Why are men
I am a woman in perimenopause. I struggle with brain fog, among other symptoms. In conversation, I sometimes explain what’s going on while it’s happening: “Ugh, I am struggling to remember the right word. It’s one of the symptoms of my perimenopause.” Verbalizing my experience helps me to relax and stay open during the interaction. I have noticed a trend, though: Male friends and co-workers — no women, so far — often respond with some version of: “No, that’s not what’s going on with you.” I want to say something that draws attention to the fact that they have just inserted themselves where they don’t belong. Any suggestions?
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Let me come back to the mansplaining after I compliment you for doing something brave and wonderful: By mentioning your perimenopause — the transition toward the end of a woman’s reproductive years, often marked by challenging physical and emotional symptoms — you are helping to destigmatize one of the most common and neglected problems facing women in middle age. It also helps you to cope!
Now, these male friends and co-workers are certainly off base, and probably annoying. My hunch is that many of them think they are complimenting you by arguing that you couldn’t be perimenopausal: You’re too young for that! (I know — ageist as heck, and symptoms can begin as early as the mid-30s.) Their intentions are also no excuse for denying your actual experience, whether that includes brain fog, hot flashes or mood swings.
Try to be patient, if you can: “I’m afraid you’re wrong. I can send you some information about it.” It’s an unfair burden, but it may be more useful here to increase awareness of the issue than to smack down a few mansplainers. (You may disagree!) I also urge women to talk to their employers about accommodations for debilitating symptoms and to explore with their doctors whether treatments, such as hormone replacement therapy, may be helpful.
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N.
Let me come back to the mansplaining after I compliment you for doing something brave and wonderful: By mentioning your perimenopause — the transition toward the end of a woman’s reproductive years, often marked by challenging physical and emotional symptoms — you are helping to destigmatize one of the most common and neglected problems facing women in middle age. It also helps you to cope!
Now, these male friends and co-workers are certainly off base, and probably annoying. My hunch is that many of them think they are complimenting you by arguing that you couldn’t be perimenopausal: You’re too young for that! (I know — ageist as heck, and symptoms can begin as early as the mid-30s.) Their intentions are also no excuse for denying your actual experience, whether that includes brain fog, hot flashes or mood swings.
Try to be patient, if you can: “I’m afraid you’re wrong. I can send you some information about it.” It’s an unfair burden, but it may be more useful here to increase awareness of the issue than to smack down a few mansplainers. (You may disagree!) I also urge women to talk to their employers about accommodations for debilitating symptoms and to explore with their doctors whether treatments, such as hormone replacement therapy, may be helpful.
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I'm going to reply to this comment in a bit with some excerpted comments from the comments section. It won't be pretty.
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What response exactly are you looking for when you complain to people about your going through perimenopause when you really probably shouldn't share that information with them? To put male friends and co workers in a position where you expect some kind of response and then accuse them of "inserting themselves where they don't belong," when they try to respond as politely as they can is really not fair. Just FYI, I'm a 64 year old woman who has gone through menopause.
(Exactly how is "You aren't going through perimenopause" a polite response? A polite response is "Oh, take your time" or "It's all right".)
LW1: The idea that anybody should "call out" someone for "mansplaining" in this situation is ludicrous. Nobody thinks that anybody here is in a position to give a serious diagnosis of LW1's condition. Nobody thinks that LW1 is going to take the opinion seriously. This is at the level of "What's your sign?" There are, in fact, men not that far from LW1's age who struggle to remember the right word. Maybe that's what her interlocutors have in mind. To say in response, "I’m afraid you’re wrong. I can send you some information about it," is just rude. It presumes that it is appropriate for LW1 to inform her interlocutors about a topic that they may not have much interest in, though it interests her very much.
(Oh ffs.)
When men work around other men they never talk about ED or prostate or pee issues.
(This is in the same vein as comparing breastfeeding to pooping, I presume. The mere word "perimenopause" is not at all analogous to discussing your private parts - nor, as another commenter mentioned, telling everybody about your IBS as you run to the toilet. It's more like telling them about your chronic weak ankles. It may be a "personal medical matter" (several commenters used that phrase) and it may even be best left out of the office, but let's not make it something it isn't.)
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(I have learned quite a lot about one of my coworker's perimenopause symptoms, in the context of perfectly normal conversations like 'complaining about office temperatures' or 'will you have a glass of wine', and I do actually appreciate how open she is about it!)
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Oh, I bet older men sometimes make reference to more frequent need to go for a pee in relevant work contexts! But agree, this is about menopause and breastfeeding getting put in a dirty/sex class and thus unsuitable to even mention, vs hayfever, asthma, your manly ACL injury acquired playing sport etc.
Indeed, my workplace menopause 'case studies' page has an example of a man talking about hormone therapy for prostate cancer, and the things he needed to tell his colleagues about. Like needing to pee more frequently.
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When men work around other men they never talk about ED or prostate or pee issues.
I have been part of the furniture where all the real people in the room were men. This is a lie. All the responses depress me but this one enraged me.
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Nobody has ever even blinked when I apologised that I'm struggling to find words because of my medication
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. In fact, the explanation chilled things out some. So clearly there is, in at least some contexts, a social expectation that you explain what's going on when you're obviously struggling, lest it be thought "weird".So people are just getting shitty because the explanation is something they don't like to think about.
Possibly I'd be more vague about it (in both the situation I originally mentioned and if it were due to perimenopause), personally, and just say "I'm sorry, I have a bit of brain fog for medical reasons", but that's a personal choice and I don't see that there's a problem with being frank.
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Pregabalin, you little shit.no subject
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I 99% cheer for LW for mentioning and thus helping to destigmatize perimenopause. It will take me longer to explain the 1%. When one mentions something one does put it on the table for discussion, including refutation. It's deeply annoying of these men to refute her experience of her own life (also very characteristic) but it is a potential response.
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I thought that that was refuting meant, to say that a given statement statement (in LW's case, her statement that she is having brain fog due to perimenopause) is wrong. I'm always up for improving my vocab!
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You are generally a good egg so I forgive you :). More sertiptsly I see what you mean, since the point is that they may obnoxiously disbelieve her but they cannot prove her wrong and should not try.
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transitive. To reject (an allegation, assertion, report, etc.) as without foundation; to repudiate.
Criticized as erroneous in usage guides in the 20th cent. In many instances it is unclear whether there is an implication of argument accompanying the assertion that something is baseless (making the use sense 2)." (Sense 2 being your sense 1.)
That said, descriptively speaking, I've seen that sense so many times that when you refuted the notion that what LW's coworkers were doing was refuted, I had to squint and think hard before I figured out what you were objecting to. ;)
As for "repudiate", I would also have a hard time using that word here; to me it has a much stronger sense of "refuse to be associated with." While it can be used in the "this is wrong" sense, the OED agrees that most definitions involve some form of dissociation.
I think the word I personally would use is "reject."
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He was so certain and so unyielding that I quickly stopped trying to argue with him about the gradual decrease in estrogen during perimenopause (and resultant gradual increase in symptoms for many perimenopausal people). It was just a waste of my time, so I moved on to my pap smear and got the hell out of there.
If LW’s coworkers are anything like that gyno, good luck for them even glancing at any information sent before they drop it in the trash can or delete the email.
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So yeah. Considering how little my province cares about doctors actually assaulting people, they’re not going to care even remotely that I got told I wasn’t perimenopausal.
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(He's very wrong. In several ways.)
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But then I remember that this idea is being used to deny access to care to people, and it just becomes depressing again.
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Oof, I can empathize with the teacher; I have intermittent tinnitus that gets worse with stress and while I can usually mask it with soft music or something, there are days where it's like a drill is running inside my skull. Definitely have times where it's harder to focus on things being said to me because of it.
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