that women for whom English is a second language, or women with literacy problems, or women with learning difficulties, are less likely to recognise that the information is relevant and important to them. The classic example is cervical screening campaigns that talk about "anyone with a cervix", when female anatomy is so badly taught that a fair few women don't actually know they have one.

This really isn't relevant since they aren't talking about anything like that, they are trying to talk about women stopping menstruation due to age.

What's happened here is they have very stupidly just slotted in "people" for "women" which changes the nature of the statistic substantially. And they don't seem to have understood that which is rather worrying for a medical organization.

Surely the point of the 'most people' is to make people think Wow! Most people! And then realise that...most people are women. There seems to be a determination to be offended that bewilders me. I just don't see what is so offensive about this.

You are either a woman or not pregnant.

Oh, some of them are very willing to let women keep all of the the actual problems, challenges, symptoms and often debilitating realities of this - or countless other female-exclusive conditions and concerns.

It's just the sympathy and attention - and being told how brave and stunning they are for battling through it - that they'd really quite like a share of.