The post-re/productive: researching the menopause

Abstract

The post-re/productive: researching the menopause Purpose: In reflecting on our experiences of bidding for, winning, completing and disseminating a government-funded report on the effects of menopause transition on women's economic participation, we consider the impact on our work and on us. These experiences took place in a variety of work contexts.Design/methodology/approach: Following the publication of the report, we undertook collective, autoethnographic memory work that forms the empirical body of our argument. This is presented in thirteen vignettes. Findings:From the earliest days of the menopause transition project, we found ourselves continually traversing the supposed public-private divide in our work contexts. Our experiences speak to broader social issues around gendered ageism in these contexts.Research Implications: The paper analyses the challenges of researching what is a universal experience for women yet also a taboo subject. It discusses the relevant implications for and possible effects on researchers who investigate such topics in organisation and work studies and elsewhere. Originality/value: Menopause experiences as they connect to work are under-researched per se. Our paper extends knowledge of how this research area is not only shaped by researchers but has an impact on those researchers.

Women’s experiences of menopause at work and performance management

“…This organizational focus raises the question about the best way to undertake academic activism: are traditional and potentially confrontational approaches or factual arguments and persuasion more suitable to effect change? Our considerations here also reflected that we were already being stereotyped as (hysterical) menopausal women (Beck et al, 2018a). As academic authors of a government report, we opted for factual arguments and persuasion, though the following discussion suggests that this strategy was not necessarily successful.…”

“…Our report for the Government Equalities Office (GEO) (Brewis et al, 2017) on ‘The effects of menopause transition on women’s economic participation in the UK’ was published in 2017. We have already written about the effect that undertaking this research had on us (Beck et al, 2018a), but we were equally surprised by the responses to our work. These led us to take an active role in both calling for and supporting the development of menopause policies and guidelines in various organizations, including the University of Leicester, where we all worked at the time.…”

Talkin’ ’bout a revolution? From quiescence to resistance in the contemporary university

“…The genesis of this article was organic, emerging from our discussions about events at the OU, not as researchers nor even as research participants, but as employees of an institution undergoing seismic change. Our researcher stance was adopted retrospectively, as we worked to understand how things unfolded and to collectively consider the implications of our own and others’ roles (see Beck et al, 2018; Bell and King, 2010; Kiriakos and Tienari, 2018; Learmonth and Humphreys, 2012 for similar collective autoethnographies of academia). The methodology was approved by The Open University Human Research Ethics Committee.…”

'We Can Send A Man To The Moon But We Can't Control The Temperature In Our office'; A Considerate Approach To Workplace Thermal Comfort by Older Women

“…Gendered ageism in the workplace can occur at many stages of career development. Beck et al [4] note the lack of literature on menopause and work and describe the menopause taboo as a function of gendered ageism in Western work contexts, and elsewhere. This study has specifically focused on thermal comfort concerns for older working women, highlighting some of the temperature fluctuations experienced during different stages of menopause, and imagining how these could be better managed in the workplace.…”