Here you will find all about my campaigns on menopause and its impact on musicians.

Why am I talking about Menopause?

Menopause is a natural part of life that most of us don’t think about until it reaches us or someone close to us. Before I went through it, it rarely crossed my mind. I saw it as something that happened out there, to people who surely had it figured out. I didn’t stop to imagine how or when my own process would start. When it came in the shape of a surgical procedure, I had to grapple with its impact in my work with little time and information.

The lack of sufficient research and discussion about menopause make this stage of life unreasonably complicated, especially when we consider that it’s directly experienced by roughly half the global population. There’s no good reason to treat it like a taboo, as if it were a scandalous topic to be shoved under the carpet. Continuing to do so is harmful for both people who undergo menopause and people who don’t.

Recently, there has been more public commentary and advocacy about menopause from people of influence in different sectors of society. However, there aren’t many discussions about how it affects musicians. Working in music is about expression and performance. How we look and feel is very important to demonstrating and delivering our art with excellency. Symptoms of menopause like fatigue, memory issues, hot flushes or recurrent headaches are troublesome; they can really compromise the work of a musician.

We need to be able to talk about menopause freely and openly. I’d be happy to see the topic being added to school curriculums globally, and for it to be a normal thing to be accommodated at the workplace. Overall, I think people who undergo menopause shouldn’t be left to endure it quietly after our bodies lose the wonderful ability to bring life into the world.

So, I decided to write about musicians and menopause.  My articles have received positive feedback, and some readers have found them helpful for their menopause journey. I look forward to receiving your comments, too.

My articles about menopause

Features

• Roundtable discussion about women’s health for Reform Radio in Manchester (2021)
• ‘The Journey of a Menopausal Musician’ article curated for The Menstruation Project in Berlin, Germany (2021)
• ‘How can the music industry break the culture of silence on menopause?’ roundtable discussion lead at MU’s Equalities and Diversity conference (2022)

More people talking about menopause

• Fiona Catchpowle: https://themenopauseschool.com/
• Pamela Ann: https://www.smarterchange.co.uk/