- I am a woman of 53 and menopausal. I wish people would respect menopause more. It has a huge impact in women's lives, that's over 50% of the population and we need to do much more because honest to God, it really has a huge physical and psychological impact. So I would like people to be more understanding of the women going through that, family members, friends, etc, and know a bit more about it, and to have more resources available for us.

- Is it something that affects your life on a personal, professional level?

- Well, it can yes and I think more and more organisations are starting to gain awareness of things we have to put in place to support women. Because again, we're over 50% of the population anyway.
So it is things like tiredness, migraines, fatigue, lots lots of heat, oh my God, the temperature thing, oh, that is hellish! And psychologically, it's not good either. So yeah, to be more mindful of that. I do believe that hopefully when my daughter is menopausal it will be a better place for women, but at the moment, it's pretty crap...

- And how do you feel when someone doesn't understand those impacts?

- Oh, you just know that people don't really understand, I mean, I mentioned so often to my daughters that they are now quite aware of it, I even bore people with it... but on the whole, I think if you were to stop somebody else and ask « What do you know about the menopause? » it will be unlikely, you never know, but it would be unlikely that they really know much about it at all. So I think there should be much more awareness of it and on the health impact of it.

- Just as periods, actually, which is something people know more about then?

- Absolutely, and that there would be more things in place to support women and all of that, absolutely...