Learning from the 'Pause

December 4, 2025

Y’all, I’m telling you now, this is a toolbox about (peri)menopause. If this isn’t a comfortable topic for you, no wonder! Each year, millions of people experience the things that happen to one’s body, mind, and soul around menopause and the years of transition leading up to it (typically four to seven, but sometimes ten or more). But, the reality is that, for so long, we haven’t talked about menopause, including in the field of medicine, which is partly why we know relatively little about it. It is time for us in higher education to talk about it. 

What does this have to do with teaching? Everything. 

Given the demographics of higher ed, a lot of us are teaching (and doing scholarship and service) while navigating menopause, and the physiological and social impacts of it. We are the target of harmful jokes and myths, All in the Family episodes, and menopause discrimination and stigma. So much stigma. We navigate changes in how the world, including colleagues, students, and others, might respond to us. 

We also navigate changes in ourselves—hot flashes, brain fog, emotional roller coasters, unpredictable periods, the inability to find, I mean the struggle to, you know, articulate, those things—WORDS—that elude us. Our sleep may be affected, which in turn affects so many other things. 

Trying to lecture while sweating through your shirt and struggling to find words? Grading while you feel like the world is caving in? Planning class while dealing with brain fog? Working while also searching for a medical provider who actually gets it? Getting across campus when your muscles and joints ache? Finding the energy to do any of the things, much less all of them?  

We should also consider that the social determinants of health and other factors mean different experiences for many marginalized individuals, including BIPOC, disabled, LGBTQ+, and others who experience menopause. And, those who don’t experience menopause might experience other challenges related to aging. 

While everyone experiences the menopause transition differently, most everyone will feel some impact, including at work. Our workplaces, historically, have not been designed around menopause; in fact, menopause hits at a time when many people begin to experience heightened ageism and age discrimination. The Menopause Society offers resources for designing menopause-inclusive workplaces, many of which we can translate to a higher education context. It’s (past) time for higher education to address menopause.  

Advocating for, and creating, increased autonomy and flexibility for faculty is one key change we can make. Whether it’s control over our schedules (and the temperatures in our offices, pretty please!), online office hours or meetings (and fewer meetings!), asynchronous collaborations, flexible deadlines, or the ability to opt in or out of tasks and events, the very things that make the workplace better for those experiencing menopause also make them more accessible and inclusive for others.  

And we can apply these lessons to students in our classrooms. Statistically, few of our students will be going through menopause, but some of them might be. Or, they might be experiencing medical challenges or other life events that take their focus and energies away from class work. So the more that creating access is on our minds, the more likely we will be able to set students, and ourselves, up for success. Universal design, after all, benefits all.  

It’s helpful to make space for conversations about the menopause transition while also respecting privacy. I experienced hot flashes when I was teaching while pregnant with my daughter some decades ago, and shared with my students what was going on; I haven’t, though, specifically shared what’s happening now, in this different life stage, with my students (unless they’re reading this toolbox, in which case, hi!). That said, I do make space in class for conversations about accessibility and care; we never really know what is happening with a person, at any moment. In most cases, individuals shouldn't need to disclose in order to get access. Ultimately, the strategies we use for inclusive teaching–which is effective teaching–apply to menopause inclusion, too.  

In this Toolbox, I’ve talked about the many trials and tribulations of menopause. But there’s the good stuff, too, of this phase of our lives: the promise of freedom (from things like periods), and starting a new chapter of our lives, and the wisdom and perspectives of the decades we’ve lived. This is a time (or past time) to join the “We Do Not Care Club” and stop spending our energies trying to please everyone. This might be an especially liberating perspective for academics, who spend much of our lives having to prove something (again and again). We can learn a lot from all sorts of pauses in our lives that allow us to take stock, reflect, examine, and adjust. 

So, let’s talk about menopause, in ways that avoid harmful stereotypes. We can reframe menopause in order to empower us all. We get to decide how we navigate menopause, individually and culturally, and talking about it is an important part of that process. Menopause affects everyone. And creating inclusive, caring classrooms, workplaces, and communities can go a long way in terms of supporting every individual through whatever we might be experiencing, in all phases of our lives.