Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
You're listening to Roundtable with myself, He Yang.
I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Niu Haolin in the studio.
Coming up, menopause is a natural phase of life that brings real physical and emotional challenges for women.
For many, especially those who depend on their jobs to support themselves and their families, these changes can make work feel overwhelming, even impossible at times.
Yet, menopause remains a topic shrouded in silence and misunderstanding, leaving countless women to suffer alone while juggling symptoms such as hot flashes, insomnia, and mood swings.
It's time we face these realities head -on and explore how society and workplaces can better support women through this demanding stage of life.
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And now let's switch gears.
You know how some words become almost too uncomfortable to say out loud?
For decades, menopause has been one of those hush -hush topics, a phase of life that all women who menstruate will eventually go through, but few feel free to openly discuss.
It's been wrapped in silence and misunderstood as something negative or even embarrassing.
But menopause isn't something to hide from.
It's a natural stage of life that over a billion women worldwide are experiencing right now.
Now, what if instead of shying away, we rewrite the narrative?
Let's break the taboo, explore the real experiences behind menopause, and celebrate the strength and resilience of women embracing this important transition.
To kick things off, let's explain what menopause or 更年期 is, and why is it such a significant phase that affects, well, over a billion women globally?
Yes, menopause is the stage of a woman's life when her menstrual period gradually stops permanently, and she can no longer get pregnant.
Most women begin the menopausal transition between the ages of 45 and 55.
And the average age in China is 49 .5.
And the process may last for several years, around two to eight years.
And for some women, it can even last to 10 years.
Because when we talk about menopause.
It's not just about this stopping point.
It's about this entire period of time when people, when women's bodies started to feel differently because the chemicals in the body start to feel differently and it affects your daily life, affects your emotion, affects even the ability to remember, memorizing things.
So all of these things are together because our body is a system.
And when things happen, it affects more than just one side.
And here, we see the North American Menopause Society estimates that 1 .1 billion women will have experienced menopause by 2025.
And the number in 2030 is projected to be 2 .8 billion, meaning well, Well, so now we have 12 % of the entire world population of 8 billion facing menopause as we speak and it will continue to grow.
And that's also testament to the aging society that many countries are experiencing.
And it is a pressing issue that I can't believe for so long that it's always been people, women struggling in the dark and nobody gets to hear about it.
And you get to hear on Roundtable.
um also steve apparently menopause is not just a female issue men go through something similar but not as bad yeah no i don't i don't think it's really comparable at all men's testosterone levels gradually fall about one percent a year after the age of 40 but most older men still have testosterone levels within the standard range and only about 10 to 25 percent of men have levels that are thought to be low, and also low testosterone levels in older men often go unnoticed.
The only comparison I guess that could be made is that gradual decline in hormone levels, but it's a lot slower.
They call it male menopause or sometimes andropause as well, but the aging -related hormone changes differ greatly between women and men.
In men, it goes down over many years in women it happens quite dramatically and that's what triggers menopause yes and dramatically as with this sudden change in the female body and also you mentioned it can go on for a few years sometimes and that could be that transitional period could could be called perimenopause.
And during this time, already women are feeling all these really obnoxious symptoms. And could you highlight what are sort of the typical symptoms that ladies would feel during this period of life?
We already mentioned that it affects the overall quality of life for sure including hot flashes hot flashes is like all of a sudden when you're facing an important event and you're feeling perfectly okay but all of a sudden you started to sweat you feel very hot and even sometimes some people would feel a blur in front of their eyes and suddenly there's also almost like a panic attack and the flush happens quite often in different it does not really have anything to do with what you're doing currently or even the room room temperature or anything.
So it's from inside of the body.
And also there are night sweats, there are sleep disturbances, of course, and joint and muscle discomfort, and uncontrollable mood swings and depression.
And these have something to do with different hormones.
It's not exactly just a decline of hormones, it's more like the unbalanced distribution of hormones in your body.
So in a female body, let's make it easier to say is that you have the happy and exciting, make you excited, make you want to take care of people, want to fall in love kind of hormone.
And there's also another kind of hormone that calms you down.
And then the third type of hormone would make you feel very confident, like you can tackle anything in the world.
And during the premenopause period, the balance of the three type of hormones would get disturbed, disturbed causing a lot of different feelings and complex feelings that you feel like you cannot explain and don't know what to do about, especially for those people who do not even understand this is caused by menopause.
I think you bring up a great point there.
Don't understand. And I think this applies to men.
I think this applies to women as well, because imagine having to go through through all of the things that you just mentioned, hot flashes, night sweats, sleep disturbances, joint and muscle discomfort, mood swings that you can't control, and depression.
And if you're not familiar with what menopause is and what's happening to your body as a woman, then this would be a really incredibly frustrating experience.
And you wouldn't even know why these things were happening to you if you were not familiar with it, right?
From a man's point of view.
And men, if you're listening today, you will never go through this, but your sister will, your mother will, your daughter will at some point, your female coworkers will, the women in your life will.
So I think it's important for men to understand this topic too, because you want to be there to support your partners or your family members or your friends as best you can.
And if you can understand what they're going through, it's going to make things a whole lot easier for you as well it's so heartwarming to hear that and in preparing for this show i've watched so many videos interviews uh including documentaries talking about this and one also heartwarming realization i found is that apparently the men in your life are more than happy to support you But also, I don't think this burden should fall on the women's shoulders.
But just to say this, with all the necessary information that we're going to give you and you can look for yourself, ladies, we need to be brave enough to say this, to communicate this with the men who are very close to you in life to help them understand.
And ultimately, I think that's the best situation for everyone.
one. And I think this is a tough topic because it's like, it's kind of like depression in the sense that when you're go, okay, let me explain it like this.
If you cut your finger, then you can look at your finger and you can see why you hurt so you can understand it.
But it's also easy to explain to other people, Hey, look, I cut my finger.
See, this must hurt.
And the other person will say, yes, I understand what you're going through when it's something internal and emotional and when people don't see what you are going through, it's very difficult to get sympathy from other people, right?
So therefore, this is why we need to, everyone needs to be educated on this type of topic so that we can be aware what people are going through, even when we can't see it on the outside.
Yes, and young women don't understand this either.
And older women often don't understand it either.
And that's why it's really important to talk about it.
And also, there's another aspect of this that makes it super difficult to talk about, And I'll try my best to do that.
And I've, well, I've seen Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey talk about this, as well as Halle Berry, American actress and Oscar winner, and she's beautiful at every age.
And she talked in an interview about this openly, saying that when she was 54, she experienced the pre perimenopausal symptoms. And for her, it was the dry vagina symptom.
And she described it.
And I thought it's so important to have these very candid metaphors for people.
She said it felt like sandpaper and razor blades down there.
And then she couldn't even go to the hospital on her own.
She had to have her partner drive her to the hospital.
And initially, the doctor's diagnosis was it was an STD, a kind of sexual.
It was misdiagnosed.
It was until 72 hours later after she and her partner were playing this blame game like who gave it to me kind of thing.
And then the doctor was like, actually, this could be perimenopausal symptoms. And that's when she was also a little shocked that even the doctor wasn't 100 % sure what it was about.
So it just shows the lack of study and medical attention.
that goes to this part of the, of care.
But also, this is, this is also showing that it could really give people this mind game to play because your partner, if doesn't really know what's going on, then they can't really help.
And it seems like, well, if they don't understand why you're not interested in engaging in physicality anymore, and it puts a giant emotional chasm between the two partners.
But actually, what I find to be really promising here as well is according to Halle Berry, even after menopause, after going through the stage, one can still have healthy, enjoyable, active sex. sex. And that's the part that's really difficult to talk about.
Because yes, you got the hot flashes and all that stuff.
But there's some impossibly taboo part of SEX, which we don't talk about nearly as enough as a public health issue in China.
And actually, there's a cure.
There are solutions.
And menopause doesn't put an end to that.
And how encouraging is that?
You were going to say something here.
Yes, I was impressed by the fact that We are learning about this in different ways, but mostly also because some people, celebrity or in certain kind of shows, are discussing this, not just a roundtable.
The reason I started to know about this was also because of, I think it's a stand -up comedy, talking about, here in China, Chinese girl talking about the situation and mocking a little bit about it, explaining the situation.
And also, like He Yang said, we have a celebrity openly talked about her awkward incident.
People started to raise the awareness of the situation.
Years ago, the reason that people started to talk about the kind of symptoms you might go through after giving birth to a kid was also because a famous Chinese singer talked about her suffering after giving birth to her kid.
And women in the society started to pay more attention to it, started to educate their male partner in their life about it.
And that is also happening now.
Roundtable's talking about it.
My good, not favorite, but some of my favorite female comedians are talking about it.
And I think that is the first stage for us to see the problem, address the problem and overcome the challenge.
And at the same time, we see on social media, so many chat groups are discussing these issues.
And this is one of the really great things about the internet and finding your tribe.
Menopause doesn't just affect female bodies.
It affects their work lives too.
And Jet, so many suffer quietly without support.
How does menopause influence women's professional lives?
There was a 2019 study from the UK.
And what they found was that almost 900 ,000 women left their jobs because of menopausal symptoms, and three in five menopausal women, usually aged between 45 and 55, were negatively affected at work.
There was another study from 2020 with over 3 ,000 women that reported that even women who reported just one disruptive menopausal symptom were 43 % more likely to have left their job by the age of 55.
Again, more statistics as the years go on.
2023, 23 % again from the UK, they surveyed more than 2 ,000 working women aged 40 to 60, and 23 % considered resigning due to the impact of the menopause, and 14 % said they are planning to hand in their notice.
Now, those are lots of statistics that don't connect with you on a personal level per se.
But I read a story about a woman, this is from the BBC, about a woman named Madhu Kapoor, and she had worked for the British government for 23 years.
and when she started to experience feelings of paramenopause um she was going through all the things that we talked about night sweats heart palpitations migraines as a matter of fact as well she felt weak she felt lethargic as she couldn't focus she lost all her confidence and she went to her superiors within the government to try to explain what she was going going through but she felt that she couldn't get the necessary support from whoever that was and she decided to resign as a result of all of that.
So impact on career yeah you heard the statistics and you heard a personal story it's a very real thing.
Was holding women back at work during menopause?
Sometimes it's menopause itself.
And now let's turn our attention to a group of women whose stories are often left out the spotlight, female migrant workers from rural China, many of which step back into the cities in their 40s or older, taking on manual labor jobs such as nannies, housekeepers, cleaners to support their families.
But just as they're gaining strength financially, menopause hits, brain fatigue, sleep problems and pain that their their work offers little room to accommodate often.
So here's what I want to impact.
Why does the earning peak for female migrant workers often come after 40?
How does menopause become silent professional barriers for rural ladies in China?
And what can we learn from their stories about the broader societal challenges?
It's actually a very hard to answer question question because there are so many layers.
To start with, we know that for those women who are born in the rural area and started to find some jobs in the city at a certain age, they started to start a family, go raise their kids and take care of the kids.
And after their kids are out of college, find their own life, it's around their 40s and 50s.
And now with enough experience in working in the cities, with also a community of their peers, knowing where the resources, the clients are, and also supposed to be, supposedly, their good state in their life, meaning they're physically capable, they go back to these jobs.
And He Yang has already mentioned some of the jobs, nanny, domestic help.
And these jobs require not only experience, but also dealing or living together with the family.
And we mentioned some of the symptoms happening to women in their menopause period is that they have emotional swings, they hurt physically.
But when they say to their clients too many times, I'm too tired to do this, or this is so hot, or just why, why can't the kid just listen to me, this would make the relationship between these women and the clients even harder.
And that would also lead to the hardship of working in in these families.
Yeah, I so can see that.
And also, yes, it's for ladies who work in manual labor, and also in the office setting as well, right?
Because it seems like when you've got all that experience under your belt, and you've achieved possibly quite a lot, and then you're at this age, and supposedly your performance level is at its peak, your earning abilities is at its peak but you are hit with menopause and suddenly you're like for a lot of people a lot of women out there they feel like they're just completely different person now you know sometimes I hesitate to bring things like menopause period shame or how tough it can be for moms coming back to work because these are usually seen as women's issues after all these aren't challenges
that that men typically need to navigate.
In a very competitive workplace, asking for support or flexibility can feel risky.
Will it hurt our employment opportunities?
Will this make employers think twice about hiring and promoting women in the future?
As a woman, I know we fought so hard for a seat at this table, and we shouldn't have to choose between keeping that seat and speaking honestly about what it takes to stay in it.
Guys, do you have some thoughts about this?
I'm going to be very practical about this.
That is, I think it depends on the stage of development of the society.
1000 years later, well, excuse me, 1000 years ago, or 5000 years ago, we can only take care of the people who are still providing food to the entire tribe.
And for those who are old, or just too small, all, we left them behind.
And later, here in China, we eliminated poverty, we want to make sure that extreme poverty do not exist in the country.
And then later, we want to improve people's livelihood, we change the neighborhood, even though the houses are still livable, we want to make them better, we want to people living in those houses feel better about their lives.
And now we're talking about the government is issuing different types of birth insurances for For women, so that when you're not working or taking your maternity leave, you're not compensating by the companies or compensated by the government, meaning that the company does not have to bear the cost. So I believe there will be a stage where these so -called women problems are also taken care of by the society.
And talking about it, being aware of it is definitely the first stage.
There are groups that are pushing for change as well.
There's a group, I believe it's from the UK.
It's called Menopause Mandate, and that's a group of motivated women from all walks of life, and they share a common interest in perimenopause and menopause.
And this is what it says on their website.
We are devoted to creating a coalition of campaigners to achieve everyone's ultimate goal of revolutionizing the support and advice women receive from both our health service and wider society.
We are women campaigners, politicians, menopause experts, celebrities, and journalists with an ever -growing list of supporters.
And here's one of the really cool things they're doing.
What they're pushing for now is something called MM40 +, which is about understanding the importance of including menopause in over -40 health checks for women.
So what they're demanding is that perimenopause be included in the NHS, the National Health Service over 40s health check in order for women in order that women are made aware of it again, more about education and more about support from society as a whole.
Yeah. And here in China, some companies have already started to give women sick leaves for premenstrual syndrome.
So if you don't know, maybe menopause would be the next good reason to leave this workplace a little bit, just a little bit.
And also hormone therapy can just make life so much easier, but you need to go to your doctor for that treatment and information.
For too long, menopause has been endured in silence, treated like a private burden rather than a public health issue.
But silence doesn't serve us.
By talking openly, by questioning outdated norms, and by demanding better care, we make space for dignity, support, and truth.
Menopause may happen in women's bodies, but it touches all our lives, partners, families, workplaces, entire societies.
So let's not make it a women issue.
It's everybody's issue.
And thank you, Steve and Niu Honglin, for joining the discussion.
I'm He Yang. We'll see you next time
