"For some women, perimenopause feels like being possessed while trying to keep a straight face in the boardroom."
...and bedrooms and dining rooms! I embarrassingly can't tell you how many times i've lashed out and felt indeed possessed sometimes mistaking my hormonal episode with mental illness. —for some it is, and that's another conversation. thank you for starting this conversation and making space for us.
xx,
42-year-old who started an herbal line for hormonal bodies and left it.
I vote we rename birth control and hrt “reproductive hormone regulators (or regulation?)". It seems ridiculously reductive to name a type of medicine used for multiple purposes regarding rhr for one single purpose that is used against us as a political cudgel when there's so much more to it. I'm ace, but my cycles still need regulating to avoid chronic severe anemia. But it's convenient for politics to claim it has only one purpose they can make a moral issue over to justify further efforts to control half the population. Changing the name would take away a lot of that power, even if it was just through popular usage.
Yes to every word. I hear this story from clients in perimenopause all the time - and it's not even something I specialize in as a business coach. Maybe I should, lol! In all seriousness, this is an aspect of social justice thst gets so little attention. Along with all healthcare (or we might say health concerns, shrug and yawn) that women experience across our lives.
Yes Kay this is the crux of it: it’s a social justice issue hiding in plain sight. The “shrug and yawn” effect you named is so real and devastating. If you do end up expanding your practice, please let me know. We need more of you.
I would love to work with entrepreneurs who are normalizing, diagnosing and treating everything physical and social related to perimenopause and menopause. Send them my way. I live to kick down roadblocks to social justice.
That last line is quietly radical. Choosing your own rhythm in a system that only values output takes real courage. I’m so glad this conversation reached you.
While agree this is a significant part of the story, perimenopause often coincides with additional caring demands (elders, own children's issues, grandchildren). All of which historically fall at womens feet, and all of which are themselves under-supported.
This is another part of the 'why women leave' jigsaw. Why put up with unreasonable and unaccommodating demands in the workplace when there is an alternative.
The fact the alternative has less status, money, and fulfillment is only a problem for the woman. Her leaving has created a space. And so the system perpetuates.
Yes, yes, yes. The workplace wasn’t just built without women in mind. It was built assuming someone else was doing all the invisible caregiving. Your framing of the “why women leave” jigsaw is exactly right.
Another incredible article Maryann that shows why half of our talent is silently disappearing. What society can thrive on half of its knowledge and talent? What women face is often invisible yet affects families, companies, communities and entire societies in harmful ways when we don’t act. Since men consistently demonstrate a lack of curiosity and willing blindness to women as a viable means of turning profits (never mind as fully human), it’s going to be up to women to illustrate these deficits. Women are needed in the workforce, perhaps now more than ever as women now hold more education than men do. Let’s find ways of supporting this paradigm in which women’s needs are being met and addressed. 🙏 It’s more than the right thing to do, it’s the financially sound decision.
Sara this is such a generous, fire-starter of a comment. “What women face is often invisible yet affects everyone” - that needs to be a headline. Thank you for being my inspiration for this article and advancing this dialogue with such clarity and conviction.
or look at it the other way - society CAN thrive without having it's knowledge and talent IN CORPORATIONS! Corporations suck and should be fixed or replaced or outperformed by more enlightened models like b corps or nonprofits or coops.
This is an interesting comment. I think we would have to define what a “thriving society” looks like because I certainly don’t believe I’m in one now, however, the point you make about not working within the existing system, but creating a new one is well received. I like this thinking outside of the box mentality. Given that women are 50% or more of the population, women could build a new structure that’s inclusive of all marginalized groups but I wonder what that might look like in terms of investment opportunities, etc. Women hold less of the wealth overall but women of color in America have long been creating their own support systems, rising to meet the challenges in their communities amongst themselves and may very well serve as role models we can all learn from.
I just left my full-time fundraising job where I wasn’t appreciated as soon as I let off the gas and started having trouble health wise. I am now working for myself. It’s scary, and a different kind of pressure, but I make the rules now for my body, and so far it was a smart move.
That’s both sobering and inspiring. The system failed to flex, so you redesigned your life. Thank you for sharing this. I don't know who needs to read it but it’s the kind of quiet rebellion others need to see.
There is a thought leader here in Europe, who is pushing very hard to get organizations to focus on women with menopause, accommodate our needs, and to make sure that our talent is tapped into.
I’ll put the link to his profile here if you want to check it out:
Grateful for this lead, thank you for sharing. We need more bridge-builders bringing menopause into the strategic workforce agenda. I’ll take a look at Adrian’s work.
LaShawnda thank you for your honesty. You are not alone. The fact that women are left to realize later what they were going through is the clearest sign we’ve failed.
Hopefully, we can all do better going forward. It's nice to see this type of sharing online. Women are walking out of the shadows and it's lovely to see.
Wow!! So sad there isn’t anything to help? If it was happening to men there would be all kinds of help and assistance! This needs to change and I hope soon!
Bill, I appreciate your outrage. That’s the appropriate response. There are solutions (education, workplace accommodations, better benefit design) but they’re not mainstream yet. That’s what we need to change.
I would think where there is female leadership things would change and where there is males leadership they would be more open to change ! Thank you for sharing this!
Ideally, but even among women so much of this information is not known. 10 years ago I had no clue, well, there were some episodes of That 70's Show & even Archie Bunker. Even when I started having perimenopause symptoms a few years ago, I didn't know what was going on. I even worked for a woman boss who happily admitted to being in mht/hrt, & she was only a year older than I, & she didn't notice. (Then again I started working for her right as my symptoms started, so she wasn't seeing a change.)
Well it’s not taught in schools or colleges nor are there psa on tv about it my testosterone levels dropped to an extremely low level I had no energy hot flashes what was funny libido was good and no ed. Point is nobody talks about this or teaches that this could happen to anyone ! I’m so sorry you went through this!
Bill, you are right. When hormonal shifts hit and no one’s named them, it leaves people feeling broken or blindsided. It’s not just a women’s health issue. It’s a public health issue. Thank you both for speaking into the gap. That’s how we start to change it.
This is such a clear example of how silence around perimenopause becomes a chain reaction. If even those living through it do not have the language for it, how can we expect the system to respond? Thank you for sharing the layers here; workplace, timing, generational blind spots... it all adds up.
Exactly. Aging should expand our freedom not shrink it. Menopause isn’t an end. It’s a reset. But we need better systems to meet us where we are, not where we used to be.
When you see capital as the ultimate organizing principle, the rest starts to make grim sense. Especially in healthcare. If it doesn’t make money, it doesn’t scale. If it threatens asset prices, it gets ignored.
But that’s also why I believe we need to reshape capital, not just critique it. Because if money is the religion, we need new gospels. Ones that center care, longevity, and human value not just shareholder returns.
You're right. It is a jaw-dropping number. I should clarify: the original Fawcett Society report found that 1 in 10 women working during menopause left their jobs due to symptoms. That stat has since been widely cited and extrapolated, most notably by Bupa, the private health insurer to estimate that up to 900,000 women in the UK may have left work as a result. That number isn’t annual, and it doesn’t appear in the Fawcett report itself but the scale of the impact is undeniable. The bottom line remains: women are leaving in droves, not because they want to but because workplace systems weren’t built to support them. That is the real crisis.
The system doesn’t notice! So well said. I felt like my brain disintegrated in perimenopause. Despite working my ass off, I was told I wasn’t quick enough at making decisions, not ‘directive’ enough. Layer on top of that being a gay woman, and chronic illness (adenomyosis), and I was screwed. The corporate world is not kind. Although (worse) it now pretends to be.
Not being “directive enough” is so often code for “not performing power the way we expect it.” And layered with chronic illness and being a gay woman? The system was never built to hold your brilliance but only to punish your difference.
Raised by a strong hardworking Latina Mom, and taught to respect women from my Latino Dad. I’m an ally working to build bridges. Actively participating for change!
I hear your frustration Peter I and agree with the core of it: this problem shouldn’t exist. We have built economic systems that extract value from women’s labor - paid and unpaid, without ever redesigning those systems to support their health or longevity.
But I’d push us to go beyond binary roles like matriarch or cubicle worker. Women are leaders, builders, creators, and decision-makers and they deserve workplaces and capital systems that recognize the full spectrum of that value, not just the parts that fit into legacy boxes.
Thanks for showing up in this conversation. It matters.
What I'm going through right now, and was told by a few people that I'm too young for perimenopause. So glad I found good information and a good provider. Thank you for getting this information out there, I cannot believe the complete lack of knowledge most people have!
Janine I hear this far too often. Perimenopause isn’t just misunderstood, it’s rarely named. Thank you for sharing what you are going through. It helps others realise they are not alone in this.
"For some women, perimenopause feels like being possessed while trying to keep a straight face in the boardroom."
...and bedrooms and dining rooms! I embarrassingly can't tell you how many times i've lashed out and felt indeed possessed sometimes mistaking my hormonal episode with mental illness. —for some it is, and that's another conversation. thank you for starting this conversation and making space for us.
xx,
42-year-old who started an herbal line for hormonal bodies and left it.
The confusion between hormonal dysregulation and mental illness is one of the most overlooked harms. Thank you for naming that!
I vote we rename birth control and hrt “reproductive hormone regulators (or regulation?)". It seems ridiculously reductive to name a type of medicine used for multiple purposes regarding rhr for one single purpose that is used against us as a political cudgel when there's so much more to it. I'm ace, but my cycles still need regulating to avoid chronic severe anemia. But it's convenient for politics to claim it has only one purpose they can make a moral issue over to justify further efforts to control half the population. Changing the name would take away a lot of that power, even if it was just through popular usage.
Yes to every word. I hear this story from clients in perimenopause all the time - and it's not even something I specialize in as a business coach. Maybe I should, lol! In all seriousness, this is an aspect of social justice thst gets so little attention. Along with all healthcare (or we might say health concerns, shrug and yawn) that women experience across our lives.
Yes Kay this is the crux of it: it’s a social justice issue hiding in plain sight. The “shrug and yawn” effect you named is so real and devastating. If you do end up expanding your practice, please let me know. We need more of you.
I would love to work with entrepreneurs who are normalizing, diagnosing and treating everything physical and social related to perimenopause and menopause. Send them my way. I live to kick down roadblocks to social justice.
Amazingly profound. I am grateful for this conversation long overdue. I now am content with part time and loving me again
That last line is quietly radical. Choosing your own rhythm in a system that only values output takes real courage. I’m so glad this conversation reached you.
As am I, but the credit is my amazing daughter's who allowed me to hear truth and accept accordingly. I wasn't thriving I was surviving
While agree this is a significant part of the story, perimenopause often coincides with additional caring demands (elders, own children's issues, grandchildren). All of which historically fall at womens feet, and all of which are themselves under-supported.
This is another part of the 'why women leave' jigsaw. Why put up with unreasonable and unaccommodating demands in the workplace when there is an alternative.
The fact the alternative has less status, money, and fulfillment is only a problem for the woman. Her leaving has created a space. And so the system perpetuates.
Yes, yes, yes. The workplace wasn’t just built without women in mind. It was built assuming someone else was doing all the invisible caregiving. Your framing of the “why women leave” jigsaw is exactly right.
Another incredible article Maryann that shows why half of our talent is silently disappearing. What society can thrive on half of its knowledge and talent? What women face is often invisible yet affects families, companies, communities and entire societies in harmful ways when we don’t act. Since men consistently demonstrate a lack of curiosity and willing blindness to women as a viable means of turning profits (never mind as fully human), it’s going to be up to women to illustrate these deficits. Women are needed in the workforce, perhaps now more than ever as women now hold more education than men do. Let’s find ways of supporting this paradigm in which women’s needs are being met and addressed. 🙏 It’s more than the right thing to do, it’s the financially sound decision.
Sara this is such a generous, fire-starter of a comment. “What women face is often invisible yet affects everyone” - that needs to be a headline. Thank you for being my inspiration for this article and advancing this dialogue with such clarity and conviction.
PS my small contribution to this effort today was to preorder your book, The Billion Dollar Blind Spot. 🙏
thank you so much Sara. It’s not small. Every preorder is a signal and I feel it deeply. Thank you for believing in this work.
or look at it the other way - society CAN thrive without having it's knowledge and talent IN CORPORATIONS! Corporations suck and should be fixed or replaced or outperformed by more enlightened models like b corps or nonprofits or coops.
This is an interesting comment. I think we would have to define what a “thriving society” looks like because I certainly don’t believe I’m in one now, however, the point you make about not working within the existing system, but creating a new one is well received. I like this thinking outside of the box mentality. Given that women are 50% or more of the population, women could build a new structure that’s inclusive of all marginalized groups but I wonder what that might look like in terms of investment opportunities, etc. Women hold less of the wealth overall but women of color in America have long been creating their own support systems, rising to meet the challenges in their communities amongst themselves and may very well serve as role models we can all learn from.
I just left my full-time fundraising job where I wasn’t appreciated as soon as I let off the gas and started having trouble health wise. I am now working for myself. It’s scary, and a different kind of pressure, but I make the rules now for my body, and so far it was a smart move.
That’s both sobering and inspiring. The system failed to flex, so you redesigned your life. Thank you for sharing this. I don't know who needs to read it but it’s the kind of quiet rebellion others need to see.
Thank you. That’s very kind. I definitely feel rebellious! It’s support like what FemmeHealth is doing that will help things change. :)
There is a thought leader here in Europe, who is pushing very hard to get organizations to focus on women with menopause, accommodate our needs, and to make sure that our talent is tapped into.
I’ll put the link to his profile here if you want to check it out:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-krahn?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
Grateful for this lead, thank you for sharing. We need more bridge-builders bringing menopause into the strategic workforce agenda. I’ll take a look at Adrian’s work.
I am Jane. Have been for years, with no awareness.
LaShawnda thank you for your honesty. You are not alone. The fact that women are left to realize later what they were going through is the clearest sign we’ve failed.
Hopefully, we can all do better going forward. It's nice to see this type of sharing online. Women are walking out of the shadows and it's lovely to see.
Wow!! So sad there isn’t anything to help? If it was happening to men there would be all kinds of help and assistance! This needs to change and I hope soon!
Bill, I appreciate your outrage. That’s the appropriate response. There are solutions (education, workplace accommodations, better benefit design) but they’re not mainstream yet. That’s what we need to change.
I would think where there is female leadership things would change and where there is males leadership they would be more open to change ! Thank you for sharing this!
Ideally, but even among women so much of this information is not known. 10 years ago I had no clue, well, there were some episodes of That 70's Show & even Archie Bunker. Even when I started having perimenopause symptoms a few years ago, I didn't know what was going on. I even worked for a woman boss who happily admitted to being in mht/hrt, & she was only a year older than I, & she didn't notice. (Then again I started working for her right as my symptoms started, so she wasn't seeing a change.)
Well it’s not taught in schools or colleges nor are there psa on tv about it my testosterone levels dropped to an extremely low level I had no energy hot flashes what was funny libido was good and no ed. Point is nobody talks about this or teaches that this could happen to anyone ! I’m so sorry you went through this!
Bill, you are right. When hormonal shifts hit and no one’s named them, it leaves people feeling broken or blindsided. It’s not just a women’s health issue. It’s a public health issue. Thank you both for speaking into the gap. That’s how we start to change it.
This is such a clear example of how silence around perimenopause becomes a chain reaction. If even those living through it do not have the language for it, how can we expect the system to respond? Thank you for sharing the layers here; workplace, timing, generational blind spots... it all adds up.
This is so important - making space for women to age. Menopause shouldn't mean you're out of the game of life
Exactly. Aging should expand our freedom not shrink it. Menopause isn’t an end. It’s a reset. But we need better systems to meet us where we are, not where we used to be.
Money is the true religion of America, unfettered capitalism is its purest form, and everything else is sacrificed to it.
Viewed through this lens, the US is sadly easier to understand.
When you see capital as the ultimate organizing principle, the rest starts to make grim sense. Especially in healthcare. If it doesn’t make money, it doesn’t scale. If it threatens asset prices, it gets ignored.
But that’s also why I believe we need to reshape capital, not just critique it. Because if money is the religion, we need new gospels. Ones that center care, longevity, and human value not just shareholder returns.
Thank you for naming it so clearly.
"In the UK, menopausal symptoms cause nearly 900,000 women to leave their jobs annually"
That is a jaw dropping number. Its hardly insignificant either.
You're right. It is a jaw-dropping number. I should clarify: the original Fawcett Society report found that 1 in 10 women working during menopause left their jobs due to symptoms. That stat has since been widely cited and extrapolated, most notably by Bupa, the private health insurer to estimate that up to 900,000 women in the UK may have left work as a result. That number isn’t annual, and it doesn’t appear in the Fawcett report itself but the scale of the impact is undeniable. The bottom line remains: women are leaving in droves, not because they want to but because workplace systems weren’t built to support them. That is the real crisis.
The system doesn’t notice! So well said. I felt like my brain disintegrated in perimenopause. Despite working my ass off, I was told I wasn’t quick enough at making decisions, not ‘directive’ enough. Layer on top of that being a gay woman, and chronic illness (adenomyosis), and I was screwed. The corporate world is not kind. Although (worse) it now pretends to be.
Not being “directive enough” is so often code for “not performing power the way we expect it.” And layered with chronic illness and being a gay woman? The system was never built to hold your brilliance but only to punish your difference.
Thank you for shining light on this subject. I agree with what you say and I support the cause!
thank you so much Freelo for being here and for your support. It is most appreciated.
Raised by a strong hardworking Latina Mom, and taught to respect women from my Latino Dad. I’m an ally working to build bridges. Actively participating for change!
Women have a choice: mother and/or matriarch or cubicle denizen.
This problem shouldn't even exist. Women are far too valuable to be used as fucking tax slaves.
I hear your frustration Peter I and agree with the core of it: this problem shouldn’t exist. We have built economic systems that extract value from women’s labor - paid and unpaid, without ever redesigning those systems to support their health or longevity.
But I’d push us to go beyond binary roles like matriarch or cubicle worker. Women are leaders, builders, creators, and decision-makers and they deserve workplaces and capital systems that recognize the full spectrum of that value, not just the parts that fit into legacy boxes.
Thanks for showing up in this conversation. It matters.
What I'm going through right now, and was told by a few people that I'm too young for perimenopause. So glad I found good information and a good provider. Thank you for getting this information out there, I cannot believe the complete lack of knowledge most people have!
Janine I hear this far too often. Perimenopause isn’t just misunderstood, it’s rarely named. Thank you for sharing what you are going through. It helps others realise they are not alone in this.
I'm now telling every woman I know and it's heart breaking how many had no idea it wasn't just them and that there are options to help 💔