Menopause isn’t a disability
Menopause is not a disease and not a disability, but you wouldn’t know that from recent articles about how employers should offer menopause-specific benefits to employees. The end of childbearing potential may be celebrated or mourned, but cessation of the menstrual cycle is not a medically important event. Sure, some women have hot flashes (also called vasomotor symptoms), and for a minority of women those hot flashes are troublesome. But the idea that workplace modifications are needed for occasional sweating episodes is peculiar. The only other symptom definitively linked to menopause is vaginal dryness, for which it is difficult to imagine workplace relevance.
Most menopausal women don’t experience bothersome symptoms. But if one attributes every aging-related or life-related symptom to menopause, the prevalence of bothersome symptoms rises rapidly. A report on menopause and the workplace from the National Menopause Foundation, in partnership with Bank of America, found that the top symptoms employees reported experiencing were “impacts to their sleep (45%), mental health/mood (30%), physical health (20%), relationships with family/partner (20%), ability to focus on work (17%), daily activities (15%), and even career progression (9%).” None of these are actually symptoms of menopause. One study found that except for “excessive sweating,” every symptom experienced by women was also experienced by men of the same age.
Multiple articles have appeared in The New York Times and elsewhere that present menopause as a disabling phase of life and recommend workplace accommodations. The National Menopause Foundation report found that 80% of women surveyed considered the topic of menopause to be too personal to discuss at work, and 58% of peri- and post-menopausal women reported they didn’t feel comfortable discussing their menopausal symptoms at work. OK, so most women don’t consider vaginal dryness a safe-for-work topic. Is that necessarily a bad thing? Should men be discussing erectile dysfunction with their bosses? Shouldn’t work be, well, work?
The NMF report states that 64% of the 1,000 women surveyed wanted menopause-specific benefits and that when those benefits are offered, 58% reported a positive impact on their work. It’s no surprise that increasing flexible work schedules or other benefits has a positive impact on employees. More benefits will predictably lead to a positive impact on any employees who receive them, no matter where they fall on the gender spectrum.
While a menopause-friendly workplace may sound like a good idea, the concept hinges on an anti-feminist argument cloaked in the language of feminism. The flip side of persuading colleagues and supervisors that one needs special treatment for women’s problems is having one’s views dismissed because one is hormonally unfit.
Women going through menopause should not be pressured into treating it as a medical condition or disability in need of its own workplace benefits package. Women with bothersome symptoms should be treated, but none of these symptoms warrant employers to be intimately involved. When women transition through menopause, and whether or not they have bothersome symptoms, is none of their boss’ business.
In general, workplaces should be more accommodating to their employees. Vasomotor symptoms can lead to insomnia, but so can anxiety, depression, stress and medication, among other factors. Offering flextime to all employees would be wonderful, or — here’s an idea — simply increasing wages would be a great start. Women’s wages are still 17% lower than men’s on average. Addressing that inequity would improve women’s lives far more than permission to discuss menopausal symptoms in the office.
Workplaces should not create an environment in which mid-life women are “othered” and offered special care and benefits for symptoms that can affect anyone. Perpetuating the idea that menopause is so disruptive and debilitating that employers should step up and provide specialized care (access to hormone therapy is specifically mentioned in the NMF report) feeds into 19th-century concepts that women are weak, helpless creatures who must be protected. Employers should not surrender to this artificially progressive crusade.