Dear Menopause Community

Lots of you are doing really important work around menopause, and it’s great to see you all raising public awareness. Unfortunately sometimes your messages are excluding some of the people who need to hear it the most.

This is a heartfelt request, when communicating publicly about menopause, to please, please think before addressing your audience as ‘ladies’. 

This post may bring up some hostility in you. I ask that you don’t take what I am saying personally and see if you can put yourself in my and others’ shoes.

I see many menopause-related calls for action, promotion of services, and marketing pitches, all addressed to ‘ladies’. This post is me reflecting on why this happens.

YOU MAY LOVE BEING CALLED A LADY YOURSELF?

There is nothing wrong with the word ‘lady’! You may love the word for yourself and your friends. Being called that may make you feel recognised and affirmed for a number of reasons. But you may not realise that when you use it to address random others it can feel non-consensual and erasing.

Is it because gendered greetings are normalised everywhere?

I don’t want to be too hard on folks. Gendered greetings are endemic, particularly in healthcare and hospitality. It’s a headache, but why should online communication be any different? Most of us have used them - and still slip up - because in this society we are brought up absolutely enmired in the gender binary.

Even so, I have no idea why the world insists on repeatedly reminding people of their gender - particularly when their assumptions may well be wrong. But I wish it would stop, on behalf of myself and many others. 

There is a way to make it stop, and that is (a) not doing it ourselves, and (b) asking others not to do it either. 

Is it to do with your chosen audience being 40+, or middle-aged? 

The world ‘lady’ feels like the older version of ‘girl.’ And I know that menopause and ageing are heavily associated. However, to link them exclusively erases the experience of younger people.

This leaves out all the people who had surgical menopause or POI when younger. Sometimes as teenagers.

Is it meant to be slightly tongue-in-cheek?

Menopause can be grim, and can feel like a battle at times. So maybe you would like to be light hearted about it all. Of course that is fine on a personal level, but for me the word ‘ladies’ conjures up a bit of a Christmas panto vibe. Nothing wrong with a Christmas panto!

But menopause awareness isn’t a panto. 

The word also conjures up a kind of bum-patting old-fashioned sexism. There is enough misogyny, ageism and mockery - not to mention infantilisation - directed towards people in menopause to know that adding to it does not feel helpful. 

Are you PERHAPS thinking that only cisgender women experience menopause?

You may be forgetting that non-binary and trans people also experience it. In other words, people who may well not wish to be referred to as ‘ladies’. Or, of course, ‘women’.

(Note: There is a lot more to say about the word ‘women’ in menopause communications. This post is a subset of that message. It’s the purpose of this website, and it’s why, if you follow me anywhere, I keep going on about how menopause happens to PEOPLE. )

Every time you put this word in your communications about menopause, you are excluding people and potentially causing dysphoria.

Personally, I find it highly alienating and my strong urge is to step away from it. I also need to tell you that there are plenty of cis women who do not love being called ladies either.

‘But It’s just a tweet/email/instaGRAM post! where’s the harm in That?’

Sadly, the potential harms are huge. The knock on effect of all this relentless gendering is that some LGBTQ+ menopausal folks decide not to access healthcare services because they simply cannot face having to explain themselves to staff, over and over again, and potentially face pushback when they are trying to get help.

Imagine knowing your actions caused, however indirectly, someone to actively avoid getting the healthcare they need! Especially with something as challenging and distressing as menopause can be.

Like I said above, lots of you are doing really important awareness work. Do you really need to gender it?

Thank you for reading.