How the American Workplace Is Failing Menopausal Women

And it doesn’t support women who are menstruating or pregnant, either

I’ll never forget the day it began. I was 41. I had been sitting at my desk for nearly an hour, working on a spreadsheet that I had to finish before I left for the day.

I realized, after drinking a mug of tea and a glass of water, that I desperately needed to pee. I was on my period, as well, and thought I should probably check the status of what was going on down there, in case I needed to put on a new pad.

I stood up and felt a rush of liquid coming down my vagina. I literally could feel it almost splashing onto my pad and suddenly was aware of hot liquid dripping down the insides of my legs. Shit.

I grabbed a pad from my purse, hid it in my pocket and ran into the bathroom. Sure enough, my legs were covered in blood. It looked like I had survived an attempt on my life.

I did the best I could to mop up the mess, momentarily stopping to praise myself for wearing red pants that day. The blood had leaked out all along the seat of my pants, but you couldn’t tell, thanks to the color.

Back in my cubicle, I noticed there was also blood all over the seat. Thankfully, most of my nearby office mates were out at a meeting, so I quickly dabbed up the blood with handful after handful of tissues, stuffing them into a plastic bag and then into my purse so no one would see them in the trashcan and wonder what had happened.

The chair was black, therefore, no one could see the bloodstain, however, I still brought heavy-duty upholstery cleaner the next day and did my best to clean it.

I knew, somehow, that that was the beginning of my next journey: perimenopause. That flood was the harbinger of the unpredictable things to come, no doubt.

Though I had a lot of complex feelings about it, the one that immediately rose to the forefront of my mind was: How am I going to get through this new normal without anyone at work finding out? And why should I have to hide it?

Like most women, I cannot count the number of times I have had to run to the bathroom with a pad or tampon shamefully tucked into my pocket or under my arm. I cannot count the number of times I bled through my pants or skirt and had to face the panic of trying to figure out how to hide my issue for another 3–8 hours until I could get home to change after school or work.

And even more than that, I cannot count how many times I have had to white knuckle my way through an entire school or workday while enduring menstrual cramps that, I have no doubt, would have even The Incredible Hulk curled up on the floor, weeping.

And don’t forget the plethora of other issues that can come with menstruation: mood swings, severe fatigue, depression, anxiety, diarrhea, headaches, migraines, gas and bloating, breakouts, sore breasts… I could go on, but you get the point.

While I refuse to call these symptoms “illnesses” — because menstruation is not an illness, but a normal function of bodies that have a uterus — many would, indeed, be classified as illnesses if experienced individually. And yet, someone on their period might have any or all of these at the same time, month after month after month, all the while still being expected to function at optimum levels all day, every day, at school or work.

You can bet your ass that someone with diarrhea and a headache would call in sick for a day, but when that’s part of your menstruation experience, you just have to show up and pretend like nothing is wrong.

In that first year of perimenopause, while I was still working in an office, I couldn’t stop thinking about this. I had had debilitating cramps my entire life — to the point where I, for a very long time, feared my period. Yet I couldn’t skip a day of school or call in sick at work every single month.

And not only that, but I had to hide what I was experiencing. Part of that was shame — there’s still such a taboo about openly talking about menstruation. Even after your teen years end, you’re still expected to duck into the employee bathroom with a pad or tampon hidden in your bag or pocket, lest anyone see and know that you’re on your cycle.

And part of that is our hyper-productive culture that expects human beings to be “on” all the time, producing all the time. You have to put in your minimum 40 hours a week for up to 50 weeks out of the year and when you’re at work, you’re supposed to maintain the same output hour after hour, day after day, week after week. And with a smile, no less. There is no “off” at work.

And if you have a uterus — well, you’d better get your shit together because there aren’t going to be any allowances for that.

As I travel further and further into the tumultuous waters of perimenopause, where I get my period more often, rather than less (that’s right — surprise!), I often wonder what it’s like for other women my age to go through this — particularly for those who are in male-dominated industries, or jobs where physical freedom is limited (like teaching or service positions).

I am ever more aware that our entire culture is happy to blatantly ignore the needs of the female body, or those who possess female parts. It’s not just that we’re menstruation-averse, willfully ignoring the gravity of what women’s bodies experience every 28 days. That’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Can you imagine a job being flexible enough to support a woman going through the grueling and merciless process of infertility treatments?

How about creating a safe and supportive environment for breastfeeding mothers? That’s still not a normal standard across all industries and is often implemented only when an employee has a baby and makes a direct request — in other words, the onus is still on the female employee, when it should be a required element in workplace culture across all industries. (If cisgender men were the ones who were giving birth and lactating, a lactation room would be as standard and ubiquitous as the employee bathroom is.)

And of course, we all know where the United States stands on maternity leave — we are the only industrialized nation that doesn’t require any, at all. (Nor does paid family leave exist for the countless women who end up the primary caregivers for their aging parents.)

And now here we are, with 11% of the industrialized nations’ workforce solidly in the throes of menopause and many nations are reckoning with the fact that yet again, women and bodies with female parts are being routinely ignored at the workplace.

Let’s play a “what if” game for a moment. What if almost one million men left the workforce because they were all suffering from, let’s say…migraines. What do you think would happen?

I think it’s safe to assume that workplace culture would rapidly shift in an effort to retain this huge chunk of the workforce. Perhaps it would become standardized to limit the amount of noise pollution employees were subjected to. Perhaps blackout curtains would be installed in every office space. Perhaps federal labor laws would even mandate 20-minute “pauses” for naps or other methods of relaxation in private break rooms in order to help employees prevent or manage their migraines.

Thanks to a 2019 study conducted by BUPA, we know that 900,000 women in the United Kingdom left their jobs due to symptoms of menopause. Nine hundred thousand.

With projections that one-fourth of the global female population will be menopausal in less than ten years, and armed with dismal figures like the one above, some countries, like the U.K. and Japan, are finally stepping up to the plate and recognizing that the workplace needs to start paying attention to the physical needs of women.

Carolyn Harris, a Labour lawmaker in the U.K. wants to see a “menopause revolution” that creates “menopause rights, entitlements, and education” to the workplace.

As heartening as it is for this perimenopausal woman to see these kinds of changes taking place in other industrialized nations, we here in the United States can safely assume that little, if anything, will change. As Bloomberg News so succinctly put it: “In the U.S., menopause in the workplace isn’t part of the conversation.”

It’s not easy to talk about menopause. It feels incredibly vulnerable just on a social level, alone, thanks to the way our culture has positioned this transition as a woman’s descent into social, financial, and sexual irrelevancy.

But the topic of menopause within workplace culture — that’s even harder. Women are used to having to hide everything going on with their bodies, used to being made to feel ashamed for our physical functions, used to the expectation to shut up and smile. I doubt any of us feel that we have a safe space in which to say, “I need a ten-minute break to clean up all the blood that just spilled out of me,” or “I need to reschedule that meeting because I was up all night with hot flashes and I’m not at my best today.”

We’re not allowed to say such things. We’re not encouraged to bring it up, at all. There are still such damaging stigmas attached to menopause, not to mention the U.S.’s approach of simply brushing it aside as irrelevant.

I’m fortunate that at this time, I’m a freelancer, and I can bleed all over my own chairs as much as I want without feeling the slightest twinge of embarrassment. I don’t have to sneak into the bathroom, hiding a pad in my pocket, and I can postpone some of my work in order to take care of myself when I have cramps, instead of pushing myself to keep going through the pain.

Regardless, I’m still invested in the transformation of our culture’s workplace and how it treats women. I’m all about the “menopause revolution.”

And not just that, but a femme-focused revolution that once and for all accommodates the female body and those with female parts. Perhaps a workplace culture that allows for women to work from home once a month, or shift their work schedule or tasks to accommodate the health issues that often come with menstruation. How about guaranteed paid family leave for everyone (men, too)? Lactation rooms and lactation-friendly workplace policies that exist at all times, even when none of the employees are lactating? And what about educating employees on female health issues through the lens of creating a more inclusive, femme-friendly workplace?

Can we make that surreptitious run to the bathroom, shamefully clutching our tampons, a ritual of the past?

Just like many middle-aged women who have entered the journey toward menopause, I’m decidedly done having to hide the fact that I’m a woman during my working hours. Our work, those 40 hours a week (and then some), is most of our lives. And we’re expected to ignore our bodies during that huge chunk of time?

No, thanks.

I have a uterus. I bleed. And I experience so many of those pesky symptoms that come with menstruation and perimenopause. My body does not hit the pause button so I can be a good, productive cog in the machine of capitalism. And I’m tired of letting the system force me to pretend that it does.

Let the Menopause Revolution begin!

© Yael Wolfe 2021

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