Speaker 1: Welcome to Go, Ask Gali, a production of Shondaland Audio
Speaker 1: and partnership with iHeartRadio. When I have been with friends
Speaker 1: and that happened and I peed my pants, I did
Speaker 1: lose the room, They did leave.
Speaker 2: I saw her light up and I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: just going to work, but we are here until one
Speaker 2: of our last reps.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was just the one that was meant to
Speaker 3: take care of mama.
Speaker 1: It's for me to remember every single day is that
Speaker 1: I always have a choice.
Speaker 3: Everyone always has a choice.
Speaker 1: Whenever somebody says no, you can't or there's no roles
Speaker 1: for you, or you have to look like this, I go.
Speaker 3: I'll show you. I'll show you.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Go, Ask Galie. I'm Ellie Wentworth. And today
Speaker 1: we are talking about menopause. It should be called womeno pause,
Speaker 1: but it is called menopause. We're talking about it in
Speaker 1: business and the workplace because if you've noticed lately, menopause
Speaker 1: become a subject that we're seeing more and more at
Speaker 1: magazines and newspapers, on the internet, in chat shows, because
Speaker 1: slowly women are starting to ignite this conversation to normalize menopause,
Speaker 1: to no longer make it the secret dark, awful, embarrassing
Speaker 1: thing that we all go through. You can't hide from menopause.
Speaker 1: So today I have two dynamic women who are going
Speaker 1: to talk to you about menopause. I have Naomi Watts,
Speaker 1: not only the acclaimed actress but now also an entrepreneur
Speaker 1: who created a menopause brand called Stripes, as in You've
Speaker 1: earned Them. Stripes was created to make change, inspire confidence
Speaker 1: and offer holistic solutions. And later you'll hear from Pat Duckworth,
Speaker 1: a trailblazing advocate in the UK for educating people and
Speaker 1: their bosses about menopause and how they should and can
Speaker 1: be supported at the office or factory or retail store
Speaker 1: or wherever they're working, and how it truly helps their
Speaker 1: bottom line too. All right, First up, the beautiful Naomi Watts.
Speaker 1: She's an award winning actor, producer, activist and entrepreneur. She
Speaker 1: has Academy Award nominations for her performances in twenty one
Speaker 1: Grams and The Impossible and starred in Birdman, which won
Speaker 1: the Oscar for Best Picture on Television. She stars in
Speaker 1: The Watcher as well as the upcoming Feud. Naomi is
Speaker 1: the founder and chief creative officer of Stripes. A menopause brand.
Speaker 1: Stripes's mission and a quote is to end the shame, stigma,
Speaker 1: and confusion around menopause with sustainable solutions, real stories, and
Speaker 1: science backed products. So I'm very excited today because I
Speaker 1: got Naomi Watts here talking about menopause.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 3: Two delicious things.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 1: So I want to say first of all that your products,
Speaker 1: Stripes are incredible for menopause, and we are not doing
Speaker 1: an infomercial right now. This is not QBC, but I
Speaker 1: have tried them and I'm grateful.
Speaker 3: To you for them.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to hear that.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this, Naomi, have you been through menopause?
Speaker 1: Where are you in the menopause spectrum.
Speaker 4: It's so interesting because there's no exact way to tell
Speaker 4: the story. It's like you have to tell the whole thing.
Speaker 2: It's not a short answer.
Speaker 4: But I am technically on the other side of menopause,
Speaker 4: because menopause exists on one day where you've not had
Speaker 4: your menstruation cycle for an entire year, and then beyond
Speaker 4: that day you're postmenopause, which sounds horrible, but the thing
Speaker 4: is symptoms persist, and I've got new ones to this day,
Speaker 4: and I have not had my menstruation cycle for multiple years.
Speaker 4: Let's say I was an early bird and I was
Speaker 4: sort of thrust into it with very little knowledge, very
Speaker 4: little handholding, and it was a panic situation because it
Speaker 4: actually was right at the precipice. I mean, the word
Speaker 4: menopause was uttered to me right at the precipice when
Speaker 4: I was trying to have children, and I, you know,
Speaker 4: that was the right time to start beginning a family.
Speaker 4: I was thirty six years old, so young and super
Speaker 4: ill prepared. A friend, an older friend of mine girlfriend,
Speaker 4: suggested that I get a blood panel done. I was like,
Speaker 4: what what do you mean for what and she was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: you just need to test your hormones, that's what you do.
Speaker 4: And I said, okay. So I went to my guynecologist
Speaker 4: and he said, yeah, let's take the bloods and the
Speaker 4: results suggested that I was quote unquote close to menopause.
Speaker 4: I had an heart I elevated fsh level and I
Speaker 4: just sort of panicked and felt, you know, my jaw
Speaker 4: was on the floor. I left there shaken. I rang
Speaker 4: my mother and said, because I did remember in that
Speaker 4: split second that my mother had gone into early menopause,
Speaker 4: I knew.
Speaker 2: Nothing else about it I knew.
Speaker 4: I didn't know that she suffered for several years, possibly
Speaker 4: a decade before that. I didn't know she I didn't
Speaker 4: know if she had medicated herself or you know, I
Speaker 4: didn't know any of the information, no details whatsoever. So
Speaker 4: I said, you went into menopause earlier, and I think
Speaker 4: you said you were in your forties. Tell me more,
Speaker 4: what is this? And she said, yeah, I was. I
Speaker 4: had my last period when I was forty five. And
Speaker 4: I said, and what happened in the lead up?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 4: I mean she had her children at nineteen and twenty,
Speaker 4: so she had no panic about that.
Speaker 2: And I said, why didn't you tell me more?
Speaker 5: What do you mean?
Speaker 4: And she said, well, these were the conversations I never
Speaker 4: had with my mother because she never had them with hers.
Speaker 4: And so that is what really struck me, as like, wow,
Speaker 4: generations upon generations have signed some secret code of silence.
Speaker 4: And anything that you went through, anything you experienced, was
Speaker 4: you know, you just had to suck it up and
Speaker 4: suffer alone.
Speaker 1: I had a very similar experience. My mother never never
Speaker 1: discussed it, and I know she had a hard time,
Speaker 1: and I had no ovari insist so I had my
Speaker 1: ovaries taken out and I was immediately thrust in a
Speaker 1: menopause and I didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 3: It was sweating.
Speaker 1: I was like, what is this because of the surgery,
Speaker 1: you know, And my mother again never spoke about it,
Speaker 1: and she had said after I had my second daughter,
Speaker 1: she said, now go get a hysterectomy, just get it
Speaker 1: all scooped out like a helloween pumpkin. And I said
Speaker 1: why and she said, because you don't want your uterus
Speaker 1: dragging on the floor like an old Bassett hound. And
Speaker 1: I said, oh my, but that's all she said. That's
Speaker 1: all she said. So I didn't even know what that meant.
Speaker 1: And since people like you have normalized the conversation, I
Speaker 1: have spoken to my mother about it and she said
Speaker 1: I was so embarrassed to talk about it. And women
Speaker 1: didn't talk about it, you know when I was younger,
Speaker 1: because it meant you weren't young, you weren't child bearing. Basically,
Speaker 1: we were supposed to go off to pasture like it.
Speaker 3: Was over for us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go to the corner. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I said that's not fair to women who are
Speaker 1: now living to one hundred because we're you and I
Speaker 1: are not even close to middle age. But the other
Speaker 1: thing is that, like you, like me, a lot of
Speaker 1: women go through menopausem much much earlier, and it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that it's time for them to go out to pasture.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I wanted to talk to you
Speaker 1: about was my kids, and you have younger kids. To
Speaker 1: my kids who took sex ed at school, and they
Speaker 1: took them all through erections, you know, periods, how to
Speaker 1: make a baby, and then it stopped. I don't understand
Speaker 1: why we're not teaching about menopause.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4: And I'm so glad you brought that up because my
Speaker 4: kids heard me, you know, like when I when the
Speaker 4: idea came to me to create this company. They heard
Speaker 4: me enough times on zooms talk about menopause, you know, menopause, menopause, menopause.
Speaker 4: And so I sat them down and I said, well,
Speaker 4: you know, I should talk to them about this. And
Speaker 4: I said, do you tell me what you know about menopause?
Speaker 4: And one of them said, isn't it when old ladies die?
Speaker 3: Oh God?
Speaker 2: And I was like, right, okay, there you go.
Speaker 4: And then I and the other one, who's a little
Speaker 4: bit more clued in to this kind of stuff said,
Speaker 4: isn't it when you wet the bed? Because obviously Kai
Speaker 4: had slept with me enough that you know, I'd sweated
Speaker 4: through the sheets and I had to like change my
Speaker 4: t shirt three times. So then I started saying, what
Speaker 4: did you learn in sex ed? Because I know you
Speaker 4: get the beginning story, so the booke end is there.
Speaker 4: The hormones will change your life because of X, Y
Speaker 4: and Z, and that they will lead to this, and
Speaker 4: so you need to watch out for STDs, you need
Speaker 4: to watch out for pregnancies, you need to watch out
Speaker 4: for you know, the whole story, the whole landscape is
Speaker 4: given to you except for that ending, which is a
Speaker 4: big piece of the story.
Speaker 3: Huge.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that we have been failed, Yes, And I
Speaker 1: think that I love that we're all trying to have
Speaker 1: more and more conversations about it because obviously our mothers
Speaker 1: did not and if we can normalize it, there won't
Speaker 1: be such a stigma about it. And that way, you know,
Speaker 1: our daughters will get older and not be embarrassed or
Speaker 1: feel like, you know, going through menopause is some horrible curse.
Speaker 1: I mean, we finally got through the menstruation thing, not
Speaker 1: being quote unquote cursed and now we're you know, now
Speaker 1: we have to kind of do the same messaging with menopause.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, so I'm.
Speaker 1: Curious why you decided to create stripes because of the
Speaker 1: of the messaging.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, I felt. I mean, you know, I'm in
Speaker 4: the business of storytelling. I like to bring people together.
Speaker 4: I like that people will reflect on their own story
Speaker 4: through mine, and that's kind of what I've always done,
Speaker 4: and this feels like another extension of that. It feels,
Speaker 4: you know, obviously a lot more personal. And you know,
Speaker 4: I certainly vacillated with you know, is this a good
Speaker 4: idea or not, and had major moments of panic.
Speaker 1: Panic because it because it ages you as an actress.
Speaker 3: Were you worried about that?
Speaker 2: Yes, because it does brand you.
Speaker 4: You can't unring that bell, and and once you go
Speaker 4: there and you can't go they're half asked about it.
Speaker 4: You have to be all in. So I definitely was nervous.
Speaker 2: But I do.
Speaker 4: Feel I believe in Hollywood, and I know we get
Speaker 4: accused of being backward and polarizing, you know, but I
Speaker 4: believe that we're also a progressive industry and when change
Speaker 4: is needed, it takes place a little bit more quickly.
Speaker 2: Than most industries.
Speaker 4: So you know, I felt ultimately like I had to
Speaker 4: get beyond myself and to your point earlier, we live
Speaker 4: so much longer. I have two grandmothers alive. I mean,
Speaker 4: God willing the same story is my destiny too. But
Speaker 4: you know, being thirty six and having those words uttered
Speaker 4: to me and then going into the panic of like
Speaker 4: will I be able to have children? And then mercifully
Speaker 4: I did, but then was thrust into hardcore symptoms right
Speaker 4: after I stopped breastfeeding, and I was still too young
Speaker 4: quote unquote. I was forty when I had my second child,
Speaker 4: and my symptoms my started early forties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting now how first of all the conversation again,
Speaker 1: I can see a change in it. I just can't.
Speaker 1: I think I've done it. I've made jokes about it,
Speaker 1: you know, menopause.
Speaker 2: That's my way of putting it out there, normalizing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's so much better to experience it through humor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can understand it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like two halloweens ago, I went as a menopausal,
Speaker 1: frustrated housewife. You know. So I love you well, We're
Speaker 1: all messaging it in different ways, you know, because it
Speaker 1: does normalize it for our daughters and for you know,
Speaker 1: future kids.
Speaker 3: And also I think you're right about Hollywood because I.
Speaker 1: Think, you know, just to put you on the spot,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you, and you know, you're this beautiful
Speaker 1: woman with dewey skin and pink cheeks, and you know
Speaker 1: if you said I'm thirty, I'd believe you. So it's
Speaker 1: there's an ageism in Hollywood that's sort of shifting to
Speaker 1: where women are saying like, hold on, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not done at thirty.
Speaker 2: Five, you know, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: Julianne Moore is sixty one and she's going, fuck off.
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep being a leading lady. And I
Speaker 1: feel like the menopause thing goes hand in hand with
Speaker 1: that a little bit in Hollywood.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and yes it was risky, but at the end
Speaker 4: of the day, I felt like it was worthwhile. It
Speaker 4: is every woman is headed here.
Speaker 3: Whether you like it or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because back in the day, you know the movie
Speaker 1: stars of Yesteryear, I mean, they would never talk about menopause,
Speaker 1: and they lied about their age. I mean some of
Speaker 1: these women were thirty five. For about twenty years. Every
Speaker 1: time Entertainment Tonight would say like happy Birthday, I was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: she's still thirty five. So there's something about breaking that
Speaker 1: whole idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's half the population and the other half is
Speaker 4: going to be indirectly affected by it. So let's just
Speaker 4: bring it all into the table, onto the table and
Speaker 4: discuss it. And yes, a part of it is about
Speaker 4: having the empathy for our mother's generation and also throwing
Speaker 4: the ladders down to the younger generation for your daughters
Speaker 4: so they can be prepared. And I mean, if I
Speaker 4: had been ahead of it, it would have been so
Speaker 4: much easier on me, because I didn't even feel I
Speaker 4: definitely tested the waters with some of my friends, cracked
Speaker 4: some jokes and they were sort of you know, they
Speaker 4: fell on deaf ears and they were awkward laughs. I
Speaker 4: got so I sort of went and closed it up
Speaker 4: and thought, no, I better not.
Speaker 2: Nobody else is there.
Speaker 4: And then I think I got to turning fifty and
Speaker 4: I just thought, this charade is up. I'm done. I'm
Speaker 4: done with holding onto the secret. We're all headed there.
Speaker 4: We can talk about it now, and I know I'm
Speaker 4: not done, And you know, what can I do to
Speaker 4: change the narrative?
Speaker 2: What can I do to help?
Speaker 4: But then COVID took place, and I was still holding
Speaker 4: onto my menopause secret.
Speaker 2: But once we paused, the world paused.
Speaker 4: I think it became clear to everyone that we needed community.
Speaker 4: It was taken away and we needed community. And that's
Speaker 4: when I thought, I need a group. I need to thrive.
Speaker 4: I need a tribe. And the women out there in
Speaker 4: my life. Now we can safely all assume we're about there, hovering, circling,
Speaker 4: you know, how do we come together? How do we
Speaker 4: make this fun? How do we make it more sexy
Speaker 4: and vibrant. But since I knew about skincare by this point,
Speaker 4: and I knew that the community needed a space to
Speaker 4: come to, laugh, cry, bitch, moan, complaint, whatever they needed,
Speaker 4: come together and learn, this is when the idea came
Speaker 4: to me. And I was like, I made a cold
Speaker 4: coal basically to a biotech company called Amorus. I pitched
Speaker 4: the idea to them and they said, yes, yay, brilliant
Speaker 4: right away. I And that's when we said, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't want it just to be product. I want
Speaker 4: it to be education and community. And we have a
Speaker 4: website and we have three spaces Meno Guides, which is
Speaker 4: for education. We have the Hotspot, which is community where
Speaker 4: people can come and chat together and we have the product.
Speaker 4: So it's a kind of a three pronged business.
Speaker 1: It's so smart, Naomi, Oh, thank you. And also, like
Speaker 1: you said, menopause is very specific to the person. It
Speaker 1: happens at different times. You know, it's not like we
Speaker 1: all go into menopause it's sixty. I have a friend
Speaker 1: who went into menopause in her early thirties, like you,
Speaker 1: had no idea what was going on, wrote an article
Speaker 1: about it, and no magazine would publish it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I mean I'm talking about like beauty mag you know,
Speaker 1: girly fashion.
Speaker 5: Me.
Speaker 1: Nobody wanted to publish it because they were like, nobody
Speaker 1: wants to read about menopause.
Speaker 3: This is such a downer.
Speaker 1: And yet this was probably fifteen years ago, and the change.
Speaker 1: She even said to me, it's amazing how much people
Speaker 1: are now talking about it and embracing it, and even
Speaker 1: with women, like my friends are like, oh God, get
Speaker 1: some coconut oil out, Like everybody has conversation about how
Speaker 1: to deal with the symptoms.
Speaker 3: It's not a dirty little secret.
Speaker 4: I think a lot of that is to do with
Speaker 4: the internet. You know, we're the first generation of having
Speaker 4: the internet and as much as it makes us crazy,
Speaker 4: and you know, there's a lot of awful things about
Speaker 4: what's going on in social media and on the internet,
Speaker 4: but this has.
Speaker 2: Been a helpful thing.
Speaker 4: And I mean the internet was just getting started as
Speaker 4: my menopause was, so I was very much on my
Speaker 4: own and really had to be my own best advocate.
Speaker 4: And as you probably know that weren't even trained in menopause,
Speaker 4: most of them. They probably spend a few hours on
Speaker 4: it or a few days. And you know, because women
Speaker 4: are not talking about it, they don't know how to
Speaker 4: ask the questions, or they are basically being messaged.
Speaker 2: It's not a problem. You can handle it. Just suck
Speaker 2: it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, that's the joke of in our society is
Speaker 1: if men had menopause, you know, there'd be a pill. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, they have viagra, they have everything else. But
Speaker 1: you know, because it's us, because it's women, it's like
Speaker 1: they don't spend a lot of time or money. I
Speaker 1: put something out on my Instagram where I was saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm talking about menopause on my podcast, and
Speaker 1: a lot of women wrote in with you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of complaints you hear over and over again. And
Speaker 1: the reason I want to bring them up is because
Speaker 1: you actually have done research and have products and things
Speaker 1: in stripes that help with these certain issues. So the
Speaker 1: first one that I hear constantly is A Dry Vagina,
Speaker 1: which is a new movie starring Naomi Once. I know
Speaker 1: that you have a product that's helpful because I've heard,
Speaker 1: like I said before, coconut oil. I've heard so many
Speaker 1: different things, and I really think women struggle with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So yeah, what I knew about menopause was, as I said,
Speaker 4: very little. I knew about hot flashes, and I knew
Speaker 4: about brain fog, and then I got onto dry skin.
Speaker 4: I was doing a TV show at the time, and
Speaker 4: my skin was itchy and angry and irritable, and I
Speaker 4: didn't know what was happening. I'm doing twelve to sixteen
Speaker 4: hour days and I have hot lights and multiple applications
Speaker 4: of makeup and my skin is raging, and nobody could
Speaker 4: tell me. They just gave me a topical ointment. And
Speaker 4: you know, now your skin is the same all over
Speaker 4: your body, so that dryness that occurred is going to
Speaker 4: unfortunately reach you in other places, be everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I didn't know that this was a symptom.
Speaker 4: And anyway, long story short, I got very deeply.
Speaker 2: Passionate about skincare.
Speaker 4: But yeah, we have two vaginal products or vaginal products
Speaker 4: however you want to say. One is the loop called
Speaker 4: oh My Glide, and one is the moisturizer, which is
Speaker 4: called Badge of Honor.
Speaker 2: And we wanted to be funny with names.
Speaker 3: We have to be.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have to embrace this time, you know. No
Speaker 4: more the crazy lady that has to go to the
Speaker 4: corner and with her knitting needles. No, you know, we
Speaker 4: want to be in our best and now we actually
Speaker 4: the time is yours to embrace because our kids are
Speaker 4: getting a bit older. I know, we still have teenagers
Speaker 4: and they've got their high level needs. But some of us,
Speaker 4: you know, have empty nests or they're about to empty.
Speaker 4: So you can put the time and invest in yourself
Speaker 4: now for the first time. And you know that means
Speaker 4: with your skin and understanding how to keep your sex
Speaker 4: life alive, because again, women turn in on themselves if
Speaker 4: they don't have you know, the education piece.
Speaker 2: It's right, takes a little more effort, but so does everything.
Speaker 1: And by the way, a lot of my female friends
Speaker 1: when they hit menopause and their libido went down and
Speaker 1: their vaginas were dry. You know, they just thought there's
Speaker 1: something wrong with me. They shut down, their marriage suffer
Speaker 1: for it, And my feeling is and love. I wanted
Speaker 1: to tell you George's reaction. My husband when I got
Speaker 1: your box, he was like he saw the lube and
Speaker 1: was like, oh, let's let's go.
Speaker 3: Come on, let's try.
Speaker 1: I mean, more we are comfortable with it, the more
Speaker 1: are partners will be comfortable with it as well.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Why is it any different than you know, a vibrator
Speaker 1: or something else. It's just in a cultra moll in
Speaker 1: the bedroom exactly.
Speaker 2: I think you've just got to embrace that first awkward,
Speaker 2: icky moment.
Speaker 4: And actually I think the men in our lives are
Speaker 4: grateful to be brought in on the information, and you know,
Speaker 4: if they're a good person, they're going to be.
Speaker 2: How can I help, you know?
Speaker 4: I was so grateful once I brought the conversation up
Speaker 4: into my relationship. I certainly did my best to hide
Speaker 4: it for a period of time. And as I said it,
Speaker 4: you know, it's just it's too exhausting to keep that secret.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm on HRT safe from me, I had
Speaker 4: the patch, and I would find myself running to the bathroom.
Speaker 2: And scratching it off.
Speaker 4: And as you know, there's a certain amount of adhesiveness
Speaker 4: on there that you know, you just can't get off.
Speaker 4: Doesn't peel off like a band aid. It leaves a
Speaker 4: black it looks like a bullet wound. So I would
Speaker 4: be like scratching the hell out of my skin and
Speaker 4: then you know, literally lose a layer or two, and
Speaker 4: he'd be like, is that okay?
Speaker 2: Are you okay?
Speaker 4: So I had to just get real and honest about it,
Speaker 4: and you know, unbeknownst to me, he was like, Wow,
Speaker 4: let's just embrace this. You know, he's not squeamish, he's
Speaker 4: my age. He understands he's not, you know, And it's
Speaker 4: so much easier for everybody.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the stress, the stress you have
Speaker 1: keeping it in, even the stress affects the relationship. You know,
Speaker 1: how great and freeing would it be for a woman
Speaker 1: to be able to go, oh shit, I'm having a
Speaker 1: hot flash. Oh my god, Oh my god, get me
Speaker 1: some water, you know, haha, you know, make it yeah,
Speaker 1: just part of life. And I want to end because
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for the time you gave me with
Speaker 1: the fact that I put this on social media, and
Speaker 1: I've never been so by questions and comments than I
Speaker 1: have been about menopause. I mean, women want to talk
Speaker 1: about it and they want that community.
Speaker 4: Oh that is so great to hear, Allie. I mean,
Speaker 4: the thing is is that and it's the one when
Speaker 4: you're in the bed right, Yes.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I tried to make it sex.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's your humor. As I say, it becomes
Speaker 4: instantly more accessible and you're being sexy. And you know,
Speaker 4: I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And I'm so
Speaker 4: grateful that other people are out there. There's so many
Speaker 4: now and that are opening it and normalizing it, making
Speaker 4: it fun. We just need the tools, we need permission,
Speaker 4: and honestly, the door has been crapped and everyone is
Speaker 4: just barging through, running out, screaming and going.
Speaker 3: Yay, it's true.
Speaker 4: What can we do to make this the best time
Speaker 4: of our lives? You know, We've got plenty of energy
Speaker 4: left and plenty to do. I'm not far from it.
Speaker 1: Listen, I think we get better with age, and I'm
Speaker 1: not just saying a bumper sticker because we have to.
Speaker 1: I've never had more energy, been smarter, gotten more done.
Speaker 1: Like I wish I had the brain I had maybe
Speaker 1: when I was thirty. But I feel like I'm just
Speaker 1: getting started. I know it sounds like a cliche, but
Speaker 1: like I do we just produce this documentary. I've written
Speaker 1: books like I'm like, let's go.
Speaker 2: I agree, I'm with you all the way.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So I've asked you about your vagina and all
Speaker 1: kinds of things, and so now in my podcast, I
Speaker 1: like to turn it on my guest and say, you
Speaker 1: can ask me anything.
Speaker 4: Okay, it's a simple question, but it often leads to
Speaker 4: interesting response.
Speaker 2: When was the last time you cried?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: What a fantastic question. The last time I cried, which
Speaker 1: ties into our conversation is I was having some insomnia,
Speaker 1: which I have because of menopause, and I was lying
Speaker 1: in bed. My oldest daughter's in college, my youngest is
Speaker 1: going to college in the fall, and I was lying
Speaker 1: in bed one night, you know, George was snoring next
Speaker 1: to me, and I started thinking about, like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's really I'm about to enter this whole new chapter.
Speaker 1: And I had this sort of these film clips of
Speaker 1: you know, painting rocks on the beach and lemonade stands
Speaker 1: and all these kind of moments of you know, youth
Speaker 1: and laughter and them so little and innocent, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I teared up.
Speaker 3: It was it was.
Speaker 1: Joyous and sad and I just thought, wow, I'm never
Speaker 1: going to have those moments, all those times I bitched
Speaker 1: about the parent teacher conference in first grade, like I
Speaker 1: want that back.
Speaker 3: So that was the last was a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's part of this. This is there is a grief,
Speaker 4: but again acknowledging it and no that everyone goes through
Speaker 4: it is half the solve. It's just a transition. It's
Speaker 4: just a change. Every transition that we've come up against
Speaker 4: in life has created a level of fear, sadness, all
Speaker 4: of those things, and it's just another version of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just as Oprah would say, it's just another chapter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard to turn the page, but then once
Speaker 1: you're in it, you know there are great things about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely great question. Thank you, and our cumulative experiences matter. Yeah,
Speaker 4: knowing how to that you can write that way because
Speaker 4: of all of the ups and downs we've been.
Speaker 2: Through before, it's wonderful.
Speaker 1: Well, we're going to have in our show notes how
Speaker 1: one can go to your website get your products. I'm
Speaker 1: going to lube up after this podcast. So thank you, Naomi,
Speaker 1: really thank you, because yes, your products are amazing, but
Speaker 1: you've started a conversation.
Speaker 3: That is time. It's well timed.
Speaker 1: We all talked about it, laughed about it, and I
Speaker 1: think that women are very, very grateful for this.
Speaker 4: I just want to say the badge of Honna is
Speaker 4: a great thing to use every day as a moisturize
Speaker 4: because we need like we need it on our faces.
Speaker 4: It's great, you know, especially if you exercise or like
Speaker 4: to wear a tight pair of pants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we really do get dry. I mean my hair, everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything from scalp to badge.
Speaker 1: As we say, yes, scalp to badge, which is the
Speaker 1: name of my new autobiography. Thank you so much, Naomi,
Speaker 1: really thank.
Speaker 2: You, Thank you, Allie, thank you, And it's time.
Speaker 3: For a short break.
Speaker 1: But when we come back, I talk with a trailblazer
Speaker 1: in the UK who's advocating for people experiencing perimenopause and
Speaker 1: menopause in the workplace.
Speaker 3: Game changer.
Speaker 1: And welcome back to go ask Alli. So let me
Speaker 1: introduce you to Pat Duckworth. She's a therapist and coach
Speaker 1: in the UK who specializes in women's well being and menopause.
Speaker 1: Pat has published five books, including the award winning Hot Women,
Speaker 1: Cool Solutions, How to Control Menopause Symptoms using Mind Body Techniques.
Speaker 1: Her latest book, Menopause, Mind the Gap, The Value of
Speaker 1: Supporting Women's Health in the Workplace, is a manifesto of
Speaker 1: sorts to the bosses on why they should and how
Speaker 1: they can support employees experiencing the menopausal transition at the
Speaker 1: height of their careers. She's an international speaker at women's
Speaker 1: conferences and a frequent BBC and media guest in the UK.
Speaker 2: Hello, Pat Pally, good to meet you. Okay, let's get
Speaker 2: into it.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to ask a very elementary question, and
Speaker 1: it's just for the one or two men that happened
Speaker 1: to come across this podcast and we just need to
Speaker 1: inform them very quickly. How do you explain menopause?
Speaker 5: I explain it as the twin of puberty. So just
Speaker 5: as puberty, your hormones start kicking in and you start
Speaker 5: to experience body changes, and then you know your body's
Speaker 5: preparing to be reproductive. Then at the other end of it,
Speaker 5: your hormones are starting to reduce and your body is
Speaker 5: getting the end of its reproductive phase. So not many
Speaker 5: women get that excited about menopause.
Speaker 1: No, it's not an exciting time, although there are benefits
Speaker 1: to it. It's interesting that you say it's the twin
Speaker 1: to puberty, because and I have two daughters. Puberty can
Speaker 1: be pretty hormonal and crazy too. You know, I had
Speaker 1: horrible period cramps, I was crying all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: So it does have its downsides as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and just as at puberty, some young women sail
Speaker 5: through it and you know, they they have one spot
Speaker 5: on their face and perhaps they throw one tantrum and
Speaker 5: they're through. And then for other girls it goes on
Speaker 5: for ages and it can be this hormonal roller coaster
Speaker 5: and acne and you know, disrupted sleep and mood changes.
Speaker 5: So just the same way at menopause, some women can
Speaker 5: sail through it and say oh, yeah, one day my
Speaker 5: period stopped. That was it, and you go, oh, that's
Speaker 5: really good. And then other women say, oh, this has
Speaker 5: been going on for years and I just feel like
Speaker 5: rubbish and when will it end? So it's very similar
Speaker 5: in that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, menopause does affect us all emotionally and in
Speaker 1: terms of our cognitive health. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that I've noticed, particularly between me and my friends, is
Speaker 1: in perimenopause and menopause there is a brain fog and
Speaker 1: a different kind of emotional reaction that is not there
Speaker 1: with puberty. Otherwise we all would have gotten out of
Speaker 1: our midterm exams. And because of that, you believe, and
Speaker 1: I support you in this, that adjustments and strategies should
Speaker 1: be put in the workplace because for many women there's
Speaker 1: medical menopause issues, hysterectomies and medication, and you are leading
Speaker 1: the way in the UK into discussing menopause in the workplace.
Speaker 1: So tell me about that. How did this come about
Speaker 1: and what is your righteous stance?
Speaker 5: When I first started talking about this subject twelve years ago,
Speaker 5: if I was talking about it in a business setting,
Speaker 5: you could see tumbleweed go across the room, like why
Speaker 5: are we talking about this? What's this about? In the past,
Speaker 5: I would say five years, the focus has turned onto it.
Speaker 5: I think I gave my first talk on this in
Speaker 5: a government department probably seven years ago, so in public service.
Speaker 5: So the public sector was starting to go, huh, you know,
Speaker 5: we've got a lot of women who are in this
Speaker 5: mid forties to mid fifties age range. Something's going on
Speaker 5: at that stage that I think we need to know about.
Speaker 1: And then we here may I interject and say women
Speaker 1: over fifty are the fastest growing demographic in the workplace, absolutely,
Speaker 1: so big star next to that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so more women over fifty than ever in the workplace,
Speaker 5: women who have benefited from maternity leave and have stayed
Speaker 5: in their jobs and built really good careers. And here
Speaker 5: in the UK there has also been moves to create
Speaker 5: more equality the workplace with something that was called the
Speaker 5: Equality Act in twenty ten. So this is a piece
Speaker 5: of government legislation and it required employers to look at
Speaker 5: eight characteristics of employees that were protected and age is
Speaker 5: one of the protected characteristics. Gender is another one, and
Speaker 5: sexuality is another one, and disability is another of those characteristics.
Speaker 5: What it meant to be a protected characteristic was that
Speaker 5: employers couldn't discriminate against employees on the basis of any
Speaker 5: of these characteristics. Now, menopause wasn't mentioned as a characteristic,
Speaker 5: but if you look at age, gender, and potentially disability,
Speaker 5: because for some women, you know, the symptoms are so
Speaker 5: extreme that they have been considered to be a disability,
Speaker 5: not many, thank heavens, but for some. And so these
Speaker 5: factors came together to mean that employers were starting to
Speaker 5: look at issues of corporate responsibility, corporate social responsibility, and
Speaker 5: their responsibility to their employees and say, there is something
Speaker 5: here about menopause that we need to know about. We've
Speaker 5: got women in senior positions, women with a lot of
Speaker 5: experience and knowledge who are in the workplace, and you know,
Speaker 5: some of them are not having a good time. They're
Speaker 5: not going for promotion, they're perhaps going to working part
Speaker 5: time at what's going on? What do we need to
Speaker 5: know about this subject? And so that conversation has become
Speaker 5: much freer in the UK, I'm really pleased to say.
Speaker 5: And now when I go and talk to groups about it,
Speaker 5: they're like, come on in, Yeah, we need to talk
Speaker 5: about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because this morning I was taking a walk
Speaker 1: with a female friend of mine and I said, I'm
Speaker 1: talking to Pat Duckworth about menopause in the workplace and
Speaker 1: she said, oh gosh, I wonder if it's going to
Speaker 1: hurt women to have more accommodations in the workplace. And
Speaker 1: I said, I'm going to ask her that.
Speaker 5: It's a good question. And this gets raised a lot,
Speaker 5: and sometimes it gets raised in that pushback, you know,
Speaker 5: when you're starting to make advances, and it's not always men.
Speaker 5: Sometimes it's women who go, oh, this will be no
Speaker 5: good for us. But I think backs when I started work,
Speaker 5: and I am so old that you know, when I
Speaker 5: started work, women didn't automatically get equal pay. And when
Speaker 5: we were fighting for equal pay, it was, oh, if
Speaker 5: we get equal pay, employees won't want to employ us
Speaker 5: because they have to pay us the same money, which
Speaker 5: is now you look back on it and say, that's
Speaker 5: a ridiculous argument. And then you know, we've got equal
Speaker 5: pay legislation. And then we were into oh, well we
Speaker 5: want maternity leave. Oh, if we get maternity leave, we
Speaker 5: won't get employed. Yeah, and we got maternity leave, and
Speaker 5: do you know what, we still got employed. And then
Speaker 5: we moved on in this country, in the UK into
Speaker 5: mental health issues, and then it was oh, if we
Speaker 5: start acknowledging mental health issues, people who have that kind
Speaker 5: of problem won't get employed. Well, mental health issues were
Speaker 5: discussed and now a lot of employers have mental health
Speaker 5: first aiders because they realize that people have lives outside
Speaker 5: the workplace that affect them, and the more you can
Speaker 5: support them, the more you'll retain them, and the better
Speaker 5: the performance they'll put in. So it's a really good question,
Speaker 5: and as women, we need to go you know, we
Speaker 5: get these arguments and we have to work through them
Speaker 5: and show that this is important because women are leaving
Speaker 5: the workplace because they're experiencing menopause experience. Women are walking
Speaker 5: away from their careers, and that's really important. Employers don't
Speaker 5: always know that that's why they're losing their senior staff.
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, if the woman needs time to distress or
Speaker 1: she's dealing with symptoms of menopause, have you found in
Speaker 1: or research that there's any kind of coworker backlash or
Speaker 1: the feeling that then the woman who's experiencing menopause her
Speaker 1: work gets sort of dumped on the other person's.
Speaker 5: That's an important management issue and it's about how you
Speaker 5: handle it. So part of this is about educating managers
Speaker 5: about how they can make adjustments, but also educating colleagues
Speaker 5: to understand it as well. I think when you get
Speaker 5: more understanding, it's easier to make the accommodation. And of
Speaker 5: course a lot of the accommodations are personal to the
Speaker 5: employee and wouldn't affect anybody else. But if you don't
Speaker 5: make the accommodations, then the person won't be performing as
Speaker 5: well as they could anyway, and that will fall onto
Speaker 5: their colleagues. So if you've got somebody who's, you know,
Speaker 5: very is having lots of mood swings while they're going
Speaker 5: through this, they don't feel they can talk about it.
Speaker 5: There's no acceptance of it in the workplace. They're probably
Speaker 5: not going to be as good a team worker as
Speaker 5: they've been before. Many women say that they kind of
Speaker 5: withdraw and become more isolated. And so somebody who was
Speaker 5: a really good colleague, who you loved talking to, who
Speaker 5: was always up for doing a bit more, and suddenly
Speaker 5: they're withdrawing and isolating and their performance has gone down. Well,
Speaker 5: if you don't take any action, that's not going to
Speaker 5: get any better. So it's in the education and in
Speaker 5: the management of it that means that that person can
Speaker 5: be a good team player, and it's really explaining that
Speaker 5: and educating the colleagues as well. And of course the
Speaker 5: colleagues might be experiencing this at home with their own
Speaker 5: partner and understanding it a bit more would help them
Speaker 5: in their personal lives as well. So there's a lot
Speaker 5: to do around education and good management.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you think that a lot of times
Speaker 1: it comes out of age, Meaning if you're having bad
Speaker 1: menopause symptoms, they think, oh, well, she's just too old.
Speaker 1: She can't work, she's forgetting things. You know, she's stapling
Speaker 1: her finger to this, and they just chock it up
Speaker 1: to age.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think that's another big worry. And I
Speaker 5: hear it more from women in North America then I
Speaker 5: hear it in the UK. For some women it's that, oh,
Speaker 5: you know, they'll know that I'm getting older. They'll start
Speaker 5: judging me on it and thinking, perhaps I can't do
Speaker 5: as much as I used to do. And that's another
Speaker 5: thing that we have to overcome because this can happen
Speaker 5: to women at all ages. Well I should say people
Speaker 5: are all ages, because it affects the transgender community as well,
Speaker 5: and of course it impacts men because strangely, men have
Speaker 5: mothers and partners and sisters, and have colleagues and employees
Speaker 5: who are affected by this. So we have to face
Speaker 5: the aging issue and say, do you know what, it's
Speaker 5: much better to be getting older than not be getting older.
Speaker 1: So I am an employer. You have come to me,
Speaker 1: you have spoken to my group. Tell me your adjustments
Speaker 1: and strategies that you think that my business should input
Speaker 1: to make for a healthier, more productive work environment.
Speaker 5: Yeah. So my first thing to any employer is ask
Speaker 5: your employees, because there are some very simple things that
Speaker 5: you can do. But there's no point in giving everybody
Speaker 5: a desk fan if they don't want a desk fan.
Speaker 5: You know, it's and it's we're looking at all these
Speaker 5: different roles. Even if we took firefighters, you say, Okay,
Speaker 5: you know we're an enlightened employer. We're going to give
Speaker 5: you all desk fans and access to drinking water. And
Speaker 5: then the firefighting women would go, well, actually, we're out
Speaker 5: of the office a lot, and we have completely different demands.
Speaker 5: You know, there are some things that will be very different.
Speaker 5: And you know, it could be that somebody needs to
Speaker 5: be near ventilation, or they might need to be near
Speaker 5: the air conditioning unit. They might need more brakes to
Speaker 5: go to the washroom. Now, I took it for granted,
Speaker 5: having worked in offices for many years, that I could
Speaker 5: always go to the washroom when I wanted to, but
Speaker 5: that's not the case in every form of employment. Sometimes
Speaker 5: in retail you've got set times when you can go
Speaker 5: to the washroom. If your periods are changing and you're
Speaker 5: getting heavier, more frequent periods or unexpected ones that come
Speaker 5: by surprise, you need to get to a washroom. It
Speaker 5: might be that you need access to cold drinking water.
Speaker 5: You might even need somewhere you can go and lie down.
Speaker 5: Some really enlightened employers have provided restrooms that are literally
Speaker 5: restrooms where there's a bed or a sofa or a chair,
Speaker 5: because sometimes you can get cliff edge fatigue where you're
Speaker 5: just suddenly so tired that you know you could fall
Speaker 5: asleep on your desk. So it can be simple things
Speaker 5: like that that can be really helpful. Reviewing somebody's duties.
Speaker 5: Is somebody standing up a lot of the time, and
Speaker 5: could they do with duties where they get to take
Speaker 5: a break. Because you can get really aching legs during menopause,
Speaker 5: that can be a thing, and it might be that
Speaker 5: you need to sit down. So it's really talking to
Speaker 5: your employees and saying what would support you the most,
Speaker 5: and listening to people at all levels in your organization
Speaker 5: to find out what their.
Speaker 3: Needs are, right and it's time for a short break.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to go ask Galie.
Speaker 1: So, when we're talking a little bit about hormones, particularly
Speaker 1: during menopause, do you advocate for having somebody in the company,
Speaker 1: in the workplace that someone can go to if they're
Speaker 1: feeling particularly blue or weepy, or just having some kind
Speaker 1: of a hormonal crash.
Speaker 5: Yes. So it depends on the size of the organization.
Speaker 5: If you're working in a big company that has an
Speaker 5: occupational health person that somebody can go to, that can
Speaker 5: be really helpful. Some organizations have put in place menopause champions,
Speaker 5: and that is it's not a full time role, it's
Speaker 5: a voluntary role. Often somebody who has a particular interest,
Speaker 5: who wants to develop more and find out more, and
Speaker 5: that person could be the one who signposts you towards
Speaker 5: where you could get some help. Now, in small organizations,
Speaker 5: it won't be in house, but perhaps they've got a
Speaker 5: link to somewhere that they can refer you to so
Speaker 5: that you can go and have a chat with somebody.
Speaker 5: Because anxiety is a very common symptom of menopause, it
Speaker 5: may not be the hormones. It might just be like
Speaker 5: the context that you're in because you're going through menopause
Speaker 5: at a time that's really busy. You could have older
Speaker 5: parents who need help, or you've got children getting the
Speaker 5: stage of leaving home or just being teenagers. You know,
Speaker 5: your career might have got to a certain stage, there
Speaker 5: might be relationship issues. So the context that you're going
Speaker 5: through menopause can be stress inducing in itself.
Speaker 1: I know that a lot of women get confused about
Speaker 1: if they're in perimenopause, menopause, postmenopause. So when you talk
Speaker 1: about menopause in the workplace, does is it all under
Speaker 1: that same umbrella.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because this is just the term that we use.
Speaker 5: I'm menopause, strictly speaking, is a single day. It's the
Speaker 5: one year after your last menstruation. It's that day. Everything
Speaker 5: else is really perimenopause, which is the time leading up
Speaker 5: to menopause when you may be experiencing symptoms. So this
Speaker 5: is very much the stage when you need that support
Speaker 5: in the workplace and at home.
Speaker 1: So just to be clear, let's say I'm thirty two
Speaker 1: and I'm in perimenopause. Should I not expect to have
Speaker 1: the kind of support that, say, my coworker Genie whose
Speaker 1: fifty six is getting like, how are we defining who
Speaker 1: gets help in the workplace?
Speaker 5: So we're defining it as women in perimenopause who are
Speaker 5: experiencing menopause or symptoms, so they might not realize that
Speaker 5: it is. So Genie at thirty two is thinking, I
Speaker 5: am way too young. This can't be menopause because that
Speaker 5: happens to women much later. And then she goes to
Speaker 5: her medal practitioner who says, I'll just check this out
Speaker 5: and comes back and says, you are going through perimenopause.
Speaker 5: And you know, I have certainly spoken to women that
Speaker 5: that has happened to and it's come as a huge
Speaker 5: shock to them. And in one particular case, a woman
Speaker 5: who was working in quite a small company and she
Speaker 5: received the news on her thirty sixth birthday that yes,
Speaker 5: she was in perimenopause. And so she had to go
Speaker 5: back to her colleagues who weren't yet at that stage.
Speaker 5: They were older than her and not at that stage,
Speaker 5: and she had to say to them, listen, you know
Speaker 5: this stuff that's been going on. You know, I've been
Speaker 5: forgetting stuff and it turns out I'm going through perimenopause
Speaker 5: and they hadn't been through it, and they were going, Okay,
Speaker 5: you are our pathfinder. You're going to have to tell
Speaker 5: us what this is like and what we need to do.
Speaker 1: The question of stress, many many, many jobs are stressful,
Speaker 1: and how do you differentiate between the stress of a job,
Speaker 1: personal stress, and the stress that comes with menopause and
Speaker 1: how do you manage it?
Speaker 5: So stress can be a big contributor to symptoms. And
Speaker 5: some people just do very stressful jobs. Their jobs just
Speaker 5: are whatever it is, whatever sector that they're working in,
Speaker 5: and so for those people, it's about how they manage
Speaker 5: their stress normally, how they can manage it outside the workplace.
Speaker 5: So how do they d stress, Like what are they
Speaker 5: eating and drinking, because that can reduce your stress in
Speaker 5: the workplace as well as at home. If you love
Speaker 5: your coffee, I'm afraid this is bad news. You need
Speaker 5: to stop drinking it at lunch time because that will
Speaker 5: help you to reduce your stress. So it's looking at
Speaker 5: people holistically and saying, yeah, we know that your job
Speaker 5: is stressful, and what are the small steps that you
Speaker 5: can take that actually reduce your stress levels generally and
Speaker 5: in the workplace, whether it's having breathing techniques that you use,
Speaker 5: whether it's looking at your nutrition, how are you exercising,
Speaker 5: how you sleeping, which is a really important one. All
Speaker 5: of these things, if we look at them holistically, can
Speaker 5: reduce anybody's stress, regardless of what they're doing in the workplace.
Speaker 1: I do want to emphasize that I have heard from
Speaker 1: many women that sleep deprivation is a big symptom of menopause.
Speaker 1: And I have a few friends that have very very
Speaker 1: big jobs and the sleep deprivation really affects them. It's
Speaker 1: a real problem.
Speaker 5: And it is an issue. It is to do with
Speaker 5: the hormones and the way that our brains regulate our sleep,
Speaker 5: and so it's a really important thing if you're not
Speaker 5: sleeping well to get some help, to look at it
Speaker 5: again holistically. What could you be doing in order to
Speaker 5: sleep better.
Speaker 1: I find that walking, I walk like six miles in
Speaker 1: the morning is the only thing that can me to
Speaker 1: sleep at night. Because of menopause, I got to literally
Speaker 1: tire myself out like some kind of a hound dog. Yeah.
Speaker 5: One of my colleagues has written a really good article
Speaker 5: about it. She's saying, just as with everything else, it's
Speaker 5: not a one size fits all. Yeah, you know, and
Speaker 5: people get hooked on, oh I need to do this,
Speaker 5: I need to do that, And she's saying, how do
Speaker 5: you soothe yourself? How do you soothe yourself to sleep?
Speaker 5: And there's loads of different things you can do. It's about, Okay,
Speaker 5: let's look at a whole range of things and what
Speaker 5: could you be changing that will help. I see a
Speaker 5: lot of women with sleep issues.
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking about my mother, who was and is
Speaker 1: a force. And she used to say she was so
Speaker 1: happy and relieved when she was postmenopausal because she said
Speaker 1: she had more energy and more grit and got a
Speaker 1: lot more done.
Speaker 3: Have you found that too?
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe women in their sixties and seven are the
Speaker 1: most prolific and the most productive employees of all.
Speaker 5: I love your mother. I've never met her, and I
Speaker 5: love her already because this is the message that gets missed.
Speaker 5: I mean, I left my corporate job when I was
Speaker 5: going through menopause at fifty four. I have never been
Speaker 5: more productive than I am now. You know. I've written
Speaker 5: five books since then, I've traveled the world talking about menopause.
Speaker 5: I've done things I would never have expected. And this
Speaker 5: is the bonus of menopause. We're getting an upgrade. We're
Speaker 5: getting a reset. This is a chance when if you
Speaker 5: start to experience symptoms to go, oh, okay, how do
Speaker 5: I respond to this? I either go negative and go, oh,
Speaker 5: my goodness, I'm getting older this is the end, in
Speaker 5: which case it probably will be, or you go oh, right,
Speaker 5: so I'm not going to have to deal with monthly period.
Speaker 5: I'm not going to have to be on that mood
Speaker 5: roller coaster anymore. I'm not worried about my fertility anymore.
Speaker 5: And many women get a boost in energy and a
Speaker 5: passion for things they weren't passionate about before. It can
Speaker 5: be that passion goes into community work, it could go
Speaker 5: into your career, it could go into a different career
Speaker 5: because suddenly you can really focus on the things that
Speaker 5: are very important to you.
Speaker 1: I also wonder historically, if you know, back in the day,
Speaker 1: we didn't live that long, so probably by the time
Speaker 1: you're experiencing menopause, you've also got scurvy and you're dying.
Speaker 1: So it's almost as if menopause got tacked on to
Speaker 1: the end of life. Really, I think it's why it
Speaker 1: got such a bad rap, and now that we're living
Speaker 1: so much longer, menopause is just a midpoint, not an
Speaker 1: end point.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, so we should really be thinking, Okay, that's
Speaker 5: the first half of my life was this, you know,
Speaker 5: to Kara Partner, all the things that we do which
Speaker 5: take up a lot of our time, and now we
Speaker 5: get to a midpoint where we say, who do I
Speaker 5: want to be, how do I want to be in
Speaker 5: this next fifty years and really taking the opportunity to
Speaker 5: review our well being, our nutrition, our exercise, how we
Speaker 5: deal with stress, so that we're setting a really strong
Speaker 5: foundation for the next thirty forty fifty years, however long
Speaker 5: we've got, because it is a privilege to get this
Speaker 5: far and to have this second opportunity to do something
Speaker 5: great with the rest of our lives.
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like we need to change the reputation
Speaker 1: of menopause a little bit. It's always gotten a bad
Speaker 1: rap because it's a very antiquated idea. Again, because we
Speaker 1: live longer, and because women now have so many next chapters,
Speaker 1: the menopause of all does not equate to what we
Speaker 1: do with now. And I love that we should be
Speaker 1: supported in the workplace. I think initially through communication and
Speaker 1: knowledge in the workplace, but I think Also, the bigger
Speaker 1: thing is that we stop the prejudice against menopause.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm part of a group who aren't really trying
Speaker 5: to change this very negative narrative because so many women
Speaker 5: kind of don't talk to me about menopause. I think
Speaker 5: there's sort of fear that they might bring it on
Speaker 5: if they talk about it and they put their things
Speaker 5: there is instead of like, oh well, let me find
Speaker 5: out about this so that I can do everything I
Speaker 5: need to do to be really healthy and to live
Speaker 5: this really good life post menopause.
Speaker 1: I mean, I do feel in our culture the change
Speaker 1: in how we look at menopause, particularly because I think
Speaker 1: certainly back when my mother was going through it, there
Speaker 1: was nothing written about it. People didn't talk about it.
Speaker 1: In she said, it was all whispers with her friends,
Speaker 1: like what are you doing about a drive vagina? What
Speaker 1: are you doing about painful intercourse? And I think now
Speaker 1: people are talking about it much more, which makes it
Speaker 1: less of a you know, something you discussed in dark
Speaker 1: hallways and whispers, And now people are saying drive vagina
Speaker 1: out loud as opposed to whispering it.
Speaker 5: Yeah. I gave a talk a cancer support group, and
Speaker 5: the women there you know, going through treatments cancer and
Speaker 5: that can bring on menopause symptoms as well. And I
Speaker 5: took along a bagful of samples of vaginal moisturizers and lubricants,
Speaker 5: and I think they were quite surprised that that's what
Speaker 5: I turned up with. You know that it's a cancer
Speaker 5: support group. But three months later I went back to
Speaker 5: do another talk and a woman came up to me said,
Speaker 5: have you got any one of the lubricants because I
Speaker 5: wasn't here last time and my mum brought me some,
Speaker 5: but I need some more. And I said, oh, I
Speaker 5: just happened to have some here, so I'm like the
Speaker 5: lubricant fairy.
Speaker 1: Now, Oh my gosh, Pat, I got to have you
Speaker 1: at my next party. So I always ask my guests
Speaker 1: a million questions, and I always say I have to allow.
Speaker 3: Them to ask me something.
Speaker 1: So now is the part where you get to ask
Speaker 1: me any question about anything?
Speaker 5: Okay, So you've had this great career and it's still
Speaker 5: an ongoing career. I want to know, is there any
Speaker 5: comic role, either on stage or on TV that you
Speaker 5: would love to play?
Speaker 1: M Oh, my goodness, well, I do love comedy, so
Speaker 1: if there was a some kind of version of absolutely fabulous.
Speaker 3: I would love to do that.
Speaker 1: And as I was thinking talking to you, I thought,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, there were the vagina monologues, But how
Speaker 1: come they're not the menopause monologues. Maybe we should produce
Speaker 1: those any remake of anything Goldiehn has done. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, if I can slip and fall and hit
Speaker 1: a wall, I'm a happy girl. So thank you, Pat,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. And I can't wait for so
Speaker 1: much of what you're doing to come over to this
Speaker 1: side of the pond and be implemented in a lot
Speaker 1: of the corporate structures over here in America, because I
Speaker 1: think what you're doing is fantastic.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. It's just been such a pleasure.
Speaker 5: And I have done some talks for American companies, so
Speaker 5: we're getting in there. Hopefully things will improve for women everywhere.
Speaker 1: Well, just bring all your little packets of lube and
Speaker 1: America will embrace you.
Speaker 5: I'm packing my bag.
Speaker 3: Thank you for listening to go ask Gali.
Speaker 1: I feel moisturized, lubricated, and hopeful. You can follow Naomi
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Naomi Watts and at I Am Underscore Stripes.
Speaker 1: Pat is also on Instagram and she's at pat Duckworth
Speaker 1: one their websites and more info and what you heard
Speaker 1: in this episode are in our show notes. Be sure
Speaker 1: to subscribe, rate and review, Go Ask Gali and follow
Speaker 1: me on social media on Instagram at the Real Ali Wentworth.
Speaker 1: Now if you'd like to ask me a question or
Speaker 1: suggest a guest or a topic to dig into for
Speaker 1: next season, I'd love to hear from you, and there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of ways you can do it.
Speaker 3: You can call or text me.
Speaker 1: At three two three three six four six three five six,
Speaker 1: or you can email a voice memo right from your
Speaker 1: phone to Go Ask galipodcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: And if you leave a question, you just might.
Speaker 1: Hear it on Go Ask Gali and heads up. Or
Speaker 1: we got a big one for our finale. Next week
Speaker 1: is a last episode of this season and you are
Speaker 1: gonna love it. I have Marishka Hargatea and Martha Beck
Speaker 1: with me and it's really one of my favorite conversations ever.
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