Menopause is often discussed as a health issue. But it is also a workplace, leadership and equality issue.
For millions of women, this transition can coincide with some of the most important years of their careers.
Yet before we talk about menopause, there is an important distinction to understand.
Menopause vs Perimenopause
They are often used interchangeably, but they are not the same thing.
Perimenopause is the transition. Menopause is the milestone.
Perimenopause is the period leading up to menopause, when hormone levels fluctuate and periods may change. This is often when symptoms such as hot flushes, night sweats, disrupted sleep, anxiety, mood changes, poor concentration and brain fog begin.
Menopause itself is reached when a woman has not had a period for 12 consecutive months, where this is not explained by hormonal contraception or another cause.
After that comes postmenopause.
The important point is that someone does not need to have reached menopause to be experiencing symptoms that significantly affect everyday life.
In Plain Sight
Hot flushes. Night sweats. Brain fog. Difficulty concentrating. Anxiety. Changes in mood. Sleep disruption.
These are not simply inconveniences.
For some women they can affect confidence, relationships, wellbeing and the ability to function as they normally would at work.
And they may arrive while someone is managing a team, leading an organisation, raising a family or progressing towards the most senior stages of their career.
That makes menopause more than a private health conversation.
It is a workplace conversation too.
Did You Know?
Menopause is also not necessarily experienced equally.
Research has identified differences in the timing, duration and severity of symptoms between ethnic groups.
One major US study, the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), found that Black women reached their final menstrual period a median 8.5 months earlier than white women in its longitudinal analysis.
The same body of research has identified differences in the frequency and persistence of some symptoms between racial and ethnic groups.
That does not mean every Black woman will have the same experience. It does mean that a one-size-fits-all understanding of menopause can miss important differences.
Can Technology Help Women Tell the Story of Their Bodies?
Imagine trying to explain several months of disrupted sleep, irregular periods, hot flushes, anxiety and brain fog during a short GP appointment.
When did it start? How often does it happen? Has it become worse? Does it follow a pattern? What else changed at the same time?
This is where relatively simple technology could become useful.
Period and symptom-tracking apps, digital diaries and wearable devices can help some women build a record over time recording symptoms, menstrual changes, sleep or other observations rather than trying to reconstruct everything from memory months later.
The opportunity is not for an app or smartwatch to diagnose menopause.
It is to help women arrive at a conversation with healthcare professionals with a clearer history of what they have been experiencing.
A single appointment captures a moment.
Technology can help capture the journey.
But this also creates important questions about privacy, data ownership and trust. Menstrual and health information is deeply personal. Women should understand what information is being collected, where it is stored and who may have access to it.
Technology should strengthen a woman’s voice in healthcare, not turn her body into another source of data she cannot control.
What Needs to Change?
The first change is surprisingly simple:
Listen.
Women should be able to raise symptoms with healthcare professionals without feeling that their experiences are being minimised.
Workplaces also need to recognise that someone experiencing perimenopause or menopause has not suddenly become less capable.
Sometimes relatively straightforward adjustments, greater awareness and a supportive workplace culture can make an enormous difference.
And culturally, we need to become more comfortable talking about this stage of life.
Because silence has consequences.
If people do not understand perimenopause, they may not recognise what is happening to themselves, their partners, their colleagues or their employees.
The Bigger Picture
We have become much better at discussing wellbeing, mental health and inclusion in the workplace.
Menopause and perimenopause belong in that conversation.
They are happening in our homes, hospitals, offices and boardrooms — in plain sight.
And perhaps technology gives us another way to make the invisible visible.
Perimenopause is the journey. Menopause is the milestone. Technology may help record the journey but healthcare still has to listen to the person telling the story.