Menopause - the last workplace taboo?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 29 June 2021
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Women across the globe are leaving their jobs and sometimes careers because they are unsupported at work when they go through the menopause. But could mandated menopause leave re-dress the balance?
Ivana Davidovic speaks with Lauren Chiren, who abandoned her high-flying career in finance because her menopause symptoms were so bad she thought she had early onset dementia. Karen Arthur, who also left her job as a teacher due to menopause and now hosts the Menopause While Black podcast, says that women of colour are particularly worried about being sidelined at work.
British MP Carolyn Harris discusses her "menopause revolution", while Emily Mutua, an HR executive from Nairobi, says that menopause conversations in Kenyan workplaces are almost non-existent. Plus Tanuj Kapilashrami from Standard Chartered explains what the big multinational bank has in store to support its staff, and Australian professor Marian Baird asks whether some of the menstrual and menopause policies could actually increase discrimination.
(Picture: Co-workers having a meeting in the lobby; Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily with me, Ivana Davidovich. |
| 0:04.5 | Is Metapause the last workplace taboo? |
| 0:07.3 | And does it cause a significant number of senior women to abandon their jobs and even careers? |
| 0:12.5 | I would be in a meeting holding on the arms of a chair. |
| 0:15.4 | My heart would be beating out of my chest. |
| 0:17.2 | I couldn't focus on the meeting. |
| 0:18.7 | The thought of asking for help and support didn't even really cross my mind. It was either you're an A-Star performer or you leave. |
| 0:25.1 | Some companies are taking note and introducing menopause leave, but in some cases, women |
| 0:30.6 | worry it could lead to unintended discrimination at work. The black men I talk to are |
| 0:35.0 | concerned about letting work know that they are menopausal. |
| 0:38.3 | It's hard enough to get promotion as you get older without also adding into the fact your race. |
| 0:44.3 | That's coming up on Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:52.5 | One day I was sat in my doctor's surgery thinking I had early onset dementia. |
| 0:58.0 | I met Lauren Choran at the London Park. |
| 1:00.6 | She came across as confident, friendly and super articulate. |
| 1:04.5 | However, eight years ago, her situation was very different. |
| 1:08.6 | Lauren was a high-flying executive in the financial industry in the UK, |
| 1:12.5 | when debilitating symptoms made her think she was seriously ill. I was a senior executive in financial |
| 1:18.7 | services and leading global teams in India, the states and the UK, loving my job, really thrived |
| 1:24.3 | on the complexity of the work that I did. And I suddenly found myself really unable to speak up in meetings. |
| 1:31.0 | I would be in a meeting holding onto the arms of a chair, my heart would be beating out of my chest, I couldn't focus on the meeting. |
| 1:37.3 | I'd literally wait until everyone had left and I'd be using my hands in the walls to get back to my desk because I was so scared of falling over. |
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