campusreview . com . au industry & research are certain things that you don ' t want to share . And for many women , I think that is around menopause and menstruation , but definitely menopause . So when you ask how it is managed , my answer is , I really don ' t think it is managed . Women have to manage it themselves .
How does menopause affect women in academia in their everyday job ? First of all , menopause is very different for different people . So for some people I think they go through menopause and it ' s relatively smooth , so their career is uninterrupted . In universities I can see that as a potential because we don ' t generally have very physically taxing jobs . So if I compare us to say , frontline workers , police , that kind of thing , I ' d say universities have less physically taxing occupations . So it may be that the physical symptoms of menopause are less likely to cause an issue , but then other people have really significant issues like brain fog . And when you ' re talking about academic scholars , which can be probably the most threatening thing that happens . If you find that you are not able to think clearly , there might be an interruption to your scholarly work .
It is very scary for a female academic to be faced with that kind of situation . The other thing I think is that when you look at universities , the profile of leaders still tends to have quite a lot of men in certain areas . Coming into the forties , we get that perimenopause and that ' s where we get a lot of the symptoms . So if what you ' re saying to women is , okay , we really want you to progress as leaders and then you are ignoring something that might make that a little bit more difficult , particularly in the eyes of women . They may feel , oh , I can ' t step forward into this leadership position . I think that ' s has really significant implications in universities because we need to be supporting women as they progress into leadership positions . We don ' t in many situations have sufficient women in leadership positions .
If menopause often arise when women are in line for these leadership positions , how does this impact their career prospects ? There ' s not very much research in the area , but what we can see is that a lot of the effects of menopause and perimenopause don ' t mean that women are affected at work . So women progress and do the same . For example , they did a test on kind of calculations and women who were perimenopausal , menopausal , or whatever across the range , did the same . So there was no difference in that complex thinking , not at all . But the menopausal women were more anxious about their performance . So a lot of it is coming back to this idea that women think , ‘ I ' m not able to do this as well as I could ’, and that might stop them applying for these leadership positions .
They lose confidence , they ' re worried that other people will perceive them differently and they ' re worried that they themselves aren ' t operating the way they once were able to operate . And because we haven ' t done enough work in this area , it ' s really hard to turn around then and say , oh no , read this actually , even though you might not feel as confident , chances are you are actually operating just as well . So go for it .
How can departments , colleagues and management better support older women in academia ? First of all , we need to do more research because we need to be able to tackle all these issues . We have to be able to right that wrong and say , this is actually what really happens . Now , I know for a small number of people , a lot of changes , physical changes can be really difficult . So I ' m not minimising that . And that can be the same for maternity , which can be the same for any kind of transition . But for most people , for most women , what
we ' ve got to do is get the message out there that sure , it might be a bumpy road , but you inherently are still you with all the capabilities that you have and all the ambition that you had .
We need to do research to empower women to be able to say , okay , I ' m not less than I was five years ago . If anything , I ' m more than because I ' ve gone through more complicated and I ’ ve had to deal with some challenges . So that ' s the first thing . The second thing is this crazy taboo , we ' ve just got to get over it . I think that universities , they used to be seats of action , places of action . I remember when I was growing up , my mother used to tell me these stories about the sixties and how it was great . Universities were the places where social change occurred , where people became aware of things , where ideas were challenged .
It ' s very much focused now on your job and a career . And I really get that . I do . I think that ' s a positive step . Everybody ' s worried about their career . So I ' m not in any way being negative about that . But I ' d like to come back to this idea of universities as being agents of social change that might tackle some of these taboos . Menopause is a taboo that arguably affects 50 per cent of people in the workforce . So it ' s really widespread . I think universities can be these places of social action and I really want to encourage that . So that means not just research , but universities themselves taking an initiative here , having policies around menopause and enacting those policies , reviewing them , making sure it ' s really visible what they ' re doing . ■
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