The New York Times has long been in the vanguard of insisting that there is no difference between men and women other than their self-identity. That’s why it should raise a few eyebrows that the Times is now conceding that women are different…if they’re menopausal. I guess ageism also strikes at the New York Times.

The article has one of those typically long titles that makes it seem almost irrelevant to read the rest: “Study Shows the Staggering Cost of Menopause for Women in the Work Force: Some are taking sick days. Others are cutting back their hours. Still others end up quitting altogether.” Indeed, the title is almost longer than the article itself. Here’s the key point:

Menopause costs American women an estimated $1.8 billion in lost working time per year, according to a Mayo Clinic study published this week. The paper examined how hot flashes, night sweats, mood swings and the myriad other symptoms associated with this time of life affect women in the workplace. It’s the largest study of its kind to have been done in the United States.

Researchers surveyed more than 4,000 participants at four Mayo Clinic sites in Minnesota, Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin. Roughly 15 percent said they had either missed work or cut back on hours because of their menopause symptoms, which the study classified as “adverse work outcomes.” Those who reported the very worst symptoms were 16 times more likely to report such outcomes than those with the least severe symptoms. A little over 1 percent said that their symptoms had become so debilitating that they either quit their jobs or were laid off in the preceding six months.

To reach the $1.8 billion price tag, the study’s authors extrapolated how this percentage of menopausal would affect the American workforce as a whole, given that the census (assuming it’s correct) says that, in the critical 45-60 age group, there are more than 15 million in the workforce.

Image by freepik.

And of course, given that this is the New York Times, there’s a racial angle:

Though a majority of survey participants were white, the researchers found that menopause can have a greater effect on Black and Hispanic working women, Dr. Kling said. “Black women tended to have more menopausal symptoms,” she said. “And higher percentages of Black women and Hispanic women reported adverse work outcomes related to menopausal symptoms compared to white women.”

As someone who has experienced all of this herself, I feel the pain of every woman who has had to work through hot flashes, migraines, mood swings, etc. I understand the urge just to pack it in, either by taking a day off or retiring altogether. Menopause is exhausting.

Having said that, I can’t get over the sheer delight of a New York Times article conceding that women are biologically different from men. Take that, Chuck Todd, as you try to get Vivek Ramaswamy, a man whose intellect clearly outpaces yours by at least a factor of ten, that “gender” is just a “spectrum.”

CHUCK TODD: Are you confident that you know that gender is as binary as you're describing it?@VivekGRamaswamy: I am.

TODD: Do you know this as a scientist?

RAMASWAMY: There are two X chromosomes if you're a woman and an X and a Y...

TODD: There is a lot of… pic.twitter.com/KyVZnASdmv

— Kevin Tober (@KevinTober94) April 30, 2023

No, women are different—and, as the New York Times has been forced to acknowledge, even as it tries to spin it as a sexism issue, women face biological challenges that men, even if they think they are women, will never have to face themselves.