How Normalizing Menopause Can Help Employers Retain Senior Women

Tracy Gardner was in her late 40s when she began to feel unwell. Gardner, who at the time was president of J.Crew International Inc., recalls enduring intense hot flashes while she chaired packed meetings at the apparel maker. “I felt like I was living that scene in Broadcast News, where Albert Brooks’s character is sweating uncontrollably, soaking through his clothes on air during a news segment,” says Gardner, now 59, who works as a board director and executive adviser. “It was as if overnight, everything changed.” The shift was physical, mental and emotional, she says.

Gardner didn’t realize it right away, but she was heading toward menopause, defined as the phase after 12 consecutive months without a period. More specifically, she was experiencing perimenopause, the lead-up to a person’s final menstrual period in which the symptoms often associated with menopause begin. Typically beginning in someone’s mid- to late 40s and lasting seven to nine years, the symptoms can include hot flashes, erratic and sometimes heavy periods (known as flooding), night sweats, body aches, energy decline, brain fog, mood changes, sexual dysfunction and, most precarious to long-term health, significant sleep disruption. Any combination of them can harm self-confidence, memory and mental health.