Connecting with Menopause

A negative menopause environment leaves women feeling isolated

Menopause in the UK has changed a lot in recent times.  It has become visible. It has become recognised. It has become newsworthy, and it has finally become ‘real’.  But it’s not menopause itself that has changed – rather that there has been a long overdue cultural shift for a nation that had previously been living in a collective state of menopause denial. 

While this is undoubtedly an exciting moment for all women in the UK, it’s also really important to keep in mind that this is only the beginning of a longer process - one that will hopefully result in actions and meaningful change. Talk is cheap, and just being aware of an issue doesn’t solve it.

I recently took part in a meeting to develop better menopause awareness and support in the office environment, and this highlighted the nature of the challenge - in miniature. I was working with 4 colleagues at different stages of their menopause journey and noticed that there was often a sense of menopause as a closed, unhappy world inhabited by aging, fading women.  As such, it was felt that trying to engage people on the outside of that world would be difficult at best, and more likely impossible.  Why would people be interested – let alone care?

Even though I was the menopause outsider in the room I didn’t really feel ready to accept that view.  To me, the fact that menopause has been so largely ignored for such a long time is actually pretty amazing in itself. Alongside this, I have just been involved in an ethnographic study that captured menopause experiences and their impact ‘in the moment’, and I was struck by how much negative impact menopause has, so often, and for so many people.  In that context, the lack of wider engagement with the issue seems surprising, unfair, negligent and even a bit scandalous.  In my experience, those are all things that tend to engage and motivate people if handled right.

We need to convert awareness into understanding and meaningful change

At the moment, it feels like we are at an interesting point in the change journey for menopause where awareness has been successfully raised by high profile media coverage, but the actual engagement and understanding remains very low. 

In our recent study, one of the most common things that we found to be both creating and compounding negative menopause experiences was a lack of understanding from other people – family, social, professional and worryingly, healthcare professionals.  This led to a lack of support and accommodation – and a negative menopause environment that often left women feeling embarrassed and isolated.  Conversely, we also saw that having an informed and understanding partner, good peer group support or even a friendly and non-judgemental pet had a clear beneficial effect.  A menopause shared may not necessarily be halved, but it’s definitely a lot better than suffering alone and in silence.

So, there is now a need to convert the uplift in awareness into engagement and an understanding that leads to action and meaningful change.  Simply flagging the problem without making it personally relevant, important and in some way solvable can be very frustrating.  It is something that we see in many other areas such as climate change, personal finance, public health and it leads to inaction and even rejection of the issue altogether.

An increase in engagement and understanding now needs to be promoted through relevant groups of people across different dimensions of life – family, social, professional and medical. We all interact with people experiencing menopause and peri-menopause so it’s everyone’s business to understand more and create a positive menopause environment.

One way to promote this change will be help people to experience and internalise the impact that menopause has. This is something I experienced first hand when watching our video clips of people in the moment and seeing the effect that symptoms have on people in the context of a finite day- one that simply wasn’t designed to include hot flushes, brain fog, anxiety, low mood, poor focus, irregular bleeding, low self confidence and a profound lack of sleep.

Film clips like these, thought exercises, role play, testimonials, VR and the wonderful Menovest are a few great ways that we can help people feel the human impact, understand menopause better and make people personally connect with menopause.  That is the next essential step in the process to ensure that today’s awareness and good intentions turn into meaningful, long-term change – in the office and beyond.