Menopause remains a taboo, especially at work

It is a must for all women. Between 45 and 55 years old, they enter menopause. Some have few symptoms. Others experience a large bodily upheaval. At work, it is often the double penalty.

At 52, Anaïs is just starting to feel a little better. For this teacher in the north of France, menopause began at 47 and, in his case, the symptoms were violent. XXL heat puffs, sometimes multiplied in front of the students. Drops of sweat that peel on the face and under the clothes, insomnia, a lot of fatigue, the impression of being 100 years old upon waking due to the joints that hurt.

At one point, Anaïs thought she “was not going to succeed in working”. She resolved to take hormonal treatment despite history of breast cancer in her family. A Cornelian choice, but that was it or take the risk of winning. At work, she almost talked to anyone about it. “I swallowed my hormones in silence, it is a feeling of shame, it is old age that takes you, it is difficult to assume”.

The experience of Anaïs at work is not an isolated case. Almost all menopausal women are affected. 87%, precisely, declare to feel at least an embarrassment at work and, for a third of them, this discomfort is qualified as very important.

This is shown by an OpinionWay study carried out for the Astellas laboratory presented this week. Among the ten symptoms described by respondents, hot flashes, fatigue, sweating or sleep disorders arrive at the top of the list. For those who suffer the most, headaches, morale at half mast, the pain in the muscles and the joints arrive just behind.

The common point between all these menopausal women is that they generally find it difficult to talk about it at work. It’s difficult, taboo, inappropriate say 40 to 50% of them. When they take the plunge, women first talk about their female colleagues. A bit to occupational medicine. But men and men’s colleagues are carefully away.

Companies who are interested in the subject and who want to improve the professional life of menopausal women remain extremely rare, even if things are advancing on the consideration of painful rules and endometriosis.

“The work remains associated with performance, revealing that we suffer from sometimes disabling symptoms, it is showing that we are more fragile to perform certain tasks” Summarizes Eléonore Quarré, head of Société studies at Opinonway. Some women have greatly internalized it. A quarter of them think that their state is likely to penalize them in their careers, according to the survey.