Carol Vorderman told MPs that government ministers "don't give a stuff" about the menopause after reading a heart-wrenching testimony from women suffering in the workplace. The 62-year-old former Countdown star relayed experiences from working class women on how they had been treated by employers, as she attended a Women and Equalities Committee hearing.
Carol, who herself is a patron for campaign group Menopause Mandate, began by saying: “These are working class women. They don't have the voice, they don't necessarily have the confidence or the ability and the structure and the process to go through."
She then added: "There stories go on and on and on, hundreds of them have been coming in. These women have to be listened to and it has to change, we keep coming back to the same conversation. It's the 21st century and where are the ministers? It shows me they don't have any willingness, it shows me that actually they don't give a stuff about what's happening to all these women, and they don't care." For more showbiz and television stories get our newsletter here.
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Presenter and TV personality Carol had earlier called out MP Maria Caulfield, Minister for Women in the Department for Business and Trade for not attending the committee meeting. She also accused Kemi Badenoch, Women and Equalities Minister of "patronising statements" when she spoke on the menopause to the committee earlier this month, and defended the government's rejection of a cross-party call to help women going through it.
Ms Badenoch had said that calls for a pilot on menopause leave were from a "left wing perspective", and said she didn't think "creating another pilot on more leave" would help. Earlier this week, Ms Caulfield said on Twitter that she had sent alternative dates to the committee, for when she could attend the hearing.
Speaking to the committee this afternoon, Carol said: "These are the two women in government who are meant to represent the female population. I was disgusted personally by both of them." In the past, she has been outspoken about how the menopause brought on depression for her.
In 2016, Carol said: “I got to my 50s – and I love my 50s – but the menopause is a bit challenging. It was last year in particular. I had six months when I was really low. I’m not a depressed person but in that space of time I was genuinely depressed.
“It got to Christmas and I thought, ‘God, what on Earth is wrong? I can’t bear this’. I analysed exactly the times that it happened and it was linked directly to the times that are important to a woman every month. I thought, ‘That’s what it is’.”
The menopause starts when a woman’s periods stop and her ovaries lose their reproductive function. Read more about it on the NHS website.
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