The British Transport Police have axed their annual compulsory fitness test, on the basis that it is discriminatory. Women were more likely to fail the “bleep test” – a multi-stage, short-interval running test – and therefore more likely to get shunted to the back office, which a 2021 report showed was contributing to the gender pay gap.
It was a particular source of indirect discrimination against menopausal women, which makes instinctive sense to people who conceive menopause as one universal, unavoidable negative – but I think, as an assumption, this is a little too casual. Menopause, however intense a form it takes – and the variation is massive – is a physical stocktaking event, and a lot of women end up fitter during and after it than they were before. I remember a personal trainer describing it as forcing you to engage with your body, and ask what kind of old age you wanted to have, concluding that women live longer than men because of that midlife period of reflection and adjustment. I said that in a meeting, once, and a colleague, who is also my friend, replied: “That is complete bollocks.”
