A bloody mess? UK regulation of menopause discrimination and the need for reform

This article considers the regulation of menopause-related discrimination in the workplace. Many menopausal women experience profound workplace inequalities, often connected with the intersection of ageism and sexism. The UK Parliament’s Women and Equality Committee’s (WEC) recently recommended that the government consults about a new protected characteristic, ‘menopause’, and that s14 of the Equality Act 2010 (dual discrimination) be brought into force. The Government has rejected these recommendations asserting that menopausal women are sufficiently protected under the Act’s existing provision. This article presents an alternative perspective, arguing that there is insufficient legal protection from menopause discrimination, with it fitting poorly within age, sex and/or disability discrimination, and there being no facility for intersectional claims. The WEC is correct: s14 should be implemented, there should be a menopause protected characteristic and, beyond that, the Act needs wider reform to provide greater protections from discrimination, beyond inflexible identity categories which fail to allow for complex intersecting structural oppressions.