Women have to become Midlife Warriors. We have been given no option in a world which is stacked against us.
According to Forbes:
- women are typically diagnosed 2.5 years later for cancer and 4.5 years later for diabetes;
- women are diagnosed later than men in more than 700 diseases.
I have had perimenopause symptoms, along with a misdiagnosed chronic disease for nearly a decade. This has been accompanied by 15 kgs of weight gain. Which, by the way, put me closer to heart disease and cancer. I have had to scramble to understand what was happening in my own body; I took measures which, by chance, led me to boost my immunity, lose 15 kilos and get my body back in check. Hopefully this now means I will live longer too…
Health (physical, emotional, mental, social) takes a serious toll on women, in a time when we have the highest amount of stress – mid-30s, early 40s, when home, caring and professional responsibilities abound. Add grief to the mix (which CoVid19 has compounded), and this is a midlife maelstrom like no other.
I have been working with hospitals and healthcare providers in supporting their patient experience efforts. However, it still surprises me that the gendered lens on healthcare is currently blind. Even CoVid19 did not express itself the same way in men and women. Yet, what is being done about it? I will not discuss vaccine impact and menstrual cycles, as that is another hot potato.
The reality is that women have to take their productivity and performance into their own hands. Mine is a generation of midlife women who have to scramble to get education, information and, even, attention. In running the weekly Midlife Reboot Tribe for the last 6 weeks with participants from around the world, it has become clear – the need is for us women to take control. And here is what needs to happen:
- Women need to educate themselves. Men too, for that matter. More of that in the next point. Women need to join tribes like Noon, like mine, and also get listening to Davina McCall, myself and all the other menopause warriors out there. They CANNOT carry on with the status quo
- Men need to understand that they have a different physiology to women, and they need to be brought along for this painful ride. They, after all, are on the receiving end of the issues – they are the husbands who see their wives suffer, the fathers who see their daughters in pain, the sons who do not understand why their mothers may seem so ‘unreasonable’.
- Medical schools and healthcare in general need to instil a gendered lens in patient experience. Research funding also needs to be prioritized into diseases and ailments which impact women, especially with regards to hormonal fluctuations and their impact on health, as well as, what impacts women’s hormones. It is a bit of a chicken and egg situation – is it the hormones or the disease which comes first? This is why the research approach needs to be holistic and requires a multi-disciplinary approach.
- Employers need to take a position on support their female employees’ experiences. Employee experience has to take into consideration the impact of workload, chronic stress and how it may be exhibited in women which, once again, will be different than in men.
I never imagined that this is an article that I would have to write. Nor that I would become a serious midlife warrior. But, I have had to. As society and healthcare continue to turn a blind eye, I consider it my responsibility to give women the support and guidance they need. Hopefully, with enough pushing from warrior women on all angles – corporations, healthcare, governments – perhaps the performance and productivity of the 51% will be taken into consideration.
Give us your voice! If you are woman over 25, pls take the Midlife Reboot Survey here.
Want to take control? Join my next course MidlifeMuse transformation with noon.org
