This summer we’re bringing back some of the best-read Premium pieces of2024. Today we take a look at back at Herald series Blood, Sweat and Tears.
Lifting the lid on menopause
Blood, Sweat and Tears wasn’t an easy series to make. Producer and interviewer Carolyne Meng-Yee talks about why she felt so strongly about lifting the lid on a topic many people avoided talking about for so long.
When I suggested a video series on menopause a middle-aged news editor blew a gasket.
“Bloody hell - only half the population will watch it,” he shrieked - or should I say mansplained?
He’s right. Most men don’t want to know about “it” and some women avoid talking about “it”.
The thing is, menopause matters, and conversations about “it” are firing up. Women from the “girls can do anything” era can’t stop talking about “it.”
Menopause is likely to have an impact on relationships, families, friends and in the workplace. It happened to me, and like many women, I suffered in silence.
Meno-rage, night sweats, and a dry vagina are the stuff of jokey Instagram memes. But for many women, they are anything but funny.
Perimenopause is its evil sister, a stealthy precursor to menopause that will slap you in the face when you least expect it - months, sometimes years before your period stops. Ageing ovaries stop producing oestrogen - the hormone that controls many functions of a woman’s body. And on come the never-ending symptoms: hot flushes that make you feel like you’re boiling from the inside out, irritability and itchy skin.
Blood, Sweat and Tears was conceived after a candid conversation with my colleague Mike Scott, who filmed, directed and edited the series. Together we have worked on many stories, thankfully he’s never been “judgey” when I’ve had a flush or been a bit cranky.
