From IVF to the Menopause: Should we talk about our bodies at work?

Are you part of the silent majority?

·       Have you spoken to your colleagues of the anxiety you experience each month because of heavy periods?  If not, you are not alone.  89% of women have experienced anxiety or stress in the workplace due to their period with 25% believing taking time off because of menstrual health issues impacts on career progression (see Bloody Good Period)

·       Have you kept silent on the ‘brain fog’ you are now experiencing because of the menopause?  If so, you are not alone.  In a survey for the Fawcett Society, 41% said they had seen menopause or its symptoms treated as a joke in the workplace. One in ten women who worked during menopause have left a job due to their symptoms.

·       Did you tell your manager that you were having IVF?  If not, it is hardly surprising.   Although ACAS (Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service) guidance states that employers should treat IVF appointments in the same way as any other medical appointments, there is no legal requirement for them to do so (see Working Families).

If this is you, your responses are normal and protective.  Talking about such things are seen to carry significant career risks let alone the risk of experiencing the shaming effects of stigmatisation.

But things are changing

We can see this in the more open discussions about the menopause.  The ‘period poverty’ movement has also really drawn attention to this other most common fact of women’s lives.  And Covid has brought human vulnerability full square into the workplace.  

One area where there is an acknowledgement that our personal circumstances can impact on work productivity is in university academic promotion applications.  It is now common to have an optional box that asks applicants to state any relevant personal circumstances that they would like the panel to take into account.

Of course, this box begs the question of what you should say about those often most personal of details.   This is the issue that Agnes Bosanquet (2021) takes up in her article aptly entitled paper “Details Optional”.  She writes:

On the academic promotion application form at my university, there is a heading ‘Relevant Personal Circumstances’. Below, there is a ‘Consideration needs to be given to personal circumstances/ career interruptions’ box and a text box labelled ‘Details (optional)’. Cautiously, I wrote: ‘The following application refers to work completed since appointment to Senior Lecturer in 2016…[My research] is the output of a 20% research workload (in all roles since first appointment in 2010) and fractional appointments (3 days a week from 2010 to 2016 and 4 days a week from 2017 to 2018)’.”  Agnes Bosanquet (2021: 429) 

 What Agnes does not write in that box is the following:

“… details of those eight years as a part-time academic, including a life-threatening birth, a daughter with epilepsy, secondary infertility, an ectopic pregnancy, an implanted neurostimulator, and a miracle baby…” (Bosanquet, op cit) 

As Agnes goes on to say “In my academic biography and promotion application, I am measured in words and numbers. I have no corporeality.” (p 432).

Should she have insisted she does?

Proceed with caution

When Agnes was writing her promotion application, she was warned against getting too personal.  I have given the same advice.  You may have also.  This caution is supported by Belinda Steffan’s research on the unintentional consequences of workplace policies that are designed to support women experiencing the menopause.   What Belinda found was that instead of feeling supported, some women experienced anxiety over the array of symptoms that raising awareness of the menopause highlights. 

In a recent webinar I ran with Bec Feasey we heard that menopause cafés are great things to do as they provide opportunities for women to talk, share their experiences and find community.  This helps to normalise menopause – which is a weird thing to have to do given how biologically inevitable it is.  However, as Bec reported, women need to feel safe turning up at those cafes lest their very attendance labels them as having a problem. 

Belinda’s research also highlights how women need time to embrace workplace adjustments.  Her respondents voiced concerns that ‘pulling the menopause card’ might set the gender equality movement back in time. There was also a sense that an increase in menopause awareness might lead to greater - not less - stigmatisation at work. 

This is partly because of how the menopause intersects with ageism.  Being open about the menopause risked being seen as “past it” - less adaptable, less technologically capable and less interested in progression and promotion.  If I have heard the phrase – “Oh they’re 63 (or any age from late 50s onwards) and will soon be retiring” - once, I have heard it far too many times.  Ageism remains the least talked about workplace discrimination. 

Why it really is important to talk

Agnes Bosanquet’s paper highlights how our bodies are seen as obstacles to fulfilling the requirements of our jobs.  Is it any wonder that we rule it out of discussion?

Working in that kind of culture creates a whole panoply of personal – and consequently privatised - accommodations.  It leaves women constantly doing the work of adjustment to prevailing organisational and career norms.  For example, urgent appointments that can’t be predicted, such as IVF treatments, are taken as days off.  Coming back to work after a miscarriage, and without saying a word, is not as unusual as you might think.  Carrying on through illness, taking the minimum time possible, is an everyday occurrence. 

I have no idea what the net mental and physical toll on women of all this is if you scaled up all these “keep on going and pretend all is fine” acts across every workplace in the country.  Let’s just say it will be more than humungous. 

Jackie Maybin details this in terms of menstruation:

Modern women can expect approximately 400 periods in their lifetime. If their periods are typical, this equates to between four and eight years of menstruation and its necessary management. This ‘work’ involves remembering to pack the necessary products, purchasing pain relief, adjusting clothing choices, knowing where the nearest toilet is and altering work and leisure patterns. Most men are unaware that women have to do this.

To make matters worse, up to one in three women will experience problematic menstruation at some point in their lives. Many can’t leave the house for one week (or more) every month. 

Periods can be so heavy that a blood transfusion is necessary. Problematic menstruation results in missed school and work with a knock-on negative impact on finances. Period poverty is very real, with many unable to buy the products they need to manage their menstruation.

Jackie details how not talking about this – essentially not normalising four to eight years of menstruation for every woman in the world – leads to less research and understanding and suboptimal management.  Mostly, women are left with being told to cope with it.

Change takes time and we are at the beginning of this revolution.  Have a strong heart.  Being a forerunner takes courage.  There are so many reasons why it is important that we talk about our bodies – it is cathartic; it is liberating; we realise we are not alone; we share knowledge and experience; we learn from each other.  We change the world.

Christina Hughes

Founder and CEO Women-Space

Connect with me:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinahugheswomen-space/

Contact:  christina@women-space.co.uk