Another day and another celeb is moaning about her menopause. Earlier this week, TV presenter Andrea McLean suggested a campaign to highlight the misery of the 'change of life' by encouraging women to wear 'M' badges to alert the public. When she is in a railway carriage and wants to open the window because she is having a hot flush, wearing a 'M' badge will mean men will 'cut some slack'. But what about those people in the carriage who might have a cold or poor circulation and are not wearing badges explaining this, who would prefer to stay warm? No matter! The militant Menopausers are on a roll and their sufferings outweigh all others!
The honest truth is that the majority of women get through through the menopause with very few symptoms, and yet some of these menopausers carry on like they have had all their limbs cut off and a lobotomy thrown in. No one ever died of a hot flush, ladies. You’d think they’d all be celebrating the end of far worse nuisances then complaining.
Besides, if you are having a grim time there is this miraculous stuff called HRT, available from any good (or bad) doctor. It’s quite legal and guess what, it works - I use it myself. And if you don’t want to go down the medical route there are plenty of very effective alternative treatments.
But this cuts no ice with some. A TV presenter called Eileen Bellot has set up an energetic support group called 'Reclaim the Menopause'. Reclaim from whom, one might ask? 'It is a huge taboo to talk about it,' she complained bitterly to Nick Ferrarri during an interview on LBC. But there is no taboo because every woman on television between 49 and 59 talks about nothing else. Last year Kirsty Wark 'broke the silence' according to the blurb, by presenting a documentary called The Menopause and Me (you might ask, what silence when every week there is some new menopausal revelation from Carol Vorderman, Ulrika Jonsson, Lorraine and Ruth Langsford et al). 'We go into community centres and try to put up posters telling people about the menopause projects we’re running but women don’t even want to talk to us or let us put up our posters,' she explained earnestly. 'They need to stop feeling such shame about it.'
Eh? The only people attaching shame to this perfectly normal rite of passage are the Militant Menopausers, who by banging on about how awful it is all the time make everyone anxious. Younger women and men must dread it. If you ask me, the menopause is just an excuse for women to be beastly to their husbands and get away with it.
I have a theory that as it is only luvvies of a certain age obsessing about this topic, it is their way of staying in the public eye (one wonders why they never complained about painful periods which can be far more debilitating). 'Civilians' hardly discuss it at all – my friends and I rarely mention it not because of shame but because it’s a bit boring; neither do female politicians or businesswomen. I don’t blame TV 'stars' trying to get some puff – once you get past 50, the Beeb will probably sack you, with salvation only coming in the way of a slot on the telly graveyard of Loose Women where you can happily swap gynaecological stories forever. But they should come to terms with invisibility like the rest of us and not use the menopause as a way of seizing attention.
Women find it hard enough to find employment during their childbearing years because employers are terrified about them rushing off to have a baby. So you’d think when we get to middle age we’d have a better chance. But the Militants are demanding special rooms to have hot flushes in, time off when needed, the right to control the office thermostat and want bosses to be given 'guidelines' about how to treat those of us going through 'the change'. What sort of employer would want to put themselves through all of that?
I too demand to 'reclaim the menopause'. I would like celebrities to stop boring on about it like it is some terrible illness. If they have unpleasant symptoms I am very happy to point them to a good clinic that will provide HRT and sort them out. End of.