CLAIRE FOGES: I’m glad the menopause is no longer shrouded in secrecy. But I fear the ‘movement’ by the likes of Davina McCall has set women back – and could be to blame for middle aged joblessness

Is your organisation menopause-friendly? Is the CEO wearing a special ribbon in this Menopause Awareness Month? Do you drink out of special pink and purple mugs? Have you been furnished with downloadable menopause ‘toolkits’? Has HR hosted any Menopause Awareness bake sales?

In recent years menopause has gone from taboo to trendy, not only a part of everyday corporate culture but celebrated even – complete with branded office merchandise. After all, what says progress better than an ‘I’m a Menopause Advocate’ lanyard?

As a 45-year-old woman who can’t be a million miles away from The Change myself, I’m grateful that this subject is no longer wreathed in secrecy and shame – but concerned that well-meaning campaigning is shooting middle-aged working women in the foot.

Let’s be clear: no one wants to return to the bad old days when menopause was unmentionable or the subject only of unscientific old wives’ tales. But has the pendulum swung too far to extreme awareness? I fear so.

We have been bombarded with stories about women’s struggles during the menopause. We know that Halle Berry’s doctor misdiagnosed her vaginal symptoms as herpes; that Gwyneth Paltrow experienced sweating and furious moods; that Oprah Winfrey had heart palpitations and Brooke Shields night sweats.

Davina McCall’s documentaries raised the profile of menopause in the UK, and in her wake came many celebrities sharing their stories: Lorraine Kelly, Gabby Logan, Carol Vorderman, Gillian Anderson, Julie Walters, Zoe Ball. Menopause influencers have millions of followers, while high-profile experts such as Dr Louise Newson sell out theatres nationwide to audiences desperate to hear how they might be helped by HRT or other treatments.

None of these women should be criticised for trying to help others navigate this life change. Get to the GP, clarify your symptoms, know they are treatable. Amen to all that. But while individual campaigners mean well, collectively they have helped create the impression that the average 40-year-old woman is a ticking time bomb, shortly to suffer an emotional and physical explosion.

This is extremely unhelpful when it comes to the reputation of women in the workplace. The 2025 Employment Rights Act brought in a new law: all large businesses in the UK (those with more than 250 employees) will have to create and publish something called a Menopause Action Plan by next spring. The Government is insisting that businesses choose a minimum of two actions from an official list, such as conducting a ‘menopause risk assessment’ or setting up support groups.

Davina McCall’s documentaries raised the profile of menopause in the UK, and in her wake came many celebrities sharing their stories

Frustrated at such flimsy – or indeed non-existent – evidence, Professor Davis led a team of researchers on the highly-rigorous Australian Women’s Midlife Years survey

Yes, at a time when growth is anaemic, Britain is forcing fast- growing businesses to spend time not on winning new contracts but on establishing Menopause Champions, Menopause Deputies and Menopause Committees.

Unfortunately, though, this policy has been driven not by data but by well-meaning waffle.

This is the opinion of one of the leading menopause researchers in the world. Professor Susan Davis, of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, has been an expert on the subject for four decades. Of the Government’s decision to force companies to adopt Menopause Action Plans, she told me: ‘Policy should be based on strong data. This isn’t.’

She points to a parliamentary report by the Women and Equalities Committee in 2022, which stated that almost 900,000 women in the UK had left their jobs because of menopausal symptoms. But hang on a minute – there are fewer than five million women in their 50s in the UK.

‘Where on earth did that data come from, that 900,000 women had left the workforce?’ asks Prof Davis. The answer, it turns out, is a ‘marketing survey’ of women of all ages. ‘They only assessed 1,000 women, and [in the 900,000 extrapolated figure] included those who had left work because of things like pregnancy and infertility,’ she says.

Frustrated at such flimsy – or indeed non-existent – evidence, Prof Davis led a team of researchers on the highly-rigorous Australian Women’s Midlife Years survey, presented at the International Menopause Society Congress in Brazil earlier this month.

The study analysed 8,000 Australian women between 40 and 69, looking not only at menopausal status but employment, family, alcohol consumption and so on. Its focus was on perimenopause, since it is during that time that peak symptoms can occur.

The study’s central finding is a bombshell: when it comes to work ability, days off from work and being impaired at work, there was no difference between premenopausal and perimenopausal women. Zero. Zilch. None.

This shatters the assumption at the heart of the Government’s strategy. It makes a nonsense of the idea that every office needs a Menopause Champion. And it reveals how politicians will ignore the need for evidence in their desire to support ‘progressive’ causes.

The trouble with this cause is that it threatens to set back progress. As Professor Davis says: ‘There’s the potential that this will backfire, with employers seeing a woman aged between 45 and 55 and automatically assuming they will have issues because the woman is perimenopausal.’

She is right, of course. Imagine a business owner looking for a new senior hire. His final candidates are both 45: a woman and a man. The woman is better qualified, but he’s read about ladies becoming emotional wrecks around this time of life. What kind of ‘reasonable adjustments’ might she ask for when hitting the menopause? Expensive air-conditioning? Months of paid leave? He can’t take the risk, so hires the man.

Menopause campaigners might think they have done women a favour by highlighting the struggles that women can face but, alas, they have inadvertently pushed the notion that women in their 40s and 50s are all at the mercy of our hormones, plagued by brain fog, mood swings, hot flushes and fatigue.

All this feeds into the bias that women are the weaker sex, in need of special treatment.

I cannot help but wonder whether the growing numbers of highly-accomplished women finding it nigh-on impossible to find work in their late 40s and 50s might be the victims of all this. On Facebook groups and online forums you will find hordes of them with dazzling CVs, decades of experience – and diddly squat in terms of job offers.

When you think of the decades-long battles for women’s equality in the workplace, this is a tragedy. That fight hasn’t just been waged in strikes for equal pay but in countless small acts by individual women too: staying later to show they can do the job, speaking up in the boardroom even when being patronised.

It has been a long, hard slog to prove that women can be as capable as men; just as fierce in chasing profit, just as effective in leading teams, just as strong in making tough decisions. Now, this perception that we will all suffer debilitating symptoms in the prime of our working lives threatens to undo that process. Why not hang a ‘Do Not Employ’ sign around our neck at 45 and be done with it.

Of course, employers should be understanding to women who are having a hard time during the menopause, just as they should for women or men going through any life difficulties: depression, bereavement, caring for sick loved ones.

As Professor Davis says: ‘Employers should be sympathetic to all employees. But singling out middle-aged women with this hyper-focus on menopause just isn’t helpful. Rather than Menopause Action Plans or giving every woman a fan, we just need to ensure our health systems are geared up so that every woman who is struggling with menopause gets proper help.’ Indeed.

When the law changes next spring and employers are forced by law to draw up Menopause Action Plans, expect great crowing from campaigners about the ‘victory’ they have won. Alas, it is a Pyrrhic victory for women like me.