Pratique du Shadowing: Menopause: Do we need to rethink women's health? - The Global Story podcast, BBC World Service - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec YouTube

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Hi there, I'm Katrina Perry from the BBC World Service.
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Hi there, I'm Katrina Perry from the BBC World Service.
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This is The Global Story.
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The menopause, the change.
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No matter what you call it, no matter who you are, all women reaching their 50s will go through it.
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But hardly anybody talks about it.
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Millions of women around the world will start the menopause this year, but research shows that most are unprepared for it.
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Today we're asking, should we change the way we think about the menopause?
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With me today is Kirsty Warrick, best known for being presenter of BBC Newsnight of course.
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You are a vocal voice on the menopause, smashing taboos of course with your groundbreaking documentary that you made on the subject back in 2017.
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We're all living longer, we're all working longer, and menopause is a feature of midlife.
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It's the start of a new chapter.
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So why the persistent taboo?
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It really is time for a change.
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Great to have you with us Kirsty.
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Lovely to be here.
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Now also with us is Professor Joyce Harper from the Institute of Women's Health at University College London and author of the book Your Fertile Years.
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You're a regular contributor to the BBC, to this podcast as well.
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as well and welcome back to the global story Joyce.
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Lovely to be here talking about menopause.
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And we have lots to talk about indeed we'll get on with this.
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Christy you're a true legend in the journalism industry you've worked for BBC News for many years there's nothing you probably
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haven't done at this stage but your documentary on the menopause was a very different piece of work it's clearly a personal story that you wanted to share that you wanted to get that conversation and going.
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And mostly as journalists, I mean, we're always told to keep ourselves out of the story and not give our opinion and our view.
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So what was it about the menopause that drove you and continues to drive you to speak up?
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Menopause is not a choice.
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We all go through the menopause.
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So, you know, why can't we discuss it openly?
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And I felt very strongly that there hadn't been a documentary.
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It was 2017.
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It was 1917.
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And I think we've come on substantially since then, but I still think we've got a very long way to go.
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Half the population goes through this.
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There's no getting away from it.
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If you're lucky enough to live to that point in your life, it's going to happen.
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Joyce, you're a professor of women's health.
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You've been steeped in these subjects professionally, of course, for so long.
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But now as a 61 year old woman, if you don't mind me revealing your age there, it's a personal story now too, isn't it?
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Absolutely.
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And when I started in the field of women's health back in the 80s, you know, we weren't discussing any of these issues.
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The only book that was around was called Our Body, Our Cells, which we'll all remember.
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I'll remember it.
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It's a USA book.
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It was the only one.
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And then, yeah, life goes back, go forward very quickly.
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And next thing we're, you know, now all going through the menopause and realising that back in 2017, for sure, Kirsty, yours was a groundbreaking documentary.
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We weren't discussing it then.
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And things have changed.
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It's on the table in the UK.
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It's very much discussed, but it's not like that globally.
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And there are still many countries that have swept this under the carpet and are still not talking about menopause.
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There's a lot of confusion there as well about what it actually is.
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So I suppose before we go on, we should probably explain that.
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And I want us to bust some myths about it as well, because there are plenty of that.
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I'm not at that stage of life myself yet, but let's just break down everything.
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Joyce, you might start by explaining to us what's the menopause and what's the perimenopause?
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The menopause actually is defined that you've been for one year without having a period.
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So it's a day when you realise, oh, it's been a year.
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And then actually you're then postmenopause, which is a term that's often not used and a term I really want to celebrate, being, as you said, a 61 year old woman who's loving being postmenopause.
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So I hope we get on to talk about the joys of life postmenopause.
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So the perimenopause is the time before that.
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And it's very hard to know.
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We don't have a black and white answer to say to a woman, today you are in perimenopause.
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There's not a reliable test that can be done.
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And it just means that your periods have started to make some changes to how they've normally been.
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And there's a large array of symptoms, not just hot flushes or many other symptoms.
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And these will start to happen.
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but maybe start time.
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Not every woman's the same.
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Every woman's very different.
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So the perimenopause is when the periods are changing, the symptoms are starting, and then when you've gone for a year with no periods, you're postmenopause.
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Broadly, is there an age range for the point at which all of that starts beginning?
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Normal menopause happens between age 45 and 55.
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And so the perimenopause symptoms start anywhere to a few years to five or 10 years before that.
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My mother was 30 when she had me, but she had an early menopause at 46.
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And she was going through the menopause, which was very tough for her.
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I didn't know then, but knew many years later, as I was an annoying teenager.
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That lack of kind of conversation, lack of understanding of actually where each other was.
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If I'd known that my mother was having a difficult time in the menopause, maybe I wouldn't have been such an annoying teenager.
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You've knocked the nail on the head, Kirsty, because I always describe menopause or perimenopause as very similar to puberty.
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So in puberty, our hormones are very powerful hormones that women will know really govern how they feel mentally and physically for the whole of their fertile years with these powerful hormones oscillating up and down through our menstrual cycle.
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So in puberty, they're spiralling up as they then become equilibrated.
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And then we sort of hopefully settle down into how we're going to be for many years.
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But in the menopause, they're spiralling down.
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So we have to be aware that we absolutely have households where the kids are going through puberty.
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The mother's going through the perimenopause.
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Everyone needs to be tolerant.
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And this is why it's so important to teach this in schools.
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And, you know, it's extraordinary to me because, Joyce, when you're talking about puberty and menopause, as a young girl, you're well aware of, you know, when your first period is going to come.
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And it is talked about in whispered tones and you're given the packet of sanitary towels or tampons and there's so many ads on the television.
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And it's something where there is a conversation in all households, even awkward ones with your dad as a teenager.
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And then when you get to the other end of things, it just isn't talked about.
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Women now in their 40s are juggling a lot.
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You know, children of some age, the younger children, sleep deprivation, everything else.
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And then the perimenopause kicks in, which makes anxiety worse, sleep problems worse.
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All of these things, absolutely much worse.
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we need to be discussing this and making sure that every woman, everyone is really aware of all the things we've just talked about, that the age it starts, the symptoms.
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And I've researched this for many years.
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And so many women have told me they're very, you know, distressing words where they didn't realise for years that what they were experiencing was perimenopause.
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They thought they had dementia.
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They thought they had cancer.
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They really thought that they were dying and had some terrible disease.
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And it was a perimenopause.
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Yeah, because I mean, it encompasses so many different symptoms and that's what's different from puberty.
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Of course, girls have heavy and often terrible periods, but it's your period.
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It's once you've got your period, you've arrived at a particular position, you are then, if you are, fertile.
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The trouble with the menopause and perimenopause and menopause is that there's a myriad symptoms, myriad symptoms.
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And so therefore you can have joint pain, you can have brain fog like me, you maybe don't sleep very well.
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As you say, hot flush, all these different symptoms.
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No two people experience the menopause in exactly the same way.
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So therefore you're kind of you're trying to explain a whole range of change to women.
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And you're trying to explain to everybody else that women do go through a whole range of change and it can last from six weeks, six months, six years.
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is not a hard and fast cutoff.
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And I think that we should all remember that.
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So many people are suffering in silence, pulling their hair out and their families as well because they just don't know what's happening to them and what's going on.
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And Joyce, do those experiences differ across the globe in different cultures or is it the same all over?
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It really does differ.
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And we have different views of ageing in different countries.
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a great book I'm reading at the moment called Hagitude by Sharon Blackie.
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She talks about we're not the elderly, we're the elders.
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And I think we've forgotten about that in some countries in the Western world.
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But in other countries such as Japan and China and India and many countries in Africa, there is such a positive view to these wise women in their communities who help.
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They help with the community.
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They help with grandchildren and children and use all those decades of wisdom to help with the community.
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And I'm studying women who are postmenopause at the moment.
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And for many of these women, all of the women I'm interviewing, actually, because they're very inspiring women.
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And they say that postmenopause, they finally feel that they've reached their authentic self.
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I'd like to echo that.
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but I'd like to say that your experience because of the research you're doing about other cultures, I think is probably better than the Western model.
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Because, you know, we are now obsessed with anti-aging products, aren't we?
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There's something really hideous about aging.
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And it's a version of, it's a version literally of going back to the Middle Ages, the dry old crone, the dry old stick, the kind of witches, you know, you're useless now, you know, you're through the menopause and you don't have any role.
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and what you're seeing and seeing and learning about in Japan and India and some African countries is a completely different way of seeing.
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Joyce, just looking at the research that you've been doing internationally as well there, we spoke about the kind of cultural experiences, but are there different ways that governments handle things as well?
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Is it a space where governments should be involved?
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Listen, we haven't got this right.
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We're still not discussing it enough.
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And as Kirstie said, it affects 51% of the population and it's still not being really worked on by governments.
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We now come to the VAC bench debate on menopause.
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Peter Dowd to move.
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Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
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So my colleagues in Belgium, we've been working on the education we're going to give in schools.
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And we're lucky, the UK, we have menopause in our UK curriculum.
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So that's great.
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Belgium, my colleagues in Belgium said, it's not in our curriculum.
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The teachers will not teach us in school.
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We can talk in circles and the information and the education, but let's look at the treatments as well that are available for women.
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Are there alternatives to HRT, non-hormonal treatments, or what have you come across?
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I have not come across anything particularly that helps, but I think exercise being a massive...
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because remember that exercise releases endorphins.
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So in a way, they're countering what's going on when you're going through menopause.
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And also more exercise, more chance of sleeping.
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Of course there are herbal things that we've had for ages, but I would just say that one of the things to go easy on is caffeine and the other thing to go easy on is alcohol.
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I'm not a big abstinence person, I have to say.
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I do like a glass of wine and I do love a good cup of coffee, but I think everything in moderation.
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As my granny used to say, what was it?
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Alcohol, drink is a good friend and a bad master.
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I think self-care is a massive thing that women do not do.
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Imagine women in their late 40s with teenage kids and elderly parents and a full-time job.
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I mean, it's absurd.
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What stops people talking about the menopause?
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We've spoken about how important it is to talk about it, but why don't people do it?
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Is it embarrassment?
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Is it fear?
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I've never talked about vaginas so much in all my life.
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since taking us on.
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I spoke to Joan Collins once.
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She said menopause is a myth.
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What is it, do you think?
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Joyce, I'll start with you.
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I think it's a bit of everything you've said.
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But I do think that the big problem with the younger women I've spoken to, and I did some research with thousands of younger women, under 40, to ask them what they thought about it.
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And we've always associated menopause with ageing.
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And it's almost that you will become this old hag once you're post-menopause.
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You're sort of a dried up old woman.
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You're not fertile anymore.
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And not everyone thinks that.
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But I think because of the aches and pains and the issues that can happen in the perimenopause, so many women think they're going downhill now.
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And for some of them, they do lose that confidence and they do struggle postmenopause.
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We've got to lift everybody up.
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We've got to make sure we support every woman going through this.
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so she can have the best years of her life when she's freed from her menstrual cycle.
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So let's celebrate it.
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And some countries do, as I've said, talking about the elders and the wise women.
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We need to really embrace it.
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And we're not going to become these old hags.
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We're going to become an amazing elder in our community.
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I think the problem for women is that they feel that if they talk about it in the workplace, they'll somehow be disadvantaged because you can't prove somebody's not got a job in some way because they just happen to be menopausal.
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And there's all this kind of stuff which is subliminal.
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And I think that still is an issue for women.
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Women feel they have to fight doubly hard to get where they are and they don't want to add something else on to that, which is, you know, if you're going for, you want a company that embraces everything, don't you?
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You want companies to be very forward thinking.
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Some of those companies are led by women, I have to say.
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And so you don't want to put yourself at disadvantage.
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And sometimes that is how women feel.
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Women have bad days and they don't want to say it.
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And we've got to make sure that if they have bad days, we lift them up.
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Well, there are can't be two better women in this world to lift up other women than yourselves.
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I've really enjoyed that conversation, Kirsty Wark and Joyce Harper as well.
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Thank you so much for joining us on The Global Story.
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And we'll talk to you again soon.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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And thanks to you for watching.
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If you want to listen to more episodes of The Global Story, you'll find us wherever you get your podcasts.
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Do subscribe to make sure that you never miss an episode.
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And also, do tell us what you think in the comments below.
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But thank you.
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Bye-bye.
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Why practice speaking with this video?

Practicing speaking English with videos like "Menopause: Do we need to rethink women's health?" from the BBC World Service provides a unique context that goes beyond mere vocabulary. This video addresses an important topic that impacts many people globally. By discussing subjects such as menopause, you engage with real-life issues, making your language practice more relevant and meaningful. Engaging with such content allows you to:

  • Enhance your vocabulary on specialized topics like health and wellness.
  • Improve your fluency and confidence by discussing important life events and social issues.
  • Practice articulating opinions and ideas clearly, which is beneficial for conversations and debates.

Utilizing a shadowing app while listening to this video can further help you replicate native speech patterns and improve your pronunciation. This method allows you to learn English with YouTube videos effectively, turning passive listening into active speaking practice.

Grammar & Expressions in Context

Throughout the podcast, several key phrases and structures can enhance your English conversation skills. Here are a few to focus on:

  • "It's the start of a new chapter." - This metaphorical expression suggests a significant change in life, promoting skills in discussing transitions.
  • "Why can't we discuss it openly?" - This rhetorical question structure emphasizes the importance of dialogue and can be used to assert your views during discussions.
  • "It was a groundbreaking documentary." - Understanding terms like "groundbreaking" can help you describe innovative concepts or significant changes in speech.

These structures are not only useful for discussions about menopause but can also be applied to various topics. Practicing them within the context of the video can greatly enhance your English speaking practice.

Common Pronunciation Traps

Listening to the speakers in the podcast can reveal certain pronunciation challenges. Here are a few tricky words and phrases to pay attention to:

  • Menopause - Often mispronounced; break it down to phonemes for clarity: men-o-pause.
  • Groundbreaking - Can be challenging; practice saying it slowly and emphasize the first syllable: GROUND-breaking.
  • Taboo - This word might confuse due to its spelling; focus on the 'tab' sound, as in "tab" + "oo."

Practicing these pronunciations can be efficiently done through a shadowspeak approach; listen and repeat out loud, matching the intonation and cadence of the speakers. This method is pivotal for developing your pronunciation skills and getting comfortable with spoken English.

Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?

Le Shadowing est une technique d'apprentissage des langues fondée sur la science, développée à l'origine pour la formation des interprètes professionnels. Le principe est simple mais puissant : vous écoutez de l'anglais natif et le répétez immédiatement à voix haute — comme une ombre suivant le locuteur avec un décalage de 1 à 2 secondes. Les recherches montrent une amélioration significative de la précision de la prononciation, de l'intonation, du rythme, des liaisons, de la compréhension orale et de la fluidité.

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