A new low in mansplaining – menopause as a metaphor for a failing economy
No offence to my employers, but the continued absence of a menopause cry space, as recently pioneered by Notts police, has not gone unnoticed.
Nor – now that a Bank of England official reminds middle-aged women of our extraordinary similarity to once-productive economies, doomed to pitiable decline – have I witnessed any of the workplace menopause openness advocated by the chief medical officer, Sally Davies, such as the taboo-defying “M” for menopause badges. Or “C” for climacteric, as the menopause is known to clinicians, Germaine Greer and, we now discover, the deputy governor of the Bank of England.
In an interview that will long be a topic in my bespoke, home cry space, Ben Broadbent told the Daily Telegraph that the British economy is “menopausal”. That means, he elaborated, “you’re past your productive peak, you’re no longer potent”.
City analysts fluent in gynaecology/economy parallels would have immediately spotted, looking on the bright side, that Dr Broadbent neither ruled out HRT nor resorted to similes featuring fibroids, stress incontinence or vaginal mesh.
Actually, a ‘menopausal’ economy would be more productive | Jayne-Anne Gadhia
But to those unable to interpret Mr Broadbent’s choice of words as anything other than a rare combination of idiocy and unabashed misogyny, he could only, after protests, apologise. Even at the BBC, renowned for its efficiency in purging middle-aged women, most men can be relied on to pretend ignorance of the system. At the Bank of England, colleagues have been tasked, recently, with attributing its massive 25% gender pay gap to the mysterious absence of senior women. Anyway, perhaps Broadbent’s apology will entice more of these failing organisms on board. “I was explaining,” he said, “the meaning of the word climacteric.”
Thoughtful of you, Ben. Though maybe, next time, look it up? So as not to conflate the word’s medical definition with climacteric’s primary meaning, in literature unrelated to biology, as a critical moment or period? Rather than explain further, why don’t we substitute “menopause” for “climacteric” in academic titles where Mr Broadbent believes a biological comparator to be involved? For instance: “The menopause of the 1890s: a study in the expanding economy.” And: “Was 19th-century British growth steam-powered?: The menopause revisited.” Similarly: “‘The menopause event in our history’: aspects of Burke’s reception in France.”
The Bank of England has recently attributed its massive 25% gender pay gap to the absence of senior women
If, for reasons at which we can only guess, the menopause has become Broadbent’s go-to stagnation metaphor, it is only fair to point out that distaste for women near their own age is shared by many of his middle-aged peers. Look, for instance, at the writing of Rod Liddle or Tony Blair (“the good matrons of the Women’s Institute”); at the 20-year age difference preferred by men who can afford it, when they trade in a climacteric-damaged partner.
Naturally, so soon after Toby Young’s surrender of an academic appointment (following exposure of his tweets about women’s “knockers”), and amid the general resentment resulting from #MeToo, Broadbent’s humiliation immediately earned him a place, alongside St Toby of the Tits, in the pantheon of political correctness martyrs. “Did bank boss HAVE to apologise?”, the Mail demanded, of the “PC brigade”. “He was simply using a metaphor.”
The Telegraph, having used that innocent metaphor for its headline, now protested the reaction with all the indignation of a tweeting Trump, when he blames the recoil from his own obscenities on “politically correct fools”. Broadbent, the Telegraph said, had been unfairly “hounded” by a “self-appointed Inquisition ready to jump on well-meaning if infelicitous comments”.
