On waking up to find my own story on the front page of the Globe and Mail, and what that moment means for the conversation Canada is finally having about menopause at work.
I woke up Saturday morning to a phone full of messages from people who had already seen the Globe and Mail on their doorstep. I hadn’t.
I got dressed, grabbed my keys and walked to the closest store. I wanted my first read to be on paper.menopause gap
Then I saw the headline on the front page.
And when I turned to page 10, there I was, across the top half of the centerfold.
My story opened the piece. Menovate closed it.
I sat down on a nearby bench in the sun and read the whole thing slowly.
I had no idea how big this moment was going to feel.
The Moment I Stopped
Reading the story, I found myself thinking about the year and a half since I started building Menovate.
It has been the most demanding journey of my life so far. There have been hard days, plenty of them, alongside the good ones. But this one felt different.
It felt like recognition.
Recognition for hundreds of hours spent trying to get the word menopause said out loud. Recognition for the women I have talked to, the stories they have shared with me, and the work we have been doing to make something that has been so private and so often misunderstood a little less lonely.
Sitting there on that bench, I felt something I rarely stop long enough to feel when I’m building a company:
Pure joy.
And pride.
I didn’t want to move.
I just sat there in the sun, reading my own words in a national newspaper, and let myself take it in.
It was one of the best days of my life, and I don’t say that lightly.
Why I Tell This Story
The Globe article opens with a moment I have become surprisingly comfortable talking about.
Four years ago, near the end of 26 years in corporate life, I was presenting a multi-billion-dollar merger to my executive team, a project I had lived and breathed for months.
And then the words simply would not come.
I couldn’t remember a thing.
I wasn’t unprepared. I wasn’t inexperienced. I was standing in a room where I had spent 26 years learning exactly how to perform, and suddenly I couldn’t remember what I was there to say.
At the time, I had no idea what was happening to me.
I now understand that I was experiencing perimenopause. None of the doctors I saw ever named it for me. I had to figure it out on my own.
That moment changed the direction of my life.
Telling the story now feels cathartic rather than frightening. It is a common story, and one that needs to be told. When I share it on stage, I watch women nod and smile because they have lived their own version of it too.
I tell it because I don’t want another woman sitting in a boardroom, a classroom, an operating room or behind a cash register wondering privately if she is losing her mind, when what she is experiencing has a name.
Menovate exists because of that moment.
So does every talk, course and conversation that has come out of it since.
Something Is Shifting in Canada
Something has shifted.
In June, I testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women as part of its study on the labour-force impacts of menopause and perimenopause.
Three months later, the same conversation was on the front page of Canada’s national newspaper.
Those moments feel connected to me.
A conversation that for too long happened quietly, in doctors’ offices, in boardrooms, in bedrooms and in women’s own heads, is becoming impossible to ignore.
Canada still does not have a national menopause strategy. We haven’t had a national health campaign. Research funding remains limited.
But the conversation is moving.
The Menopause Foundation of Canada estimates that unmanaged menopause symptoms cost the Canadian economy $3.5 billion a year.
For years, we have talked about menopause primarily as a women’s health issue.
It is that.
But it is also a workplace issue. An economic issue. A talent issue.
And we are finally starting to talk about it that way.
What I Hope Happens Next
For women, I hope this moment gives them permission.
Permission to name what they are experiencing.
Permission to ask for help.
Permission to stop assuming that exhaustion, brain fog, sleeplessness, anxiety or heart palpitations are simply things they must push through quietly.
For employers, permission isn’t enough.
It’s time for action.
Organizations don’t need to wait for legislation or a national strategy before they start doing better. Some are already training their people, equipping managers and putting practical accommodations in place.
That is encouraging.
But it is still the exception, not the norm.
The question isn’t whether menopause affects the workplace. It does.
The question is whether we are going to continue losing experienced, talented women because they don’t feel safe saying what is happening, or whether we are going to do something about it.
Why I Built Menovate
That is why I built Menovate.
I don’t want women to have to figure this out alone, the way I did.
And I don’t want employers to wait until someone is struggling, disengaging or quietly planning her exit before they start asking what they could have done differently.
The conversation must start earlier.
It starts with education. It starts with managers knowing what to say. It starts with women knowing they are not imagining what is happening to them.
That is the work we are doing through Menovate’s corporate talks, e-learning programs and manager and HR training.
A talk can start the conversation.
Education and action are what move it forward.
And Then There Was That Saturday
The response to the Globe article has been bigger than I expected.
Women I have never met have reached out. Former colleagues I haven’t spoken to in years have written to me. And women have told me they finally have language for something they have been trying to understand themselves.
The Globe’s site has already drawn hundreds of comments, many from women describing versions of the same story: the missed diagnosis, the quiet exit from a job they were good at, the years spent thinking something was wrong with them rather than recognizing perimenopause or menopause.
Reading those stories has been humbling.
Because four years ago, I was the woman sitting in that boardroom wondering what was happening to me.
Today, my story is on the front page of the Globe and Mail.
I never could have imagined that the moment I was most afraid I was losing myself would become the moment that set me on this path.
And if telling that story means one woman recognizes herself a little sooner, asks a question a little sooner, gets help a little sooner, or stays in a career she loves instead of quietly walking away, then every uncomfortable conversation has been worth it.
This is why I keep saying the word menopause out loud.
And I’m not planning to stop.
I am not a doctor. Always talk to your own doctor before starting, stopping, or changing any medication.
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Aimee Debow is the Founder of Menovate and a certified Menopause Coach. She appeared as a witness before the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women in June 2026. Menovate helps Canadian organizations build menopause-supportive workplaces through corporate talks, e-learning, and HR advisory services. Learn more at menovate.ca.