No badges, please, we’re menopausal
Women enduring hormonal changes need more support — and fewer smirks
Suppose you are on a crowded train, packed into a carriage at rush hour, when suddenly your heart begins to palpitate. You’re sweating buckets and your face feels like a furnace. You want to open a window but you can’t reach, and you’re too embarrassed to ask. You are going through menopause — but most people on your train have little idea what that involves and some of them actually think it’s funny.
Menopause affects all women at some stage of their life, yet many don’t even recognize its symptoms. We are still far too reluctant to discuss such a universal phenomenon. So now Andrea McLean, a host of the Loose Women TV show, has suggested launching an awareness campaign and a badge women can wear — like those “baby on board” badges, perhaps featuring a big letter “M” — to indicate they are menopausal.
As a doctor who specializes in helping women through menopause, I can see the rationale. But this is a terrible idea. Quite part from the dehumanizing aspect of marking out women going through a natural change, our society just isn’t ready for it.
I still remember once visiting a menopause support group and asking directions from a man in a corridor. “Oh yes,” he said, “it’s that way” — and smirked, clearly amused. Sadly, that smirk remains all too common. I certainly would not have wanted to wear a badge at work or in public places when I was experiencing menopausal symptoms last year. Even telling some of my closest friends about it led to a very negative response, which both surprised and saddened me.
The impact of symptoms on women in the workplace is not taken seriously enough, despite research showing that a quarter of us give up work as a direct result. Badges won’t change that, either.
The real problem is that menopausal women aren’t primarily suffering from stigma or a lack of public knowledge. They are, first and foremost, suffering psychologically. Hot flashes are embarrassing, but low mood, anxiety, irritability, fatigue, anger and memory problems are far more dangerous (to say nothing of the risk of heart disease and osteoporosis). Lots of women say to me: “If I had a knife, I would kill someone” or “I have turned into a zombie.” They just want to feel normal again. It’s not their fault: It’s their hormones.
Worse, many don’t know enough about menopause to recognize these symptoms in themselves. Some are genuinely worried that they have dementia until one day they read something about menopause and say: “Oh God, that’s me!” Even then, they often feel isolated and afraid.
These women need targeted, individualized medicine and emotional support. They need to be empowered with information about their treatment options. What they do not need is to be made to feel different, in a society that still doesn’t take them seriously, by wearing a badge.