Jennie Brooks, host of the Unstoppable Together Podcast chats with Dr. Andrea Jones, an OBGYN, attorney, and advocate for women's health. Tune in as they discuss the experience of menopause in the workplace, what employers and colleagues can do to provide support, and more.
Jennie Brooks:
Welcome to Booz Allen Hamilton's Unstoppable Together podcast, a series of stories that unite us and empower each of us to change the world. I'm Jennie Brooks with Booz Allen Hamilton, and I'm passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Please join me in conversation with a diverse group of thought leaders to explore what makes them and all of us unstoppable.
Welcome back to our second episode with Dr. Andrea Jones, where we explore menopause at work. If you missed part one, be sure to listen to that episode first.
One of the things that I think about as we were talking about the physical symptoms, hot flashes, weight gain, anxiety, and part of in my own experience has really been just the challenge of, in my mind, I'm still 21 years old.
Dr. Andrea Jones:
Of course you are. You look it, too.
Jennie Brooks:
Thank you. It's been more of that journey of recognizing that you're not 21 anymore and your body's fundamentally different, and just the reckoning that comes with those reflections, I must say. I'm really struck by, so when we talk about supports in the workplace and this conversation with women, but also the recognition of just the psychological journey that we're on, the emotional journey that we're on in this change. What are your observations there, the conversation that you typically have with women around that?
Dr. Andrea Jones:
I'm going to start off the answer by focusing on the workplace, because I love that you brought up I still feel 21, I still feel young. The UK has done a very good job on focusing on women going through menopause in the workplace, something that I think the United States needs to catch up with. But in a survey of 1,000 adults in the UK, the British Menopause Society found that about 45% of women felt that menopausal symptoms had a negative impact on their work, and 47% who needed to take the day off due to menopausal symptoms say they wouldn't tell their employer the real reason, because there can be a stigma attached. Right?
Jennie Brooks:
That's a high number.
Dr. Andrea Jones:
It is a very high number and it's very challenging. Coping with these symptoms in the workplace can be hard, especially as women do find it more difficult to talk about menopause at work. We tend to hear a focus on younger adults leaving traditional work roles for hybrid or work from home models, when actually women going through menopause are also enjoying these changes in traditional work models, especially since the pandemic started.
If you can imagine a woman in her late 40s, early 50s, as I mentioned before, has oftentimes achieved quite a bit of success and reached the pinnacle of her career. Now there are hot flashes that may lead to sleep deprivation, which can affect her performance. Unfortunately, hot flashes can occur at any time, affect meetings, presentations, conferences. Vaginal dryness can affect a woman's sex life and affect personal and marital relationships. This can indirectly affect the work/life balance. Also, keep in mind that many of the women who are starting to go through perimenopause and menopause are also... Some are single women with children. Some are caregivers. A lot of women now are members of the sandwich generation, meaning they're taking care of children and parents, older relatives or chronically ill partners at home. The Pew Research Center actually found that nearly 47% of adults in their 40s and 50s have a parent aged 65 or older and are either raising a young child or financially supporting a grown child aged 18 or older. About one is seven middle aged adults, that's about 15%, is providing financial support to both an aging parent and a child. So these are all stressors.
Jennie Brooks:
Wow. Yes.
Dr. Andrea Jones:
That can affect an individual's performance at work. There was an important 2021 survey of more than 5,000 women in the various stages of menopause that revealed that three in five dealt with adverse symptoms while on the job. So they're having hot flashes, they may not be able to get it under control, which may lead to anxiety. And then one in three actively hit their symptoms and these side effects from colleagues and managers, and almost half, which once again is a high number, said they feared being stigmatized by bringing their condition to light.
Jennie Brooks:
Wow. When you talk about the stigma that's associated with this challenge, can you share it with us then how do we enable the conversation? If I'm a colleague of someone or a manager of someone, what are ways that we can think about having the conversation or supporting a colleague just personally through the conversation?
Dr. Andrea Jones:
Yeah. For managers and supervisors, understanding and empathy goes a long way. Listening goes a long way. Before an employee talks to their manager though, I also recommend that they take notes of their menopausal symptoms and how or when they're being affected by them. I think that'll help the manager, if there's a scheduling issue, I think it helps the manager know exactly what you need, and then think of solutions that would directly help you.
Your manager, supervisor should be very supportive, but they can't read your mind. Right? If you go in blindly not knowing what exactly you need to help get you through, your manager may not know how to help you. They may want to help you, but they may not know exactly how. It also helps if you have colleagues at work who are going through similar experiences. Like Jennie, if you and I worked at the same... If we worked at the same company, I'm sure we'd talk a lot about-
Jennie Brooks:
Yeah.
Dr. Andrea Jones:
... what we're going through. I think sometimes that alone can help get someone through these types of symptoms, and that support will help them improve at work.
Jennie Brooks:
Right. Speaking on behalf of anyone in the audience who's going through it, listening to this, I can tell you the struggle's real, but also, personally, my symptoms have changed over time. Where it started with sleep disruption, but now the metabolism, the fight to get your metabolism back is also a real struggle. How long is the average journey through this process, Andrea?
Dr. Andrea Jones:
Jennie, I don't have good news. Once you-
Jennie Brooks:
Yeah. I had a feeling.
Dr. Andrea Jones:
Once you enter menopause, you are in menopause. But in terms of the symptoms, once you're in menopause, you're in it. Now what we do know-
Jennie Brooks:
But we never exit? We never exit?
Dr. Andrea Jones:
You never exit.
Jennie Brooks:
We're always forever post-menopausal now?
Dr. Andrea Jones:
Yeah, your period... Exactly. What we do know is that women who have significant hot flashes at the onset of menopause tends to get better. If you are having on average 10 hot flashes a day, say when you're 48, 49, by the time you reach 51, 52, your life's probably going to be a lot better. Not just because you've learned to live with it, but because the hot flashes have decreased in regularity. We do know that. There are different treatments, hormone therapies to help with hot flashes. There are non-hormonal therapies. Paxil is actually the number one non-hormonal medication that's actually an antidepressant and SSRI, but it's approved by the FDA for treatment of hot flashes. We have a lot of things to help women get through and make menopause better. But once you've hit that point in your life, you are in it.
Jennie Brooks:
Okay. Well, certainly every moment along the way provides gifts and insights and lessons learned and reflections. I'm certainly grateful. I know I've spoken a little bit tongue in cheek throughout our conversation today at my own peril, but really the underpinning here is that it's an important conversation for women and women's health. With so many people, women in the workplace today, we really want to enable conversation and a supportive environment to be able to have these conversations and support one another, and that's why we're here. So I want to thank you for bringing your expertise to this conversation and just so many insights that I never would've thought about.
Dr. Andrea Jones:
Well, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. This was a fun discussion on a very difficult topic.
Jennie Brooks:
At the end of every podcast, we give our guests some free space to share their final thoughts with our audience. What would you like to share with those listening today?
Dr. Andrea Jones:
Jennie, I just want to say it was great having this discussion with you and being able to share this. I guess last thoughts for me would be menopause is definitely a life transition and women shouldn't feel like they have to suffer alone or in silence. With support, individuals should be able to not only survive this transition but actually thrive. That's the goal. We want women to thrive during this transition.
But I also wanted to make sure that the listeners know that there are plenty of resources out there to help get them through this phase in life. The North American Menopause Society, NAMS, is also a great resource with tons of educational videos, free videos, I should say, on their website. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist, ACOG, has a lot of patient guidance that I think would be very helpful. And last but not least, our government has quite a bit of resources online including the Centers for Disease Control and the website women'shealth.gov.
Jennie Brooks:
Thanks for listening. Visit careers.boozallen.com to learn how you can be unstoppable with Booz Allen. Be the future. Work with us. The world can't wait.