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.”
At a different meeting about managerial responses to menopause, after a long discussion, someone tried to sum up the conclusions: a decent manager should never skirt the issue, yet at the same time should never mention it uninvited; should make allowances but never assume that allowances are necessary; shouldn’t wait to be asked what support is available, but at the same time should always wait to be asked. Put like that, it sounded impossible, until another colleague contributed: “Or in other words, act like a human being who isn’t stupid.”
I wouldn’t want to adjudicate on the police fitness test; it seems likely to me that menopause-aged men might also be relieved to see the back of it, or that a lot of menopausal women would smash a bleep test faster than the patriarchy. What would really discriminate against menopausal women would be a “politeness in meetings” test.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
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