Opinion: I’m a woman in my forties. Stop telling me my life is going to end when menopause starts

"[Menopause is] the end. Nothing less. At least according to the current 'progressive' narrative. It’s brain fog, depression, fatness and unable-to-get-out-of-bedness."

OPINION:

For a short, blissful time in Year 11, getting out of PE was a doddle. We had a male teacher who would become so incapacitated with embarrassment whenever a girl said the words “women’s stuff”, that he’d go from pink to puce, nod and shoo you away.

The same girls would do it week after week, safe in the knowledge that even if Mr Duffin did have the dimmest understanding of the female cycle, he wouldn’t be brave enough to object. All that changed when he was replaced by a woman; she never let any of us skip PE again.

I thought about this yesterday, when I read a report about paid menstrual leave gaining traction with UK policymakers, after Spain became the first country in Europe to pass a law earlier this year.

The Spanish law – which only came into force this month and follows in the footsteps of Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, South Korea and Zambia – allows women to request paid time off during a painful period. A doctor’s note is needed, but there are no restrictions on how many times this can be done, so if you have a kindly GP and your (male) boss is as hazy as Mr Duffin about how often Aunt Flo can feasibly come to visit, you could be in clover.

Predictably, the law has been hailed “a lightning rod for feminists”, “a liberation” and “a historic day of progress for women”. I predict it’ll turn out to be the opposite – and I’m not alone.

Even Sally King, the founder of Menstrual Matters, an evidence-based non-profit organisation supporting menstrual health and rights, has said that she is against the idea. “The problem is that it sounds like a progressive thing – it isn’t. The menstrual cycle is normal and healthy. It’s not an enjoyable process, but 90 per cent of people don’t need to take any time off work ever for menstrual health. Generally speaking, most people are fine.”

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As with so many suggested and implemented policies around “women’s stuff”, we seem to be actively seeking to pathologise normal life: implying we have a number of inbuilt disabilities. How can that be helpful? Of course there are conditions that require special dispensation, but menstrual leave for all would trap women within a narrative we’ve been trying to escape for centuries. It would end up being regressive and reductive and it wouldn’t destigmatise but reinforce the view that once a month we’re unable to function.

If a man were to tell a female colleague to take three to five days off work during her period – as UK campaign groups clamouring for a similar law to be passed here are suggesting – can you imagine what would happen? It calls to mind a meme I once saw: “Don’t just assume that when I’m angry I’m on my period, otherwise when you’re sleeping, I’ll ‘assume’ you’re dead and bury you in the garden.”

What’s awkward about periods (Mr Duffin, I hope you’re reading this) is that they happen once a month. So let’s say, for the sake of argument, that an epidemic of menstrualitis across the UK means women start having paid duvet days for one week every month… until they get pregnant and are off for 39 weeks. Then it’s about time for ovarian retirement, isn’t it? Tell you what: shall we just go ahead and hire a man instead? Because we all now know what the menopause means, don’t we?

It’s the end. Nothing less. At least according to the current “progressive” narrative. It’s brain fog, depression, fatness and unable-to-get-out-of-bedness. Then there are the “thoughts of suicide” casually ascribed to menopausal women endlessly in print, as though this were not a rarity prompted by a number of complex factors but a straightforward symptom. And I was gratified to hear the president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Professor Dame Clare Gerada, speak on this yesterday and remind people that menopause is a “process not an illness”.

I’m all for “raising awareness” and “having the conversation” – right up until that conversation drowns out every other. So while someone like Davina McCall has been brilliant at educating people about the benefits of HRT, for example, I’m a little bemused by the number of people calling themselves either “menopause campaigners” or – still more bafflingly – “period campaigners”. What, precisely, would you like to do about these bodily functions? Have them abolished?

I also find it irritating to be told I’ll effectively be rendered useless within a decade. Indeed, at one point I became so concerned by the one-note menopause coverage that I started asking older women in a low whisper: “Just how bad is it?” The answer was always a shrug and a variation of: “Some people have a lousy time, but honestly it was no big deal for me.”

You know the quote “every generation thinks it invented sex”? Well, this cohort seems to think it has invented “women’s stuff”, and that’s been helpful in many ways. But pathologising womanhood? That’ll undo all the good work.

• Celia Walden is a columnist and feature writer for The Daily Telegraph