CILIP Conference 2025 takes place in Summer and the programme is already filling up. Among the highlights already confirmed is the Menstrual/Menopause Health in the Workplace Panel, hosted by CILIP Scotland’s Kirsten MacQuarrie. Here she talks us through what to expect and how you can make a difference. Visit CILIP Conference 2025.to find out more and book your place.

Information Professional: Can you give us a brief introduction to the session that you will be hosting at CILIP Conference 2025.

Kirsten MacQuarrie: I couldn’t be more excited to be chairing our first-ever conference session dedicated to a theme that is perhaps best encapsulated as Menstrual Literacy or indeed even Menstrual Justice:discovering how library, information and knowledge management services of all sectors can tackle cultural stigma, combat misogynistic misinformation and embody a better way for our workplaces to support women’s health when it comes to menstruation and menopause.

As our incredible conference programmer Louise Greener adds: “In programming this session, we’re keen to open up a space where we can explore and humanise the unique challenges and experiences of working with (and within) hormonal cycles and transitions. And to consider what a truly supportive work culture looks and feels like. The central question being: How might we, collectively, co-create a shift towards more regenerative ways of working and being for a work force of circa 75 per cent women and/or people who menstruate?”

IP: How do we raise the profile and remove the stigma around these issues, so people feel empowered to discuss them and make positive changes?

KM: There’s a 1978 essay by Gloria Steinem titled If Men Could Menstruate (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23293691.2019.1619050) that imagines a parallel world in which the unfair sex (sorry boys) has a monthly bleed, and to this day it makes a bloody brilliant read. Steinem jokes about a marketplace flooded with prestige products like Paul Newman maxi pads – perhaps today they’d be Timothée Chalamet tampons – jostling jocks priding themselves on a five-day flow, and conservative politicians using men-struation as justification for why we women are natural subordinates. It’s satirical, of course, but hits home with the point that, as Steinem puts it, “logic has nothing to do with oppression”. There is nothing inherent in menstruation or menopause that makes them sources of shame rather than pride; rather, the patriarchal assumption that “male equals default” creates conditions in which anything associated with femaleness appears lesser, other and even alien.

As CILIPS Sector Development Manager, I know from the data I regularly present to our Trustee Board that between 72 per cent and 75 per cent of our members are women, and our greatest age demographic is those between 40 and 60. It’s therefore no great stretch to suggest that a majority of our membership may be in peri-/menopause at any given time. I assure you that no woman needs to be reminded of either menstruation or menopause, Mother Nature takes care of that for us! But how often do we see that recognised in our workplaces, even in a sector where Facts Matter is a grounding principle? That’s why what CILIP is doing with this conference session has such pioneering potential.

I’m writing these responses on day 27 of a cycle, feeling more sensitised to pain and fatigue but fortunately also to injustice. And amongst the delegates who will be joining us in Birmingham this July, how many might likewise be negotiating tricky symptoms in secret, on top of all the varied, vital work we do daily?

As library professionals, we understand the value of patrons seeing themselves on the page. Foregrounding menstruation and menopause means that many delegates will, for the first time, see their whole selves on the programme.

IP: What are some of the practical steps that can be taken to help ensure workplaces accommodate staff needs around menstruation and menopause?

KM: This is a great question and I’m looking forward to our panel and delegates alike sharing tangible examples of best practice: after all, in peri-/menopause, warm words are often the very last thing we want!

Easy wins include greater ventilation and general workspace temperature control (which brings an added bonus to your library’s carbon footprint); and women should be able to take toilet breaks as required – crucially, this includes both busy frontline staff and senior leaders likely to be locked in back-to-back meetings – with period products like pads and tampons available in those bathroom facilities.

Indeed, as illuminated by the case study of University of Dundee Period Library (which I featured in a Winspiration Feminism for Libraries webinar back in 2023 – see CILIPS Winspiration resources here https://www.cilips.org.uk/feminism), making menstrual products available in all bathrooms is best. This helps to ensure the inclusion of trans men and non-binary people who menstruate, as well as empowering men to bring home items that their partners/sisters/mothers/daughters may need (and in doing so, developing their own menstrual literacy)!

A more conceptual yet no less practical step I’m interested in exploring with our panel is that of flexible working. It’s easy to forget that men also have hormonal cycles, following a 24-hour rather than 28-day pattern, and the rhythm of the former is so ingrained into our working lives that we often fail to notice it.

But again, returning to Steinem’s essay, nothing about those socio-economic structures is inevitable. If our libraries received the financial backing and political support they deserve, might we be able to embed greater capacity and knowledge sharing into our teams? Could we move away from traditional workplace mentalities of competition and towards collaboration, empowering colleagues to play to their strengths in dynamic ways that work for their wellbeing?

As is so often the case with feminist progress, there are co-benefits in this shift for pretty much everyone. Plus, stress reduction in itself (including within the workplace) can play a key part in lessening symptoms. Recent research by Bloody Good Employers included responses from women who felt obligated to take annual leave rather than sick leave to cope with menstruation-related issues (with some reporting as many as 5-8 days per annum), and further investigations by In Kind Direct, in 2024, estimate that work lost to ‘period iniquity’ costs the UK economy £3.25bn per annum. Meanwhile, 14 million working days per year are lost as a result of menopause-related symptoms and stressors. It’s long been a feminist rallying cry that the personal is political; when it comes to menstruation and menopause, the personal is professional too.

IP: We’ve talked about making the workplace a better environment, but what can we do to develop practices that meet users’ needs as well?

KM: Very much so, we’re all part of the circle – or cycle – of library life! Librarians are consistently rated amongst the most trusted professionals in the UK and the relationships we build with our service users, rooted in what is often the only non-clinical, non-commercial space left in their local communities, mean that we are uniquely placed to share not just resources but knowledge.

Visibility in our library spaces – of period products, yes, but also menstrual literacy literature in our collections – equips women and girls with the tools, information and confidence they need to navigate their menstrual health in a system otherwise freighted with silence, shame, stigma and misinformation.

Women are the majority of library patrons as well as library staff, and in my upcoming book on Feminist Librarianship (Facet, 2026) I’ll argue that library cuts and closures should therefore be called out as not just misguided but misogynistic. If women were properly valued, in every sense, then our library work would be similarly appreciated. Investment in libraries is an investment in women; if decision makers drag their feet over either, patrons – and voters – are entitled to ask them why.

 

IP: Can you tell us a bit more about the CILIP session – who will be appearing, where do you think the discussion will take us, and what do you hope delegates will get from attending?

An epic panel is taking shape for our delegates and someone I’m especially eager to hear from is Professor Vanessa Beck from the University of Bristol. Vanessa worked with On Fife Libraries here in Scotland on their Pause not Full Stop programme of menopause-based activities, including everything from breadmaking to a drama production and more as creative means of challenging stigma. Her research explores the gendered ageism that lurks at the root of the stubborn knowledge gap that still exists around peri-/menopause, and the effect of menopause transition on women’s economic participation.

We’ll also be discussing the fact that the International Organization for Standardization is currently developing an ISO on menstruation, menstrual health and menopause in the workplace: what will this mean for library services, professionals and patrons? Whether you want to know what support your library workplace can (and should) offer you with menstruation or menopause, or the part you can play as an ally in championing change and greater menstrual literacy for all, this session is not to be missed!