Welcome to Go, Ask Gali, a production of Shondaland Audio and partnership with iHeartRadio. When I have been with friends and that happened and I peed my pants, I did lose the room, They did leave.
I saw her light up and I was like, I'm just going to work, but we are here until one of our last reps.
Yeah, I was just the one that was meant to take care of mama.
It's for me to remember every single day is that I always have a choice.
Everyone always has a choice.
Whenever somebody says no, you can't or there's no roles for you, or you have to look like this, I go.
I'll show you. I'll show you.
Welcome to Go, Ask Galie. I'm Ellie Wentworth. And today we are talking about menopause. It should be called womeno pause,
but it is called menopause. We're talking about it in business and the workplace because if you've noticed lately, menopause become a subject that we're seeing more and more at magazines and newspapers, on the internet, in chat shows, because slowly women are starting to ignite this conversation to normalize menopause, to no longer make it the secret dark, awful, embarrassing thing that we all go through. You can't hide from menopause. So today I have two dynamic women who are going
to talk to you about menopause. I have Naomi Watts, not only the acclaimed actress but now also an entrepreneur who created a menopause brand called Stripes, as in You've earned Them. Stripes was created to make change, inspire confidence
and offer holistic solutions. And later you'll hear from Pat Duckworth, a trailblazing advocate in the UK for educating people and their bosses about menopause and how they should and can be supported at the office or factory or retail store or wherever they're working, and how it truly helps their bottom line too. All right, First up, the beautiful Naomi Watts.
She's an award winning actor, producer, activist and entrepreneur. She has Academy Award nominations for her performances in twenty one Grams and The Impossible and starred in Birdman, which won the Oscar for Best Picture on Television. She stars in The Watcher as well as the upcoming Feud. Naomi is the founder and chief creative officer of Stripes. A menopause brand.
Stripes's mission and a quote is to end the shame, stigma, and confusion around menopause with sustainable solutions, real stories, and science backed products. So I'm very excited today because I got Naomi Watts here talking about menopause.
Hi.
Two delicious things.
Hi.
So I want to say first of all that your products, Stripes are incredible for menopause, and we are not doing an infomercial right now. This is not QBC, but I have tried them and I'm grateful.
To you for them.
I'm so happy to hear that.
Let me ask you this, Naomi, have you been through menopause? Where are you in the menopause spectrum.
It's so interesting because there's no exact way to tell the story. It's like you have to tell the whole thing.
It's not a short answer.
But I am technically on the other side of menopause, because menopause exists on one day where you've not had your menstruation cycle for an entire year, and then beyond that day you're postmenopause, which sounds horrible, but the thing is symptoms persist, and I've got new ones to this day, and I have not had my menstruation cycle for multiple years.
Let's say I was an early bird and I was sort of thrust into it with very little knowledge, very little handholding, and it was a panic situation because it actually was right at the precipice. I mean, the word menopause was uttered to me right at the precipice when I was trying to have children, and I, you know, that was the right time to start beginning a family. I was thirty six years old, so young and super ill prepared. A friend, an older friend of mine girlfriend,
suggested that I get a blood panel done. I was like, what what do you mean for what and she was like, yeah, you just need to test your hormones, that's what you do. And I said, okay. So I went to my guynecologist and he said, yeah, let's take the bloods and the results suggested that I was quote unquote close to menopause. I had an heart I elevated fsh level and I just sort of panicked and felt, you know, my jaw
was on the floor. I left there shaken. I rang my mother and said, because I did remember in that split second that my mother had gone into early menopause, I knew.
Nothing else about it I knew.
I didn't know that she suffered for several years, possibly a decade before that. I didn't know she I didn't know if she had medicated herself or you know, I didn't know any of the information, no details whatsoever. So I said, you went into menopause earlier, and I think you said you were in your forties. Tell me more, what is this? And she said, yeah, I was. I had my last period when I was forty five. And I said, and what happened in the lead up?
You know?
I mean she had her children at nineteen and twenty, so she had no panic about that.
And I said, why didn't you tell me more?
What do you mean?
And she said, well, these were the conversations I never had with my mother because she never had them with hers. And so that is what really struck me, as like, wow, generations upon generations have signed some secret code of silence. And anything that you went through, anything you experienced, was you know, you just had to suck it up and suffer alone.
I had a very similar experience. My mother never never discussed it, and I know she had a hard time, and I had no ovari insist so I had my ovaries taken out and I was immediately thrust in a menopause and I didn't know what was going on.
It was sweating.
I was like, what is this because of the surgery, you know, And my mother again never spoke about it, and she had said after I had my second daughter, she said, now go get a hysterectomy, just get it all scooped out like a helloween pumpkin. And I said why and she said, because you don't want your uterus dragging on the floor like an old Bassett hound. And I said, oh my, but that's all she said. That's all she said. So I didn't even know what that meant.
And since people like you have normalized the conversation, I have spoken to my mother about it and she said I was so embarrassed to talk about it. And women didn't talk about it, you know when I was younger, because it meant you weren't young, you weren't child bearing. Basically, we were supposed to go off to pasture like it.
Was over for us.
Yeah, go to the corner. Yeah.
And I said that's not fair to women who are now living to one hundred because we're you and I are not even close to middle age. But the other thing is that, like you, like me, a lot of women go through menopausem much much earlier, and it doesn't mean that it's time for them to go out to pasture. And the other thing I wanted to talk to you about was my kids, and you have younger kids. To my kids who took sex ed at school, and they took them all through erections, you know, periods, how to
make a baby, and then it stopped. I don't understand why we're not teaching about menopause.
Yeah exactly.
And I'm so glad you brought that up because my kids heard me, you know, like when I when the idea came to me to create this company. They heard me enough times on zooms talk about menopause, you know, menopause, menopause, menopause. And so I sat them down and I said, well, you know, I should talk to them about this. And I said, do you tell me what you know about menopause? And one of them said, isn't it when old ladies die?
Oh God?
And I was like, right, okay, there you go.
And then I and the other one, who's a little bit more clued in to this kind of stuff said, isn't it when you wet the bed? Because obviously Kai had slept with me enough that you know, I'd sweated through the sheets and I had to like change my t shirt three times. So then I started saying, what did you learn in sex ed? Because I know you get the beginning story, so the booke end is there.
The hormones will change your life because of X, Y and Z, and that they will lead to this, and so you need to watch out for STDs, you need to watch out for pregnancies, you need to watch out for you know, the whole story, the whole landscape is given to you except for that ending, which is a big piece of the story.
Huge.
So yeah, that we have been failed, Yes, And I think that I love that we're all trying to have more and more conversations about it because obviously our mothers did not and if we can normalize it, there won't be such a stigma about it. And that way, you know, our daughters will get older and not be embarrassed or feel like, you know, going through menopause is some horrible curse.
I mean, we finally got through the menstruation thing, not being quote unquote cursed and now we're you know, now we have to kind of do the same messaging with menopause.
Absolutely, so I'm.
Curious why you decided to create stripes because of the of the messaging.
Yes, absolutely, I felt. I mean, you know, I'm in the business of storytelling. I like to bring people together. I like that people will reflect on their own story through mine, and that's kind of what I've always done, and this feels like another extension of that. It feels, you know, obviously a lot more personal. And you know, I certainly vacillated with you know, is this a good idea or not, and had major moments of panic.
Panic because it because it ages you as an actress.
Were you worried about that?
Yes, because it does brand you.
You can't unring that bell, and and once you go there and you can't go they're half asked about it. You have to be all in. So I definitely was nervous.
But I do.
Feel I believe in Hollywood, and I know we get accused of being backward and polarizing, you know, but I believe that we're also a progressive industry and when change is needed, it takes place a little bit more quickly.
Than most industries.
So you know, I felt ultimately like I had to get beyond myself and to your point earlier, we live so much longer. I have two grandmothers alive. I mean, God willing the same story is my destiny too. But you know, being thirty six and having those words uttered to me and then going into the panic of like will I be able to have children? And then mercifully I did, but then was thrust into hardcore symptoms right after I stopped breastfeeding, and I was still too young
quote unquote. I was forty when I had my second child, and my symptoms my started early forties.
Yeah, it's interesting now how first of all the conversation again, I can see a change in it. I just can't. I think I've done it. I've made jokes about it, you know, menopause.
That's my way of putting it out there, normalizing it.
Yeah.
Yeah, and it's so much better to experience it through humor.
Yeah, I can understand it.
Yeah, Like two halloweens ago, I went as a menopausal, frustrated housewife. You know. So I love you well, We're all messaging it in different ways, you know, because it does normalize it for our daughters and for you know, future kids.
And also I think you're right about Hollywood because I.
Think, you know, just to put you on the spot, I'm looking at you, and you know, you're this beautiful woman with dewey skin and pink cheeks, and you know if you said I'm thirty, I'd believe you. So it's there's an ageism in Hollywood that's sort of shifting to where women are saying like, hold on, you know, I'm not done at thirty.
Five, you know, absolutely not.
Julianne Moore is sixty one and she's going, fuck off. I'm going to keep being a leading lady. And I feel like the menopause thing goes hand in hand with that a little bit in Hollywood.
Absolutely, and yes it was risky, but at the end of the day, I felt like it was worthwhile. It is every woman is headed here.
Whether you like it or not.
Yeah, because back in the day, you know the movie stars of Yesteryear, I mean, they would never talk about menopause, and they lied about their age. I mean some of these women were thirty five. For about twenty years. Every time Entertainment Tonight would say like happy Birthday, I was like, Wow, she's still thirty five. So there's something about breaking that whole idea.
Yeah, it's half the population and the other half is going to be indirectly affected by it. So let's just bring it all into the table, onto the table and discuss it. And yes, a part of it is about having the empathy for our mother's generation and also throwing the ladders down to the younger generation for your daughters
so they can be prepared. And I mean, if I had been ahead of it, it would have been so much easier on me, because I didn't even feel I definitely tested the waters with some of my friends, cracked some jokes and they were sort of you know, they fell on deaf ears and they were awkward laughs. I got so I sort of went and closed it up and thought, no, I better not.
Nobody else is there.
And then I think I got to turning fifty and I just thought, this charade is up. I'm done. I'm done with holding onto the secret. We're all headed there. We can talk about it now, and I know I'm not done, And you know, what can I do to change the narrative?
What can I do to help?
But then COVID took place, and I was still holding onto my menopause secret.
But once we paused, the world paused.
I think it became clear to everyone that we needed community. It was taken away and we needed community. And that's when I thought, I need a group. I need to thrive. I need a tribe. And the women out there in my life. Now we can safely all assume we're about there, hovering, circling, you know, how do we come together? How do we make this fun? How do we make it more sexy
and vibrant. But since I knew about skincare by this point, and I knew that the community needed a space to come to, laugh, cry, bitch, moan, complaint, whatever they needed, come together and learn, this is when the idea came to me. And I was like, I made a cold coal basically to a biotech company called Amorus. I pitched the idea to them and they said, yes, yay, brilliant right away. I And that's when we said, you know, I don't want it just to be product. I want
it to be education and community. And we have a website and we have three spaces Meno Guides, which is for education. We have the Hotspot, which is community where people can come and chat together and we have the product. So it's a kind of a three pronged business.
It's so smart, Naomi, Oh, thank you. And also, like you said, menopause is very specific to the person. It happens at different times. You know, it's not like we all go into menopause it's sixty. I have a friend who went into menopause in her early thirties, like you, had no idea what was going on, wrote an article about it, and no magazine would publish it.
Oh my god.
I mean I'm talking about like beauty mag you know, girly fashion.
Me.
Nobody wanted to publish it because they were like, nobody wants to read about menopause.
This is such a downer.
And yet this was probably fifteen years ago, and the change. She even said to me, it's amazing how much people are now talking about it and embracing it, and even with women, like my friends are like, oh God, get some coconut oil out, Like everybody has conversation about how to deal with the symptoms.
It's not a dirty little secret.
I think a lot of that is to do with the internet. You know, we're the first generation of having the internet and as much as it makes us crazy, and you know, there's a lot of awful things about what's going on in social media and on the internet, but this has.
Been a helpful thing.
And I mean the internet was just getting started as my menopause was, so I was very much on my own and really had to be my own best advocate. And as you probably know that weren't even trained in menopause, most of them. They probably spend a few hours on it or a few days. And you know, because women are not talking about it, they don't know how to ask the questions, or they are basically being messaged.
It's not a problem. You can handle it. Just suck it up.
Yeah, Well, that's the joke of in our society is if men had menopause, you know, there'd be a pill. Yes, you know, they have viagra, they have everything else. But you know, because it's us, because it's women, it's like they don't spend a lot of time or money. I put something out on my Instagram where I was saying, you know, I'm talking about menopause on my podcast, and a lot of women wrote in with you know, the
sort of complaints you hear over and over again. And the reason I want to bring them up is because you actually have done research and have products and things in stripes that help with these certain issues. So the first one that I hear constantly is A Dry Vagina, which is a new movie starring Naomi Once. I know that you have a product that's helpful because I've heard, like I said before, coconut oil. I've heard so many different things, and I really think women struggle with this.
Yeah.
So yeah, what I knew about menopause was, as I said, very little. I knew about hot flashes, and I knew about brain fog, and then I got onto dry skin. I was doing a TV show at the time, and my skin was itchy and angry and irritable, and I didn't know what was happening. I'm doing twelve to sixteen hour days and I have hot lights and multiple applications of makeup and my skin is raging, and nobody could
tell me. They just gave me a topical ointment. And you know, now your skin is the same all over your body, so that dryness that occurred is going to unfortunately reach you in other places, be everywhere.
Yeah, but I didn't know that this was a symptom.
And anyway, long story short, I got very deeply.
Passionate about skincare.
But yeah, we have two vaginal products or vaginal products however you want to say. One is the loop called oh My Glide, and one is the moisturizer, which is called Badge of Honor.
And we wanted to be funny with names.
We have to be.
Yeah, we have to embrace this time, you know. No more the crazy lady that has to go to the corner and with her knitting needles. No, you know, we want to be in our best and now we actually the time is yours to embrace because our kids are getting a bit older. I know, we still have teenagers and they've got their high level needs. But some of us, you know, have empty nests or they're about to empty. So you can put the time and invest in yourself
now for the first time. And you know that means with your skin and understanding how to keep your sex life alive, because again, women turn in on themselves if they don't have you know, the education piece.
It's right, takes a little more effort, but so does everything.
And by the way, a lot of my female friends when they hit menopause and their libido went down and their vaginas were dry. You know, they just thought there's something wrong with me. They shut down, their marriage suffer for it, And my feeling is and love. I wanted to tell you George's reaction. My husband when I got your box, he was like he saw the lube and was like, oh, let's let's go.
Come on, let's try.
I mean, more we are comfortable with it, the more are partners will be comfortable with it as well.
You know what I mean?
Why is it any different than you know, a vibrator or something else. It's just in a cultra moll in the bedroom exactly.
I think you've just got to embrace that first awkward, icky moment.
And actually I think the men in our lives are grateful to be brought in on the information, and you know, if they're a good person, they're going to be.
How can I help, you know?
I was so grateful once I brought the conversation up into my relationship. I certainly did my best to hide it for a period of time. And as I said it, you know, it's just it's too exhausting to keep that secret. I mean, I'm on HRT safe from me, I had the patch, and I would find myself running to the bathroom.
And scratching it off.
And as you know, there's a certain amount of adhesiveness on there that you know, you just can't get off. Doesn't peel off like a band aid. It leaves a black it looks like a bullet wound. So I would be like scratching the hell out of my skin and then you know, literally lose a layer or two, and he'd be like, is that okay?
Are you okay?
So I had to just get real and honest about it, and you know, unbeknownst to me, he was like, Wow, let's just embrace this. You know, he's not squeamish, he's my age. He understands he's not, you know, And it's so much easier for everybody.
And by the way, the stress, the stress you have keeping it in, even the stress affects the relationship. You know, how great and freeing would it be for a woman to be able to go, oh shit, I'm having a hot flash. Oh my god, Oh my god, get me some water, you know, haha, you know, make it yeah, just part of life. And I want to end because I'm so grateful for the time you gave me with the fact that I put this on social media, and I've never been so by questions and comments than I
have been about menopause. I mean, women want to talk about it and they want that community.
Oh that is so great to hear, Allie. I mean, the thing is is that and it's the one when you're in the bed right, Yes.
Thank you. I tried to make it sex.
Yeah, and it's your humor. As I say, it becomes instantly more accessible and you're being sexy. And you know, I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And I'm so grateful that other people are out there. There's so many now and that are opening it and normalizing it, making it fun. We just need the tools, we need permission, and honestly, the door has been crapped and everyone is just barging through, running out, screaming and going.
Yay, it's true.
What can we do to make this the best time of our lives? You know, We've got plenty of energy left and plenty to do. I'm not far from it.
Listen, I think we get better with age, and I'm not just saying a bumper sticker because we have to. I've never had more energy, been smarter, gotten more done. Like I wish I had the brain I had maybe when I was thirty. But I feel like I'm just getting started. I know it sounds like a cliche, but like I do we just produce this documentary. I've written books like I'm like, let's go.
I agree, I'm with you all the way.
Yeah. So I've asked you about your vagina and all kinds of things, and so now in my podcast, I like to turn it on my guest and say, you can ask me anything.
Okay, it's a simple question, but it often leads to interesting response.
When was the last time you cried?
Oh?
What a fantastic question. The last time I cried, which ties into our conversation is I was having some insomnia, which I have because of menopause, and I was lying in bed. My oldest daughter's in college, my youngest is going to college in the fall, and I was lying in bed one night, you know, George was snoring next to me, and I started thinking about, like, oh my god, it's really I'm about to enter this whole new chapter.
And I had this sort of these film clips of you know, painting rocks on the beach and lemonade stands and all these kind of moments of you know, youth and laughter and them so little and innocent, and yeah, I teared up.
It was it was.
Joyous and sad and I just thought, wow, I'm never going to have those moments, all those times I bitched about the parent teacher conference in first grade, like I want that back.
So that was the last was a couple of weeks ago.
Yeah, that's part of this. This is there is a grief, but again acknowledging it and no that everyone goes through it is half the solve. It's just a transition. It's just a change. Every transition that we've come up against in life has created a level of fear, sadness, all of those things, and it's just another version of that.
Yeah, it's just as Oprah would say, it's just another chapter. Yeah, sometimes it's hard to turn the page, but then once you're in it, you know there are great things about it.
Yeah, absolutely great question. Thank you, and our cumulative experiences matter. Yeah, knowing how to that you can write that way because of all of the ups and downs we've been.
Through before, it's wonderful.
Well, we're going to have in our show notes how one can go to your website get your products. I'm going to lube up after this podcast. So thank you, Naomi, really thank you, because yes, your products are amazing, but you've started a conversation.
That is time. It's well timed.
We all talked about it, laughed about it, and I think that women are very, very grateful for this.
I just want to say the badge of Honna is a great thing to use every day as a moisturize because we need like we need it on our faces. It's great, you know, especially if you exercise or like to wear a tight pair of pants.
Yeah, we really do get dry. I mean my hair, everything.
Yeah, everything from scalp to badge.
As we say, yes, scalp to badge, which is the name of my new autobiography. Thank you so much, Naomi, really thank.
You, Thank you, Allie, thank you, And it's time.
For a short break.
But when we come back, I talk with a trailblazer in the UK who's advocating for people experiencing perimenopause and menopause in the workplace.
Game changer.
And welcome back to go ask Alli. So let me introduce you to Pat Duckworth. She's a therapist and coach in the UK who specializes in women's well being and menopause. Pat has published five books, including the award winning Hot Women, Cool Solutions, How to Control Menopause Symptoms using Mind Body Techniques.
Her latest book, Menopause, Mind the Gap, The Value of Supporting Women's Health in the Workplace, is a manifesto of sorts to the bosses on why they should and how they can support employees experiencing the menopausal transition at the height of their careers. She's an international speaker at women's conferences and a frequent BBC and media guest in the UK.
Hello, Pat Pally, good to meet you. Okay, let's get into it.
So I'm going to ask a very elementary question, and it's just for the one or two men that happened to come across this podcast and we just need to inform them very quickly. How do you explain menopause?
I explain it as the twin of puberty. So just as puberty, your hormones start kicking in and you start to experience body changes, and then you know your body's preparing to be reproductive. Then at the other end of it, your hormones are starting to reduce and your body is getting the end of its reproductive phase. So not many women get that excited about menopause.
No, it's not an exciting time, although there are benefits to it. It's interesting that you say it's the twin to puberty, because and I have two daughters. Puberty can be pretty hormonal and crazy too. You know, I had horrible period cramps, I was crying all the time, you know, So it does have its downsides as well.
Yeah, and just as at puberty, some young women sail through it and you know, they they have one spot on their face and perhaps they throw one tantrum and they're through. And then for other girls it goes on for ages and it can be this hormonal roller coaster and acne and you know, disrupted sleep and mood changes. So just the same way at menopause, some women can sail through it and say oh, yeah, one day my period stopped. That was it, and you go, oh, that's
really good. And then other women say, oh, this has been going on for years and I just feel like rubbish and when will it end? So it's very similar in that way.
I mean, menopause does affect us all emotionally and in terms of our cognitive health. And one of the things that I've noticed, particularly between me and my friends, is in perimenopause and menopause there is a brain fog and a different kind of emotional reaction that is not there with puberty. Otherwise we all would have gotten out of
our midterm exams. And because of that, you believe, and I support you in this, that adjustments and strategies should be put in the workplace because for many women there's medical menopause issues, hysterectomies and medication, and you are leading the way in the UK into discussing menopause in the workplace. So tell me about that. How did this come about and what is your righteous stance?
When I first started talking about this subject twelve years ago, if I was talking about it in a business setting, you could see tumbleweed go across the room, like why are we talking about this? What's this about? In the past, I would say five years, the focus has turned onto it. I think I gave my first talk on this in a government department probably seven years ago, so in public service. So the public sector was starting to go, huh, you know, we've got a lot of women who are in this
mid forties to mid fifties age range. Something's going on at that stage that I think we need to know about.
And then we here may I interject and say women over fifty are the fastest growing demographic in the workplace, absolutely, so big star next to that.
Yeah, so more women over fifty than ever in the workplace, women who have benefited from maternity leave and have stayed in their jobs and built really good careers. And here in the UK there has also been moves to create more equality the workplace with something that was called the Equality Act in twenty ten. So this is a piece of government legislation and it required employers to look at eight characteristics of employees that were protected and age is
one of the protected characteristics. Gender is another one, and sexuality is another one, and disability is another of those characteristics. What it meant to be a protected characteristic was that employers couldn't discriminate against employees on the basis of any
of these characteristics. Now, menopause wasn't mentioned as a characteristic, but if you look at age, gender, and potentially disability, because for some women, you know, the symptoms are so extreme that they have been considered to be a disability,
not many, thank heavens, but for some. And so these factors came together to mean that employers were starting to look at issues of corporate responsibility, corporate social responsibility, and their responsibility to their employees and say, there is something here about menopause that we need to know about. We've got women in senior positions, women with a lot of experience and knowledge who are in the workplace, and you know,
some of them are not having a good time. They're not going for promotion, they're perhaps going to working part time at what's going on? What do we need to know about this subject? And so that conversation has become much freer in the UK, I'm really pleased to say. And now when I go and talk to groups about it, they're like, come on in, Yeah, we need to talk about this.
Yeah.
It's interesting because this morning I was taking a walk with a female friend of mine and I said, I'm talking to Pat Duckworth about menopause in the workplace and she said, oh gosh, I wonder if it's going to hurt women to have more accommodations in the workplace. And I said, I'm going to ask her that.
It's a good question. And this gets raised a lot, and sometimes it gets raised in that pushback, you know, when you're starting to make advances, and it's not always men. Sometimes it's women who go, oh, this will be no good for us. But I think backs when I started work, and I am so old that you know, when I
started work, women didn't automatically get equal pay. And when we were fighting for equal pay, it was, oh, if we get equal pay, employees won't want to employ us because they have to pay us the same money, which is now you look back on it and say, that's a ridiculous argument. And then you know, we've got equal pay legislation. And then we were into oh, well we want maternity leave. Oh, if we get maternity leave, we won't get employed. Yeah, and we got maternity leave, and
do you know what, we still got employed. And then we moved on in this country, in the UK into mental health issues, and then it was oh, if we start acknowledging mental health issues, people who have that kind
of problem won't get employed. Well, mental health issues were discussed and now a lot of employers have mental health first aiders because they realize that people have lives outside the workplace that affect them, and the more you can support them, the more you'll retain them, and the better
the performance they'll put in. So it's a really good question, and as women, we need to go you know, we get these arguments and we have to work through them and show that this is important because women are leaving the workplace because they're experiencing menopause experience. Women are walking away from their careers, and that's really important. Employers don't always know that that's why they're losing their senior staff.
Right, Okay, if the woman needs time to distress or she's dealing with symptoms of menopause, have you found in or research that there's any kind of coworker backlash or the feeling that then the woman who's experiencing menopause her work gets sort of dumped on the other person's.
That's an important management issue and it's about how you handle it. So part of this is about educating managers about how they can make adjustments, but also educating colleagues to understand it as well. I think when you get more understanding, it's easier to make the accommodation. And of course a lot of the accommodations are personal to the
employee and wouldn't affect anybody else. But if you don't make the accommodations, then the person won't be performing as well as they could anyway, and that will fall onto their colleagues. So if you've got somebody who's, you know, very is having lots of mood swings while they're going through this, they don't feel they can talk about it. There's no acceptance of it in the workplace. They're probably not going to be as good a team worker as
they've been before. Many women say that they kind of withdraw and become more isolated. And so somebody who was a really good colleague, who you loved talking to, who was always up for doing a bit more, and suddenly they're withdrawing and isolating and their performance has gone down. Well, if you don't take any action, that's not going to get any better. So it's in the education and in the management of it that means that that person can be a good team player, and it's really explaining that
and educating the colleagues as well. And of course the colleagues might be experiencing this at home with their own partner and understanding it a bit more would help them in their personal lives as well. So there's a lot to do around education and good management.
I mean, do you think that a lot of times it comes out of age, Meaning if you're having bad menopause symptoms, they think, oh, well, she's just too old. She can't work, she's forgetting things. You know, she's stapling her finger to this, and they just chock it up to age.
Yeah, And I think that's another big worry. And I hear it more from women in North America then I hear it in the UK. For some women it's that, oh, you know, they'll know that I'm getting older. They'll start judging me on it and thinking, perhaps I can't do as much as I used to do. And that's another thing that we have to overcome because this can happen
to women at all ages. Well I should say people are all ages, because it affects the transgender community as well, and of course it impacts men because strangely, men have mothers and partners and sisters, and have colleagues and employees who are affected by this. So we have to face the aging issue and say, do you know what, it's much better to be getting older than not be getting older.
So I am an employer. You have come to me, you have spoken to my group. Tell me your adjustments and strategies that you think that my business should input to make for a healthier, more productive work environment.
Yeah. So my first thing to any employer is ask your employees, because there are some very simple things that you can do. But there's no point in giving everybody a desk fan if they don't want a desk fan. You know, it's and it's we're looking at all these different roles. Even if we took firefighters, you say, Okay, you know we're an enlightened employer. We're going to give
you all desk fans and access to drinking water. And then the firefighting women would go, well, actually, we're out of the office a lot, and we have completely different demands. You know, there are some things that will be very different. And you know, it could be that somebody needs to be near ventilation, or they might need to be near the air conditioning unit. They might need more brakes to
go to the washroom. Now, I took it for granted, having worked in offices for many years, that I could always go to the washroom when I wanted to, but that's not the case in every form of employment. Sometimes in retail you've got set times when you can go to the washroom. If your periods are changing and you're getting heavier, more frequent periods or unexpected ones that come by surprise, you need to get to a washroom. It might be that you need access to cold drinking water.
You might even need somewhere you can go and lie down. Some really enlightened employers have provided restrooms that are literally restrooms where there's a bed or a sofa or a chair, because sometimes you can get cliff edge fatigue where you're just suddenly so tired that you know you could fall asleep on your desk. So it can be simple things like that that can be really helpful. Reviewing somebody's duties.
Is somebody standing up a lot of the time, and could they do with duties where they get to take a break. Because you can get really aching legs during menopause, that can be a thing, and it might be that you need to sit down. So it's really talking to your employees and saying what would support you the most, and listening to people at all levels in your organization to find out what their.
Needs are, right and it's time for a short break. Welcome back to go ask Galie.
So, when we're talking a little bit about hormones, particularly during menopause, do you advocate for having somebody in the company, in the workplace that someone can go to if they're feeling particularly blue or weepy, or just having some kind of a hormonal crash.
Yes. So it depends on the size of the organization. If you're working in a big company that has an occupational health person that somebody can go to, that can be really helpful. Some organizations have put in place menopause champions, and that is it's not a full time role, it's a voluntary role. Often somebody who has a particular interest, who wants to develop more and find out more, and that person could be the one who signposts you towards
where you could get some help. Now, in small organizations, it won't be in house, but perhaps they've got a link to somewhere that they can refer you to so that you can go and have a chat with somebody. Because anxiety is a very common symptom of menopause, it may not be the hormones. It might just be like the context that you're in because you're going through menopause at a time that's really busy. You could have older parents who need help, or you've got children getting the
stage of leaving home or just being teenagers. You know, your career might have got to a certain stage, there might be relationship issues. So the context that you're going through menopause can be stress inducing in itself.
I know that a lot of women get confused about if they're in perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause. So when you talk about menopause in the workplace, does is it all under that same umbrella.
Yeah, because this is just the term that we use. I'm menopause, strictly speaking, is a single day. It's the one year after your last menstruation. It's that day. Everything else is really perimenopause, which is the time leading up to menopause when you may be experiencing symptoms. So this is very much the stage when you need that support in the workplace and at home.
So just to be clear, let's say I'm thirty two and I'm in perimenopause. Should I not expect to have the kind of support that, say, my coworker Genie whose fifty six is getting like, how are we defining who gets help in the workplace?
So we're defining it as women in perimenopause who are experiencing menopause or symptoms, so they might not realize that it is. So Genie at thirty two is thinking, I am way too young. This can't be menopause because that happens to women much later. And then she goes to her medal practitioner who says, I'll just check this out and comes back and says, you are going through perimenopause. And you know, I have certainly spoken to women that that has happened to and it's come as a huge
shock to them. And in one particular case, a woman who was working in quite a small company and she received the news on her thirty sixth birthday that yes, she was in perimenopause. And so she had to go back to her colleagues who weren't yet at that stage. They were older than her and not at that stage, and she had to say to them, listen, you know
this stuff that's been going on. You know, I've been forgetting stuff and it turns out I'm going through perimenopause and they hadn't been through it, and they were going, Okay, you are our pathfinder. You're going to have to tell us what this is like and what we need to do.
The question of stress, many many, many jobs are stressful, and how do you differentiate between the stress of a job, personal stress, and the stress that comes with menopause and how do you manage it?
So stress can be a big contributor to symptoms. And some people just do very stressful jobs. Their jobs just are whatever it is, whatever sector that they're working in, and so for those people, it's about how they manage their stress normally, how they can manage it outside the workplace. So how do they d stress, Like what are they eating and drinking, because that can reduce your stress in the workplace as well as at home. If you love
your coffee, I'm afraid this is bad news. You need to stop drinking it at lunch time because that will help you to reduce your stress. So it's looking at people holistically and saying, yeah, we know that your job is stressful, and what are the small steps that you can take that actually reduce your stress levels generally and in the workplace, whether it's having breathing techniques that you use, whether it's looking at your nutrition, how are you exercising,
how you sleeping, which is a really important one. All of these things, if we look at them holistically, can reduce anybody's stress, regardless of what they're doing in the workplace.
I do want to emphasize that I have heard from many women that sleep deprivation is a big symptom of menopause. And I have a few friends that have very very big jobs and the sleep deprivation really affects them. It's a real problem.
And it is an issue. It is to do with the hormones and the way that our brains regulate our sleep, and so it's a really important thing if you're not sleeping well to get some help, to look at it again holistically. What could you be doing in order to sleep better.
I find that walking, I walk like six miles in the morning is the only thing that can me to sleep at night. Because of menopause, I got to literally tire myself out like some kind of a hound dog. Yeah.
One of my colleagues has written a really good article about it. She's saying, just as with everything else, it's not a one size fits all. Yeah, you know, and people get hooked on, oh I need to do this, I need to do that, And she's saying, how do you soothe yourself? How do you soothe yourself to sleep? And there's loads of different things you can do. It's about, Okay, let's look at a whole range of things and what could you be changing that will help. I see a lot of women with sleep issues.
So I'm thinking about my mother, who was and is a force. And she used to say she was so happy and relieved when she was postmenopausal because she said she had more energy and more grit and got a lot more done.
Have you found that too?
Maybe maybe women in their sixties and seven are the most prolific and the most productive employees of all.
I love your mother. I've never met her, and I love her already because this is the message that gets missed. I mean, I left my corporate job when I was going through menopause at fifty four. I have never been more productive than I am now. You know. I've written five books since then, I've traveled the world talking about menopause. I've done things I would never have expected. And this is the bonus of menopause. We're getting an upgrade. We're
getting a reset. This is a chance when if you start to experience symptoms to go, oh, okay, how do I respond to this? I either go negative and go, oh, my goodness, I'm getting older this is the end, in which case it probably will be, or you go oh, right, so I'm not going to have to deal with monthly period. I'm not going to have to be on that mood roller coaster anymore. I'm not worried about my fertility anymore. And many women get a boost in energy and a
passion for things they weren't passionate about before. It can be that passion goes into community work, it could go into your career, it could go into a different career because suddenly you can really focus on the things that are very important to you.
I also wonder historically, if you know, back in the day, we didn't live that long, so probably by the time you're experiencing menopause, you've also got scurvy and you're dying. So it's almost as if menopause got tacked on to the end of life. Really, I think it's why it got such a bad rap, and now that we're living so much longer, menopause is just a midpoint, not an end point.
Yeah, yes, so we should really be thinking, Okay, that's the first half of my life was this, you know, to Kara Partner, all the things that we do which take up a lot of our time, and now we get to a midpoint where we say, who do I want to be, how do I want to be in this next fifty years and really taking the opportunity to review our well being, our nutrition, our exercise, how we deal with stress, so that we're setting a really strong
foundation for the next thirty forty fifty years, however long we've got, because it is a privilege to get this far and to have this second opportunity to do something great with the rest of our lives.
Well, it sounds like we need to change the reputation of menopause a little bit. It's always gotten a bad rap because it's a very antiquated idea. Again, because we live longer, and because women now have so many next chapters, the menopause of all does not equate to what we do with now. And I love that we should be
supported in the workplace. I think initially through communication and knowledge in the workplace, but I think Also, the bigger thing is that we stop the prejudice against menopause.
Yeah, I'm part of a group who aren't really trying to change this very negative narrative because so many women kind of don't talk to me about menopause. I think there's sort of fear that they might bring it on if they talk about it and they put their things there is instead of like, oh well, let me find out about this so that I can do everything I need to do to be really healthy and to live this really good life post menopause.
I mean, I do feel in our culture the change in how we look at menopause, particularly because I think certainly back when my mother was going through it, there was nothing written about it. People didn't talk about it. In she said, it was all whispers with her friends, like what are you doing about a drive vagina? What
are you doing about painful intercourse? And I think now people are talking about it much more, which makes it less of a you know, something you discussed in dark hallways and whispers, And now people are saying drive vagina out loud as opposed to whispering it.
Yeah. I gave a talk a cancer support group, and the women there you know, going through treatments cancer and that can bring on menopause symptoms as well. And I took along a bagful of samples of vaginal moisturizers and lubricants, and I think they were quite surprised that that's what I turned up with. You know that it's a cancer
support group. But three months later I went back to do another talk and a woman came up to me said, have you got any one of the lubricants because I wasn't here last time and my mum brought me some, but I need some more. And I said, oh, I just happened to have some here, so I'm like the lubricant fairy.
Now, Oh my gosh, Pat, I got to have you at my next party. So I always ask my guests a million questions, and I always say I have to allow.
Them to ask me something.
So now is the part where you get to ask me any question about anything?
Okay, So you've had this great career and it's still an ongoing career. I want to know, is there any comic role, either on stage or on TV that you would love to play?
M Oh, my goodness, well, I do love comedy, so if there was a some kind of version of absolutely fabulous.
I would love to do that.
And as I was thinking talking to you, I thought, wait a minute, there were the vagina monologues, But how come they're not the menopause monologues. Maybe we should produce those any remake of anything Goldiehn has done. I mean, you know, if I can slip and fall and hit a wall, I'm a happy girl. So thank you, Pat,
Thank you so much. And I can't wait for so much of what you're doing to come over to this side of the pond and be implemented in a lot of the corporate structures over here in America, because I think what you're doing is fantastic.
Thank you so much. It's just been such a pleasure. And I have done some talks for American companies, so we're getting in there. Hopefully things will improve for women everywhere.
Well, just bring all your little packets of lube and America will embrace you.
I'm packing my bag.
Thank you for listening to go ask Gali.
I feel moisturized, lubricated, and hopeful. You can follow Naomi on Instagram at Naomi Watts and at I Am Underscore Stripes. Pat is also on Instagram and she's at pat Duckworth one their websites and more info and what you heard in this episode are in our show notes. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review, Go Ask Gali and follow me on social media on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth.
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