The Menopause & Money Series: Judy Greer & the $1.8 Billion Tab for Sadness
But First, a Few Things To Celebrate This Week in the World of Midlife Women...
Fellow Empresses, How the hell are you?
Can I just say that Judy Greer gets it?
So many more people need to be talking about menopause and mental health. “Because no one prepares women for the realities of menopause,” the actress and cofounder of WILE WOMEN said at Fortune’s Brainstorm Health Conference in Los Angeles this past week and it’s costing us far more than we realize.
But before we dive deep into this week's very critical topic of the hard and hidden costs of menopause, a few Huzzahs! from the world of midlife women...
There's a new book out and it is great! Jancee Dunn’s HOT AND BOTHERED: What No One Tells You About Menopause... And How To Finally Feel Like Yourself Again is loaded with practical, no-nonsense, nitty-gritty advice, and real-life anecdotes that will get you through this hard part of life with a sense of humor.
Also, on the literary front, THE EMPRESS AGE book is moving forward, and I'm thrilled to announce I'm going to be working with the veteran editor and agent, Laura Mazer, from the renowned agency Wendy Sherman Associates Literary Management, known for some truly amazing titles such as THE HOUSE OF EVE by Sadeqa Johnson, recently selected for Reese's Book Club. I couldn't be more excited to be working with Laura to bring THE EMPRESS AGE to life.
In building THE EMPRESS as a platform to better serve women, this week we were lucky enough to secure the theempressage.com domain. From now on, you'll be able to centrally access everything there, and we'll be able to build out more in terms of the new podcast, our bookshop, upcoming digital & luxury weekend retreats, new product partnerships (The Empress Ring), sponsorship opportunities, and of course, our cultish weekly newsletter.
And not to be missed... THE EMPRESS has a new byline on Scary Mommy where you will be able to find exclusive content and hilarious, useful stories about perimenopause along with 13 million other readers very soon, so stay tuned!
Also… Among friends we dearly love to see succeeding, STRIPES Menopause personal care by Naomi Watts is now available on sephora.com. What this means is… not only MUCH greater visibility for the brand and the issue but also much more accessibility with free, faster shipping, plus you get Sephora Beauty Insider Points for merch every time you buy. We love seeing startups like Naomi’s succeed, especially when they're so mission-aligned to empower women and to counter the predominant anti-aging narratives that can be so corrosive toward women’s self-confidence because hey, we're all going to grow up sooner or later. So Huzzah!!!
Now, without further ado, it's Mental Health Awareness Month and there is a myriad of not only emotional ramifications for women in peri/menopause and midlife but also financial ones as well. In a recent study, 69% of women reported feeling anxious or depressed during menopause.
Even perennially funny woman and cofounder of WILE, Judy Greer, attested at Brainstorm Health, “I was sad, and I’ve never been a sad person.” And while it's more important than ever that women are finally speaking up and seeking help through various means—thankfully there are more telehealth providers available now than ever from HERS to LEMONAID HEALTH to BETTERHELP to TALKSPACE to couples therapy from OURS and more affordable options like OPEN PATH—there are hidden consequences for doing so.
Often in midlife, you may be facing other personal transitions like a separation, divorce, or God forbid, your partner passes away, which means you may need to obtain new life insurance. We spoke to one woman who was in the process of purchasing new life insurance and going through the normal medical due diligence, and because she was in a new job as a high-level executive with two very active children, she had mentioned in passing to her OB/GYN, bear in mind she had not even sought help, not even asked for a referral, or inquired about medication, that she was feeling stressed at times and that it was a lot to take on, both personally and professionally.
The insurance underwriter, in reviewing her medical records, went back through her OB/GYN’s notes and saw that her doctor had written “Patient is struggling with anxiety,” and that made it difficult for her to get life insurance. It counted against her. She got dinged. They put a binder on her policy. So, you’re penalized and charged more. And this was a few years ago. Today, she might not even qualify for the policy.
It was so insidious and subtle, yet so impactful and punitive, and this is where mental health and even asking for self-care becomes a social justice issue where the laws need to change. If you ask for help to do the right thing for yourself and for your family, you shouldn't be punished for it by your insurance company.
Because the ultimate irony here is if you say, “Medication saved my life,” you may no longer be able to get life insurance for your family and that’s just wrong.
Another recent study from the Mayo Clinic found women in menopause experienced increased sick days, cutting back of hours due to symptoms, overall career disruption, performance struggles, career dissatisfaction, isolation, and in some cases complete withdrawal from professional life with overall the cost of menopause to women in lost wages, bonuses, and medical expenses amounting to $1.8 billion.
Now, it's great that we have this price tag and these findings but, the worrisome thing is how this data can be weaponized against menopausal women during the hiring process. Women already feel invisible and the consequences of ageism when they are undertaking a job search in their 50s. When you factor in the stigma of menopause that we saw in last week's post and couple it with data around absenteeism or hours missed due to medical symptoms, it poses a threat to our viability as candidates at a time in our lives when we're often at our most grounded and most experienced. We’re in our Gerri Kellman from Succession eras, yet we've got to counter this negative menopausal narrative now supported by data from the Mayo Clinic and the New York Times? Come on, man… SMDH. Give an Empress a fucking break.
Unfair as it may seem—it’s all the more reason to explore science-backed treatments for the various Menopausal symptoms so you can feel like yourself again. Fortunately, there is an ever-expanding array of providers out there from ALLOY to EVERNOW to WINONA. Not every woman's going to be a candidate and it can be a complex puzzle to solve that again comes with hard costs as insurance may not cover treatment. But this is why, as women, we need to be there for each other as we crack the code in solving menopause because it can last for up to a third of your life, and we shouldn't be made to feel insecure or bad or sad or poor because of it.
So, that's the skinny this week. I'm working on tracking down some well-vetted insurance agents who specialize in policies for women. Ideally, they'd write life insurance, life insurance for women with chronic conditions, and long-term care insurance—since women typically have only 70% of the savings that men have at retirement, which means we need to be prepared. I'll keep you posted on what I find. Until then.
Yours in Grandeur,
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I was SO grateful for her story and it was something that I wouldn't even THINK could come back to bite me because it's a place where you're supposed to feel SAFE to let your hair down, lol, so to speak! What's clear: we HAVE to CHANGE the CHANGE... on so many levels.
Hot damn, Alisa! This newsletter is FULL of awesome stuff! Thanks for sharing the story of the woman who was "dinged" on her life insurance for having mentioned anxiety in a previous medical appointment. Increased anxiety is a STANDARD symptom of perimenopause, and treating it like a preexisting condition is completely insane. And so glad to hear that The Empress Age book is moving forward, I'll be first in line at my local bookshop to get it :)