Good morning. Last year, the House of Commons’ women and equalities committee made a set of significant recommendations on how to better protect the workplace rights of women experiencing menopause. Yesterday, three and a half months late, the government accepted a few of the proposals in principle or in part – although committee chair Caroline Nokes said that it had committed to “very little new work”. Zoe Williams describes the areas of agreement as “the floppy, pointless bits” to which nobody could possibly object.
Meanwhile, the government rejected five recommendations, including more radical ideas about better protections against discrimination, arguing that agreeing to them could … discriminate against men.
That response was “complacent” and progress has been “glacial”, Nokes said – adding that it left her “unconvinced that menopause is a government priority”. Today’s newsletter, with the Open University’s Prof Jo Brewis, is about what kind of issues face women experiencing menopause in the workplace – and what it would it look like to take them seriously.
Five big stories
Ukraine | Berlin is reportedly set to succumb to huge international pressure by announcing that it will send German-manufactured Leopard tanks to Ukraine and allow their re-export by other European allies. The US also appears poised to begin work towards sending its own M1 Abrams tanks, which could have significant implications for Kyiv’s efforts to repel Russian forces.
Levelling up | Councils are being forced to freeze levelling up projects or find millions from their own squeezed budgets to complete works because of soaring costs which have exceeded government grants. At least £500m has been lost from different levelling up funds due to inflation and rising costs.
US gun violence | Joe Biden has again called on Congress to pass a bill banning assault weapons, following a string of recent mass shootings in California that in total killed at least 18 people. Biden said that the “commonsense” bill should be passed immediately.
BBC | Richard Sharp has insisted that there was no conflict of interest when he was appointed the chair of the BBC by Boris Johnson, following allegations that he helped the then prime minister secure a loan of up to £800,000 only a week earlier.
Entertainment | Everything Everywhere All At Once, the action comedy starring Michelle Yeoh, is the frontrunner heading into this years Oscars, with 11 nominations. The news that Ireland has a record 14 nominations, including nine for the Banshees of Inisherin, prompted jokes that the ceremony should be relocated from Los Angeles to Dublin.
In depth: ‘The only way round the problem is going through it’
In 1857, Dr Edward Tilt published the first full-length work on menopause in English, “The change of life in health and disease”. He described it as “a loss of feminine grace”, and prescribed remedies including opium, morphine, and vaginal injections of lead acetate, more recently an ingredient in hair dye: “Menopause can cause alcoholism or mania, and could even make women murderously violent,” he wrote. “I suggest a small glass of sherry before dinner, if the woman becomes hysterical then chloroform may be administered.”
If the general view of menopause is a little less medieval now, it is still, by many accounts, a taboo subject. And in the workplace, the issue is arguably more urgent than ever. There are 4.5 million women aged 50-64 in employment. The number went up by 21% between 1992 and 2018, against just under 12% among men. And while in 1986 the average age at which women left the labour market was 60, in 2020 it was 64.
“Some women certainly still worry about how they will be viewed if it is talked about,” said Professor Jo Brewis, who has been researching menopause in the workplace since 2016 and was a witness to the inquiry. “They think – please don’t give them another reason to discriminate against us. But menopause is a practically universal experience for people with ovaries. So the only way round that problem is going through it.”
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How does menopause affect women at work?
While there has been significant progress in how employers think about the menopause in recent years, there is still plenty of evidence that menopausal and perimenopausal (when symptoms begin before periods stop) women are at a disadvantage.
A 2019 survey by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD) found that three in five menopausal women, mostly aged 45-55, said they had been negatively affected at work. And research published in 2021 suggests that women in the UK with problematic symptoms at the age of 50 were 43% more likely to have left their jobs five years later.
Although they vary widely, there are very real problems that can arise from menopause: difficulty sleeping, headaches, and hot flushes – but also cognitive challenges, anxiety, and depression. (This excellent recent piece by Gaby Hinsliff lays out some of the mental health effects.) Some of this can be exacerbated by workplaces where it is impossible to control ventilation or temperature, or with inadequate access to toilets – but there are subtler cultural and social factors, Brewis said.
“Yes, it’s things like ventilation, but it’s also about support and compassion and women feeling reluctant to disclose their symptoms,” she said. “There can be a vicious circle effect, where not only do the symptoms make working life more difficult, but working life makes the symptoms more difficult, as well.”
All of that is multiplied by fears about women losing ground at work if they admit to symptoms stereotypically viewed as making them less capable, worse leaders, and somehow “past it”. While MPs heard evidence that workplace discrimination is “widespread” and “shocking”, only 44 of nearly 79,000 employment tribunal decisions between 2017 and 2021 mentioned menopause.
Brewis told the inquiry that research on menopause in the workplace is largely “about professional or managerial white, middle-class, able-bodied women”. And it also heard evidence that there are underreported challenges with menopause for women of colour, younger women – who in rare cases may also experience menopause – and LGBTQ people, with hardly any evidence available about the experience of trans men and non-binary people.
“We really urgently need that research,” Brewis said. Even without it, one conclusion appears safe to draw: “In many cases, it’s the context that is the problem as much as the symptoms.”
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What did the committee want to do?
A lot of things. The committee, led by Conservative MP Caroline Nokes (above), asked in its report (pdf) for a range of changes, running from cheaper hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and improved GP training to piloting specific menopause leave policies and making it a right to request flexible working from day one of employment.
Perhaps most radical, though, were proposals around discrimination. The committee called for an update to the Equality Act so that discrimination cases could be brought on the basis of two separate characteristics, a step that would make claims on the combined basis of age and sex possible, and significantly increase protections for older women (among others).
It also said that menopause itself should be made a new “protected characteristic”. At the moment, women often make a discrimination claim on the basis of disability, which makes proving their case more difficult and strikes many as a false description of what menopause and the discrimination stemming from it are.
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What happened?
In September, Brewis wrote that as the co-author of a previous Government Equalities Office report on menopause’s effects on women’s economic participation, she felt the government had “failed to take us seriously”. “Nevertheless,” she added, “this time I’m optimistic.”
The government did accept (pdf) some of the report’s recommendations in whole or in part, agreeing to improve GP training, make changes on flexible working, and appoint a menopause ambassador to monitor businesses’ progress. Deborah Garlick, founder of training and support group Henpicked, said in a Woman’s Hour interview yesterday that she viewed some of those outcomes as “really good wins”.
But it rejected five of the recommendations – among them those which appear to have the greatest potential to improve menopausal women’s rights. The idea of making menopause a protected characteristic was rejected in part because it could create discrimination “towards men suffering from long-term medical conditions”.
Yesterday, Brewis said she was “so disappointed – that’s a very weak word for how I feel. I thought that the arguments the committee made were so convincing about the impact that I really didn’t see how it could be ignored.”
There are some concerns that menopause is hard to precisely define in law. But, said Brewis, “there are other protected characteristics which can be unclear at the margins. There would be ways of establishing this as there are in other cases.” She said that the concern about men’s rights was “spurious”.
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So where does that leave menopausal women?
Those who supported the committee’s findings are keen to note that significant progress has been made in recent years – a change which Garlick described as a “magnificent shift”. In 2016, she said, not a single employer in the UK that she was aware of in the UK had a policy on menopause; now, three in four have one in place, she said.
Brewis said: “That’s a huge change, and testament to people taking the issue seriously now. But we still have a long way to go. And I don’t think the government has done very much to support any of it.”
Frustrated though she and others are for the women who would benefit from new protections, they also make a broader argument. “If women going through menopause aren’t getting the support they need, that rebounds on their family and friends,” Brewis said. “They are less likely to be in work, more likely to be on benefits. There are ripple effects. It is not just a ‘women’s issue’.”
What else we’ve been reading
What if self-improvement … doesn’t improve you? A new series, “the one change that didn’t work” has some extremely entertaining examples, starting with Tim Dowling (above) on how it turns out he’d rather buy bread than bake it. Archie
Samira Shackle spent months reporting on the trauma of Zara Aleena’s murder for the people who loved her. She writes that the confirmation of their worst fears – that a series of systemic failings led to her murderer’s freedom to attack her – is evidence of fundamental problems in the probation service. Archie
Warm, quiet and free, it’s no surprise that across the US homeless people are relying on public libraries as a safe haven. MacKenzie Ryan takes a look at the undeniably positive impact of this trend on keeping homeless people safe and connecting them to relevant services. Nimo
Reality TV enthusiasts may have detected a newly dominant catchphrase, from the Traitors to Love Island: “100%”, and occasionally its variant, “100 million per cent”. “Its ubiquity has essentially neutered its power,” frets Michael Cragg. Archie
The famed fine dining restaurant Noma is closing its doors for good at the end of 2024 – and perhaps taking with it a decades long era of haute cuisine. Jessa Crispin examines the often-abusive practices it took to keep this hyper-exclusive world afloat for so many years, and what its ending signifies. Nimo
Sport
Tennis | Two-time Australian Open champion Victoria Azarenka (above) returned to the semi-finals of the tournament for the first time since 2013 after an impressive 6-4, 6-1 win over Jessica Pegula, the third seed.
Football | A 73rd minute goal from Joelinton was enough to give Newcastle a 1-0 victory in their Carabao Cup semi-final first leg match against Southampton. Adam Armstrong thought he had equalised for the Saints, only for the goal to be ruled out for handball by VAR.
Football | After sixth-tier Darvel managed the biggest shock in the history of the Scottish Cup by beating Aberdeen 1-0 in the fourth round on Monday, Paul MacInnes writes about how they pulled it off - with a possible assist from Cher and a nerve-soothing pre-match singalong to her anthem Believe.
The front pages
“Berlin agrees to send tanks to Ukraine in historic move” – that’s the lead story in the Guardian today. The Telegraph says the news is a “‘Hammer blow’ for Putin as Ukraine gets tanks”, while the Financial Times has “Germany agrees to send battle tanks in boost for allies’ backing of Ukraine”.
“It’s grim up north” says the Metro, reporting on “vast inequalities” that defy the levelling up agenda. The Daily Mail has “2.5 trillion reasons UK must go for growth” – that’s about the national debt. The Daily Express says to the chancellor “Be warned! Increase our pension age at your peril” – it’s reportedly being considered to “save billions of pounds”. The Metro says “Treasury rules out tax cuts after being surprised by UK’s record borrowing”.
“Economy is failing to bound back fast enough” is the top story in the Times. “Deadly failings”, says the Daily Mirror, about the multiple errors by probation officers that let Jordan McSweeney kill Zara Aleena when he should have been back in prison.
Today in Focus
What was behind Jacinda-mania – and why did it end so suddenly?
Jacinda Ardern became a progressive icon around the world, but despite winning a rare parliamentary majority in New Zealand and gaining plaudits for her handling of Covid, the outgoing prime minister’s legacy is complicated, says Tess McClure in Auckland
Cartoon of the day | Martin Rowson
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
There are many benefits to going vegan, or even just cutting down on meat and dairy. But getting rid of these dietary staples can be daunting and it may feel like only those with the best culinary skills can whip up delicious and quick plant based meals. Ten chefs however dispel this myth, giving their top tips for simple, fast and tasty dishes that don’t require that much thought or preparation.
Aktar Islam recommends making a homely dhal, an economical choice, guaranteed to fill and warm you up with its aromatic spices. Other chefs recommend gnocchi, donburi and bruschetta. Regardless of personal tastes, there’s something in here for everyone.
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
