Middle-aged women and others going through the menopause experience unacceptable discrimination. However, the law as it stands means legal cases challenging menopause-related discrimination need to be brought on grounds of sex, age or disability.
If the law currently works inadequately, should menopause be added to the list of grounds recognised by the Equality Act 2010 (Equality laws could be changed to protect women in menopause, says MP, 18 August)? In our view, menopause-based discrimination highlights instead the relevance and value of an “intersectional” approach. This recognises that discrimination is often due to a combination of social biases. Kimberlé Crenshaw, who developed the term in the late 1980s, focused on the disadvantages that black women faced and the inadequate response of American anti-discrimination law to their experiences.
In Britain, provision for “combined discrimination” was included in the Equality Act (Section 14) but never brought into force. While this provision was limited – focusing only on “dual discrimination”, it highlighted the importance of equality law recognising the complex character of lived inequality.
Rather than add the menopause as a protected characteristic to the list of grounds in the Equality Act, this debate might benefit from considering whether addressing intersectional discrimination is a better way forward.
Prof Davina Cooper Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, Dr Flora Renz, Dr Suhraiya Jivraj and Prof Emily Grabham Kent Law School, University of Kent
Congratulations to Sirin Kale on her article (‘My bosses were happy to destroy me’ – the women forced out of work by menopause, 17 August). Workplaces can be cruel to older women. From the time I was 40, I got snide remarks about my age from younger women and from men of all ages, some of whom were fat and ugly (I was neither).
When I had to wear glasses to use the computer, my female boss said: “It’s old age. You have nothing to look forward to.” I left that job and became a proofreader. My female boss kept putting me down on the grounds of my age, even though the partners (the employer was a legal firm) said my work was excellent. My contract was renewed, despite my boss’s dislike for me. When I finally left, I wept at the final interview, begging the human resources manager to persuade my boss to refrain from age discrimination. It’s horrible. It hurts.
During the menopause, I sweated so badly at night that I got very little sleep, but I soldiered on at work. In a way I was lucky; I didn’t have periods that were so heavy that I dared not stray far from a toilet. I just felt tired from lack of sleep, and deeply wounded at my boss’s nasty remarks. Even those who dislike older women must, at work, treat them with respect. The workplace is hellish if your boss has no respect for you.
Name and address supplied
Re your report on menopause equality legislation, please can we have some acknowledgment of the role that a small maintenance dose of hormone replacement therapy can play in relieving the distressing symptoms of the menopause?
Elaine Fullard
Oxford