Elisha Tait is an FY2 doctor in Birmingham
It is a truth universally acknowledged that the struggles of women of a certain age are hardly acknowledged at all. The menopause has been a taboo topic for generations, talked about in hushed tones and euphemisms. Fortunately, in recent times, it is gaining some attention in the media.
The BBC’s Riot Women, by Sally Wainright, shows us a snippet of the lives of five women navigating the menopause and forming a rock band.
One of the main themes of the show is how women feel that when they hit a certain age they become “invisible” in society. The song “seeing red” expresses anger at the difficulty faced when asking for HRT and puts the frustration felt by thousands of women into words. The lines “…if it happened to blokes… we’d be getting HRT from Tescos…” shows the desire for HRT to be more easily available, as well as the fact that women feel their needs are often overlooked. Eccles et al write in the BJGP1 about how women felt like they weren’t listened to or that they had to push their GP to talk to them about HRT. It is vital that all patients feel that they can speak to their GP and be heard, especially those patients who feel they aren’t listened to in other areas of their life.
The BBC’s Riot Women shows us a snippet of the lives of five women navigating the menopause and forming a rock band.
Many GPs won’t have experienced the menopause themselves and may not have even discussed it with people close to them. Most people have heard of hot flushes and mood swings. However, the show depicts things many people may not have considered. This includes peri-menopausal women bleeding so heavily they bleed through onto bedsheets or the dark loneliness that can take over. At the very beginning of this drama, one of the main characters contemplates suicide. Many viewers of the show or readers of this journal may not have considered how debilitating any of the symptoms can be.
So Riot Women is an important watch for GPs, and for anybody close to a person experiencing menopause. It gives a glimpse into some of the difficulties being faced, hopefully helping people to feel empathy who may have no experience of this themselves. It may also make GPs more likely to ask women to book a follow-up appointment so that they don’t feel so rushed – another issue raised by Eccles et al.1 Anything that sheds some more light on such an important topic can only be positive, can’t it?
One of the main focuses of Eccles et al’s study in the BJGP was how cultural background affects women’s health seeking behaviours in relation to the menopause. They found that Black and South Asian women had different struggles when compared with white women in the same age group. One major struggle was a lack of representation in the media and in the information surrounding HRT.1
The five menopausal women that are the main protagonists in Riot Women are all white women. I think that this further contributes to the already existing underrepresentation of non-white women in relation to the menopause. It is unfortunately a common theme throughout the media and in health care. Consequently the show emphasises the importance of listening to those people who are often overlooked, while overlooking some of the most under-represented demographics in the country.
All women should have equal access to HRT, and all healthcare for that matter, and we should strive to represent this in healthcare materials and in the media.
Deputy Editor’s note: Riot Women, the hit drama series by multi-BAFTA award-winning writer Sally Wainwright, will be returning to the BBC for a second series.
Featured series: Riot Women, by Sally Wainright, BBC 2025 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002hd7x
References
1. Eccles A, Keating S, Mann C, Shah L, Dale J, Apenteng P, et al. (2025) Accessing equitable menopause care in the Contemporary NHS: A qualitative study of women’s experiences. BJGP doi:10.3399/bjgp.2024.0781
Featured photo: L-R: Amelia Bullmore, Lorraine Ashbourne, Rosalie Craig, Joanna Scanlan and Tamsin Greig (Image: BBC/Drama Republic/Julia Kennedy)
