This year Melani Sanders, a Florida content creator, launched the viral We Do Not Care Club™ (WDNCC). In her videos, Sanders, with her multiple pairs of readers, a hair bonnet on her head and sometimes an airplane pillow around her shoulders, puts the world on notice that women in perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause, “simply do not care much anymore”. She then goes on to read today’s announcements from her spiral notebook, crossing each off with a highlighter as she goes. Previous announcements have included:
“We do not care about growing with the company. We are here for the health insurance and benefits.”
“We do not care if we just wrote something on our to do list that we’ve already done. We have done it, so we are marking it off.”
“We do not care if we took a PTO day last week. We’ll take another one this week if we want to.”
“We do not care if we lose our train of thought in the middle of a sentence. We did not want to talk to you anymore anyway.”
“We do not care about anything during a hot flash. The only thing that exists is the hot flash. We’ll rejoin the regularly scheduled programming momentarily.”
After the announcements are read, Sanders then encourages all new and existing members to comment with what they do not care about that day. The Club has caught on. Sanders not only has over 4 million followers across her social media platforms, she has been a featured guest on numerous talk shows, and has a book coming out next year.
The fact is, there are millions of American workers in either perimenopause, menopause or post-menopause and no one talks about it. But that is beginning to change and employers are starting to take notice.
In 2023, Bank of America published Breakt Through the Stigma: Menopause in the Workplace, developed in partnership with the National Menopause Foundation.
The study found that 51% of peri- and post-menopausal women feel as if menopause has negatively impacted their work life, but only 14% feel as if their employers understand the need for menopause-related benefits. The study also found that 64% of women want menopause-specific benefits in their workplaces. The study also showed that when companies make their employees aware of those benefits (for those that have them), women are more likely to recommend their employer to others as a good place to work.
In September 2024, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau published Let’s Talk About It: Menstruation and Menopause at Work.
This Issue Brief set forth some “low-cost workplace flexibilities and accommodations” employers could provide which would help employees “full participate in and contribute to the workforce” while experiencing menstruation and menopause. These included:
- Access to temperature controls in the office as well as ability to bring in fans and to open windows;
- Flexibility in dress codes, allowing a layer of clothing to be removed or added to account of temperature changes;
- The ability to change clothes during work hours;
- Greater access to bathrooms and greater frequency of restroom breaks;
- Menstruation supplies in employee bathrooms and an adequate number of waste disposal bins that are frequently emptied in those bathrooms;
- The ability to have flexible work hours and telework options.
Decreasing the stigma around the term menopause is tantamount. When doing training, don’t be afraid of creating scenarios which involve menopause. For those employers who have menopause-related benefits, they should make employees aware of those benefits. And for those employers who do not have menopause-related benefits, raise the issue with your broker. Employers can also suggest bringing up the issue in one or more of their Employee Resource Groups (ERGs).
And remember, while menstruation and menopause are not “protected categories” in employment law, claims of sex discrimination, age discrimination and disability discrimination are still possible when employers treat employees who are experiencing symptoms of either menstruation or menopause differently than their non-menstruating/non-menopausal counterparts. The symptoms, if severe enough, may also require leave under the FMLA or accommodations under the ADA.
Just because the We Do Not Care Club is viral sensation, it does not mean that employers should not care about their employees who are going through this time of life. These are all simple, cost-effective changes that mean something to probably half of your employees.
Now excuse me, I need to find my readers.