Should women have time off work for menopausal symptoms?
Companies will be required to grant women ‘menopause leave’ and flexible working hours if Jeremy Corbyn wins power, Labour has announced.
They say that it would make larger companies introduce ‘menopause-friendly’ policies, including flexible working hours for women and better education for managers.
Three in five women between the ages of 45 and 55 say the menopause had a negative impact on them at work, according to Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development research.
This topic was also debated today on Good Morning Britain (GMB) with Michelle Heaton (The Liberty X star, 39,) who claimed menopausal women should be given time off work to deal with their symptoms. She appeared alongside journalist Eve Pollard, 73, who suggested the move could lead to more discrimination against women in the workplace.
‘Women were discriminated against getting jobs when they were fertile, it’s the same thing. It’s about fertility. And it’s about what our bodies are producing.’ said Eve Pollard
Former newspaper editor Eve, who is Claudia Winkleman’s mother, suggested that pregnancy leave is easier to account for because you know how long it lasts, while menopause symptoms can continue for years.
Some women don’t suffer at all, some suffer a lot. So who would determine how much time off is needed?
Both ladies agreed that it is a very positive move that this previously taboo topic is now being openly discussed.
What are your views? Should menopausal women be discriminated against? Should women just ‘get on with it’, as previous generations of women have done or is now the time to have a rethink? As it’s a medical condition that women go through should allowances be made?
What are your views?
We'd love to hear your comments
Log in to comment
You need to be logged in to interact with Silversurfers. Please use the button below if you already have an account.
LoginNot a member?
You need to be a member to interact with Silversurfers. Joining is free and simple to do. Click the button below to join today!
JoinCommunity Terms & Conditions
Content standards
These content standards apply to any and all material which you contribute to our site (contributions), and to any interactive services associated with it.
You must comply with the spirit of the following standards as well as the letter. The standards apply to each part of any contribution as well as to its whole.
Contributions must:
be accurate (where they state facts); be genuinely held (where they state opinions); and comply with applicable law in the UK and in any country from which they are posted.
Contributions must not:
contain any material which is defamatory of any person; or contain any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory; or promote sexually explicit material; or promote violence; promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age; or infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person; or be likely to deceive any person; or be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence; or promote any illegal activity; or be threatening, abuse or invade another’s privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety; or be likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person; or be used to impersonate any person, or to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person; or give the impression that they emanate from us, if this is not the case; or advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse.
Nurturing a safe environment
Our Silversurfers community is designed to foster friendships, based on trust, honesty, integrity and loyalty and is underpinned by these values.
We don't tolerate swearing, and reserve the right to remove any posts which we feel may offend others... let's keep it friendly!
Better understanding is needed.
Why not just shut companies down and put everyone on benefits = this way it would cover sickness leave, maternity leave, paternity leave, menopausal leave, that should just about cover 40 years of working life.
Hey presto now on retirement leave.
Labour only want the vote and don't really care about people in this country
I think it is important to recognise that HRT may not be for everyone and be ready to support those who have to find other ways of coping.
Wilf, you've said in the past that when you moved up to a Grammar School it was the discipline which saved you. Even King David in the Bible, 3,000 years ago, recognised education must first begin with personal discipline. Sobering thought in view of out times of anything goes.
British politicians display no self discipline. Their behaviour, no matter their party colour, is reprehensible. It's no better than the ill-educated/ill=disciplined hoards hitting Magalouf in summer! What may be expect of our next crop of party candidates, some of whom almost certainly are in this year's Magalouf hoardes?
There's been so much talk about 'Britishness' since the Referendum. The State even offers classes in it. Yet nothing I've read or heard encapsulates the core values of Britishness: Honour, personal integrity, honesty, self discipline, generosity and dedication to one's endeavours (work). Well, that's a few to be going on with. As I view Westminster and the Civil Service almost everyone would fall at the first hurdle.
Looking out over our once great nation I believe we've become Europeans and left behind the best of Britishness.
Even fish and chips are now cooked in oil!
My grand parents who part raised me lived in a cottage next to a fish and chip shop. It's where I learned to cook them. Still use the same method once a week. Never had anyone refuse my fish and chips.
Fish and chips was unheard of in Britain until about 1880/90. In that time there was a trickle of about 3000 Jewish refugees a year from the Pale on the Eastern side of Russia who emigrated to Britain. Because of the restrictions placed upon them by the Tsars Russian Jews could not bake anything, just fry or boil. Boiled wheat bread is now known as Bagels.
Since pork was off the menu because it's forbidden to us, beef fat was the frying medium. The Pale, being a vast area separated from Russia but within it's boundaries, bordered the Baltic sea which was a rich source of food.
Fish was fried in beef dripping along with potato fragments, leftovers from other meals, and hey presto! A good nourishing meal.
Late nineteenth Jewish immigration to Britain centred on the East End of London; if employment can't be found sell food. It's the same today but not Jewish food.
Fish and chips caught on - cheap and nourishing - and it became an icon of British cuisine. In fact, it's as much British as is curry. It's the same as asking for a pizza in Venice. I did, and quickly found out the pizza it British, not Italian. (I learned to swear in Italian in that encounter.)
The Pale was on the Western side of Russia. Sorry.
I’m all for everyone having the opportunity to choose their lifestyle; if you can’t manage the job you’re doing for any reason you choose a different job.
My first wife suffered horribly every month and when the menopause came around she ceased her part time job because her menopausal symptoms were so severe she could no longer carry on. It was sheer agony and frustration for her.
In terms she all but became housebound, so sensitive was she to what people might think. Mercifully it didn't last years and years, just a couple as I recall. But that must have been the worst time of her life; perhaps second only to getting off Valium 10.
Yes, particularly men must show considerably more understanding for these ladies and of course, if absence from work is needed, then it happens.
But, as somebody has already pointed out, such kindness of mind could be abused frequently.
It's almost as stupid as opening the barriers of our country and inviting all and sundry to enter!
My hot flushes were that bad my clothes would be soaked an my hair would be plastered to my face!
This was 3-4 times a week for years.
Awful and embarrassing but I had to work.
I tried every form of HRT and was eventually under a Consultant and for 2 years after a Merena coils and tablets it got better.
Then I collapsed and it was found my uterus was riddled with tumours and I had huge fibroids tangled in my bowel.
Major abdominal surgery for hysterectomy and 3 months later I feel like a human being again.
It was 15 years of hell, it’s no joke or minor thing for some women!
It ridiculous. Get on with it.