Halle Berry had some hard-hitting revelations to make about the menopause over the weekend - and her fans were left reeling.
The actress, who is on a mission to destigmatize the menopause and get people talking about it, posted three impactful videos to her Instagram account, and they quickly racked up over a million views and thousands of comments - several expressing shock and disbelief over what they were hearing.
Halle sat down for a frank discussion with U.S Senator Cory Booker in the videos, the first of which she posted with the caption: “Menopause … Let’s talk about it! 9 in 10 women were never educated about menopause. Which is why @corybooker and I dove into the importance of talking about women’s pre-menopausal and menopausal journeys so that we can find more relief in the similarities of women’s inevitable unknown.”
“There’s a stigma around it, and that’s why I’ve gotten involved, to try and de-stigmatize it,” Halle told Corey after he noted that many women go through menopause alone and without a support group because it’s simply not talked about.
The 57-year-old actress told how her friends rejoiced when she brought up the topic of menopause, saying how “they were starving to talk with someone about it and not feel shame. And they were starved to share their experiences. And we realized we’re going through a lot of the same things.”
Elsewhere Halle revealed during the discussion that: “Only 13% of doctors have gone through the menopause.” And what’s the solution? “Beginning to fix it starts with more education and research so that more doctors can become experts on the menopausal body!”
Another shocking fact was as follows: “Until 1993, women weren’t even used in clinical studies. It was only men. So how could we possibly understand what we need when we weren’t even part of the study?”
She added: “Women in their 30s if they knew how to arrive to their menopausal and perimenopausal years in a better way, they would.”Halle stated that, “If menopause was a man’s health issue, we would have it way more figured out by now.” Menopause goes way further than just being a women’s health issue however.
“There’s 1.8 billion dollars lost every year because women have to take time off work. That’s an everybody problem. That’s not just a women’s health issue,” she said.
The comment section was flooded with shocked and supportive comments: One fan wrote: “Exactly Halle, it’s a human issue and so so important. As an OBGYN we don’t get enough training on menopause in residency and have to either let it be or become proactive during our working years to learn about it. I’m choosing the latter but still have so much to learn. Thanks for bringing this to light!”
Another wrote: “Hell I’ve never been schooled on the menopause. All men should know.”
And among the voices joining the discussion was our own Chief Content Officer Sophie Vokes-Dudgeon, who shared about the work HELLO! has been doing on the menopause. ”@halleberry we’ve been working so hard on breaking the taboo with @hellomag in the UK - 3000 companies including parliament and the NHS have signed our workplace menopause pledge. Behind you every step of the way to help the US catch up!”