38· Women Of A Certain Age
Podcast show notes
Today we're diving into the topic of menopause, a significant phase that affects over 50% of the population.
From dealing with fluctuating symptoms that can undermine confidence and mental health to navigating the lack of workplace support and healthcare dismissiveness, today's talk is all about empowering women through information and advocacy.
Join me as we explore the physical and emotional challenges of menopause and discuss ways to seek proper support and make informed decisions about our health and well-being. Whether it's choosing HRT or natural methods, understanding your body's needs is key to navigating this natural yet daunting phase of life.
Here are the highlights
(0:47) Menopause's impact on women's lives.
(2:38) The stigma surrounding menopause.
(5:19) Menopause's impact on women's work lives and lack of support.
(11:01) Menopause and perimenopause support in the workplace.
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Ruth
As you listen to this I hope you’re on a sun lounger somewhere sipping a drink or enjoying some kind of down time cause it’s that time of year when we all take a pause and reflect a bit on where we are in life. Maybe you’re asking yourself, am I doing the things I want to do? Have I got the balance right? Is my career fulfilling? Am I playing to my strengths and really enjoying my work? Where am I going next? Whatever’s going for you this is THE perfect time for a reset. And I’m really excited about bringing you my September reset package. To get clear on what success means for you, identify the changes you want to make, get reset and refocused for the next few months. Send me a message to find out more. All my contact details are in the show notes.
Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted, the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfill your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity, or your resilience.
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Today, I'm going to be talking about women of a certain age. And if you're listening to this, you probably know who you are. Why am I talking about this, when I'm not a health expert, I'm not an expert in menopause? Well, I'm talking about it because 50% of the, well more than 50% of the population go through at some point in their lives. And although we are talking about it more and more, we need to keep doing that because menopause has a massive impact on women's lives. And it impacts women at a particular point in their life where usually, if they're quite career focused, they're getting to quite senior levels so to suddenly be experiencing lots of debilitating symptoms that can come with menopause, not for everybody, but for lots of people can come with menopause can be a really hellish, fairly hellish experience, and can really damage confidence and lead to anxiety and depression and all sorts of things. So that's why we need to talk about it. And that's why I'm going to be talking about it today.
Now, I've never really connected myself, I guess, with this phrase, a woman of a certain age. Until one day a few years ago, I was in a room about to facilitate a fairly big team, with a couple of colleagues. And we were talking about the temperature of the room and somebody was fiddling with the controls. And then there was this sort of throwaway comment of oh, well, we're gonna have the women of a certain age in the room, and they'll probably be loads of them at this point. And how are we going to get the temperature, right? You know, it's a real thing. It's a real thing, it impacts our body temperature, doesn't it? And so suddenly, you've got a group of people in the room where some people are comfortable, and some people are less comfortable. But when we were having that conversation, I suddenly sort of thought, well, I'm a woman of a certain age, I guess, you know, and I just hadn't connected to that phrase with me at all up until that point. But it was said in quite a sort of throwaway, slightly patronizing, sort of tone. And it was like, these women were an inconvenience. And I did sort of point out, well, actually, I'm one of those women, and there was sort of a bit of a slightly sheepish look from my colleague, who then apologized, and, you know, obviously not meant it to be offensive in any way. But it's a time in a lot of women's lives where they start to describe themselves as invisible or not feeling like themselves or something along those lines.
So for people to, to then be kind of making those sorts of throwaway comments, it just exacerbates that sense of, I'm a problem. I'm a problem for other people, because I've got all these symptoms, and it, it adds to the taboo of talking about it, and the sense of shame that can sometimes kind of come with it. And shames may be a bit of a strong word, you know, we are talking about these things more now. But it's still a little bit of a stigma. And, you know, when you think about the sort of symptoms that we're talking about, you know, women talk about anxiety levels being higher, they feel more depressed, that emotions are fluctuating kind of much more, alongside the hormones or, you know, affecting us. Brain fog. I mean, for me, personally, memory and brain fog was probably one of my biggest challenges. And it was probably the thing that made me feel less confident and less sure of myself. And, you know, normally I've got pretty good memory and I can really rely on it. And suddenly it was shaky, like, I could barely remember some days, what said five minutes ago, or I get into the middle of my sentence and, you know, it would just, my thoughts were disappearing. It still happens. But you know, it was, it's happening all the time. And, you know, when you're already sort of thinking, you know, it can be difficult to speak up at the table, it can be difficult to sort of see what you really want to say. It can be hard to sort of make people listen to what you want to say and to get your points across as it is. When you're then adding to that the sense of have, well, if I open my mouth, are the words going to come out or am I going to get halfway through this point, and it's just going to evaporate from my head. It adds another layer of challenge and another layer of uncertainty and it just can really chip away at your confidence in speaking up.
So, in that, that's just one symptom or a couple of symptoms that I'm talking about. But you know, there, there are many, many more. And they affect us and they affect our confidence. There's been loads of reports about this now. So I'm going to kind of give you a couple of stats, because I think they're some pretty good ones I found. There was a CIPD survey of women aged 40 to 60. And 67% of the women surveyed said that going through perimenopause, and menopause had had a negative impact on them at work. More than half of them had to have to have time off work, you know, some quite lengthy periods, some adhere to you there. And 50% of the women who were surveyed who were currently experiencing menopause or perimenopause symptoms, say that it made them less likely to want to progress in terms of their career. And, you know, that's totally understandable. When you think about, you've got less energy, your brains all over the place, your emotions are all over the place, you know, who's who's going to have that oomph that you need to kind of keep pushing on, potentially, in difficult circumstances, when you're kind of experiencing all of that as well. And, you know, what was interesting is that, although we're talking about these things, more and more and more at the point at which this survey was done, so that was last year in 2023, 43% of the workplaces involved in the survey, still had no menopause support policy in place. So yeah, really interesting.
There's some other stats out there, there was another report done sort of looking specifically at financial services. And of those women surveyed 25%, 25% said it made them want to retire early, like they just had enough. And, you know, we're seeing that, there's other statistics not related to menopause, specifically, but coming out of Lean In Survey with McKenzie from last year saying that your women in their sort of late 40s and into their 50s, were leaving the workplace at a much faster rate than expected. And you know, there's a potential correlation there between what women are experiencing at that point in their lives, obviously. So it seems pretty important that actually feeling supported and being able to talk about what's going on for them and having adjustments made if needs be, is there for women in order to help us stay in the workplace.
Now, getting the right help at these points can be tricky. And obviously, some workplaces can go above and beyond with this sort of stuff. And they're trying to open up conversations. They're putting policies in place, and they're trying to put support in place. Not all of them are though, but women have other challenges as well, in terms of trying to get support. Now, there is much more information available out there now, that there are books you can read. There's lots of stuff on the internet. I mean, I remember kind of like being, is this perimenopause? Is this not perimenopause? I'm not quite sure. And at that point there wasn't really that much out there. You could go on the NHS websites bits and bobs like that, but there wasn't a great deal in comparison to what there is now so you can find resources to help you understand kind of what's happening to you. But it wasn't until I went off and bought a, bought a great book called by a lady called Maisie Hill, it’s called Perimenopause Power and was able to look up a whole host of my hideous symptoms and go oh, that's what that is. Oh, that's what that is. Oh, I understand now. And just knowing that and it wasn't me going nuts or having some weird disease was a relief, actually, just to sort of go okay, this is all related now I get it. That really, really helped me.
The other thing that women often come up against is, of course, the attitudes of healthcare professionals. Now, I've come up against medical professionals a number of times with different things in my life. And probably the most recent ones are menopause related. And I was asked three questions by the male doctor I first spoke to and this is again, going back a few years but I was 41 at the time, which is old enough to be in perimenopause. But he was clearly unaware of that. And he basically, basically asked me three questions which I'm not going repeat here. But they were of a pretty personal nature. He asked me my age, he asked me my mom's history. And he basically asked me a little bit about what was going on down below. And then he went no. No, it's not it's not menopause, it's not peri menopause, you're fine. Drink more water. And that was it dismissed. I remember coming out just feeling like what just happened? You didn't ask me about this or that or the other, you literally asked me three questions. And that was it gone. And it's sort of as though because 50% of the population goes through this it’s not that important. And you know, there's been loads of work done. You read Carolina Criado Perez’s book, Invisible Women, she's looked at the way in which we capture data around women's health and, and other issues impacting women. But the stuff around women's health is really interesting. And it's just almost like it's not important enough to look at. Because everybody goes through it, every woman goes through it. So you'll you'll figure it out. And it took me years to go back again after that. And I was going through some really, really tough times, actually. And it was hard. And I speak to my friends now about it. And you know, a number of them have gone through similar things where they've just been dismissed, and they've had to go back again.
Now, I am delighted to report that my current female GP is wonderful and are her surgery now has someone, has a specialist nurse and a specialist menopause clinic. And that is wonderful. Because, you know, obviously some people choose HRT, and some people want to go through it in a natural way. But there are things that can be done to support regardless of what you believe is right for you. And that is something else that I want to touch on because one of the other things that put me off going back to my GP was that I was coming across a lot of attitudes I would see from other women, not all other women, but some other women and some women who I really respect actually, but who had a very particular take on what your body goes through and you know that, oh, you shouldn't be able to manage naturally, you know, it's a natural process. Well, it is a natural process. And I could have chosen to go through it naturally. And I absolutely take my hat off to anybody who does. But my symptoms were quite significant. And they impacted me in quite a significant way. So I chose to kind of get myself some Estrogel and slap it on every day. And I cannot tell you the difference that that has made to my life, to my brain, to my memory, and to my confidence as well. And to my energy levels, it's been phenomenal. But the big thing for me was being able to go and speak to a doctor who listened, who asked a hell of a lot more than three questions. And who really talked to me about what was going to be the right thing for me with my health and my body. And what I wanted. So actually having your views respected and taken into account in the conversation is so important to get the right thing for you.
So, to sum up, really, what I'm saying is, your way of getting through perimenopause, and menopause will be your way. And we all kind of come at that from different places, and that is absolutely fine. But the one thing I would say is that if you're being fobbed off by anyone, whether that's an HR department at work, or whether that is a medical professional, go back to them, get a second opinion, ask to be referred to somebody else if needs be. Engage with colleagues that might be going through the same if that feels easier, you know, in the workplace than just talking openly to everybody. Because there is some stigma still around it. And you know, you're gonna be comfortable with what you're comfortable with. But it can make a huge difference when you just know that there's a colleague or two out there who gets what you're going through. And when you feel you need to stick your head in the fridge to cool down for a moment, we'll totally get why you're doing that or why you want to sit under the air conditioning vent today if you're not working from home. So really seeking out people who are going to understand what you're going through and helping others. And if you're not in the position yet where you're going through perimenopause or menopause and you're listening to this right now, you know, maybe you're a man, maybe you're a younger or older women, you know, keep an eye out for your colleagues because it can be a real struggle and it can be a real struggle at a really critical kind of point in our lives and in our careers. And when we're just really bringing all our wisdom to bear on what we're doing kind of in our careers.
So yeah, seek out help, seek out support. It is hopefully there for you. And if it's not, create it, you know what can you do to influence your company, your organization, your workplace, to put in place the support that you and many many others need. I'd love to know what your experiences have been. So again, do reach out, give me a shout. I'd love to hear from you. I'll speak to you next week. Take care.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Hit the follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram @resonateleadership and LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood. I’d absolutely love to hear from you. Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique. I'm your host, Ruth Wood. Take care and speak to you soon.
