Breaking the Silence – Women’s Health at Work

By Penny Anderson

ONE OF THE JOYS OF WORKING for a small organisation is the freedom to be creative with team activities. We love finding different ways to connect – whether it’s through trying new things, volunteering, learning, or focusing on health and wellbeing. Our experiences have ranged from (nearly) climbing Snowdon and practicing yoga to furniture making and even learning Turkmen cooking.

This time, we tried something diffferent. Katie invited Rachel at FierceFolks, a self-advocacy and confidence coach, to lead a session on women’s health in the workplace – a topic not often discussed in professional settings.

Rachel is a passionate advocate for gender equity and workplace wellbeing, particularly in male dominated environments. Before the session, she shared some brilliant materials about peri-menopause and menstruation providing science, data and real-life experiences to broaden our knowledge and understanding. For those interested, the materials can be found here  For Employers – FierceFolks 

As the session unfolded it struck me how it impacted male and female colleagues differently:

• Male colleagues appeared to engage freely and openly.  There was a clear level of interest and a desire to learn, of wanting to understand more so they could support the people in their lives with a better level of understanding
• Female colleagues – myself included – were more guarded.  There was a feeling of rawness, of deep emotions.  All did share (including myself despite my initial determination not to!) but worried that by sharing we were exposing ourselves.

Jamie reflected afterwards: “I never imagined attending a menopause awareness session would form part of my professional development -but it turned out to be some of the most valuable training I’ve ever received. As someone who wears many hats – husband, father, colleague, friend -understanding the experiences of those around me isn’t just important; it’s essential. Empathy, it seems, grows best in the most unexpected soil….On International Women’s Day, I’m reminded that celebrating and supporting women begins with listening, and learning and occasionally stepping into a classroom I didn’t expect“ 

Katie added: “Rachel created a safe space for the team to feel comfortable talking about something that made some of us (including me) a bit squirmy! As a female I found that the formal education we get about women’s health taught me nothing about the changes women’s bodies go through and until this point I’d learnt more from my peers than in a classroom. Rachel created a space that allowed us to ask questions we were too afraid to ask, find resources we wouldn’t know otherwise and learn how to support our friends, families, colleagues and peers. For me it was unexpected (and brilliant) surprise to see the men so engaged and how open they felt about it!” 

Why is This So Hard to Talk About?

Rachel asked us all two simple questions: “What did your sex education look like at school? What did you learn about women’s health? 

Cue nervous laughter, comical responses and some slightly abstract anecdotes involving overhead projectors,  chickens and eggs.  A consistent theme – none of us had been taught anything particularly meaningful about women’s health.

This made me reflect:

• As women we bear the weight of women’s history.  We can’t help it.  Whether from our own experiences or those of women who have fought for change or girls and women who have suffered and still suffer.  Unravelling ourselves from this deep-rooted feeling of collective experience proved to be challenging for the women in the room.  There was no getting away from the sense of vulnerability we felt.
• Maybe it was because the conversation was in the workplace setting – conversations about women’s health would normally happen in a more relaxed setting, not in a meeting room*.  Maybe it was the dynamics of talking to colleagues – people we normally talk to about safe subjects.   
• Although the focus of our session was women’s health, the topics are so intertwined with other issues related to women’s experiences that it brought to the fore other experiences – of sexism in the workplace: bullying, not being listened to, fighting to be heard about our own bodies by medical professionals, and roughness during women’s health related procedures.  It’s hard to have a conversation about women’s health without uncovering other experiences. 

*Rachel did ask beforehand if we wanted to have the session at The Vagina Museum – it felt a step too far for this first session, but maybe next time!