Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
We want to talk about all things periods and how they affect our daily lives as chemists at Oxford. We would love to here your views and opinions:
Follow us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on LinkedIn
Periodically, the podcast that covers all things periods and chemistry!
Each week, over this series of six episodes, we here at the University of Oxford will be taking a deep-dive into just how periods have affected us in tutorials, exams, labs and just generally studying at undergrad. We want to talk about how periods can sometimes just get in the bloody way!
Periodically is funded by the Royal Society of Chemistry Equality and Diversity fund.
[00:00:00] Lottie: Periodically is back for season two. We are still going to be talking to you about all things periods and chemistry, but this time we have a twist. This year we are very grateful to welcome guests onto the podcast from all over the UK. In our next six episodes, our guests will be talking to us about their experiences with menstrual and reproductive health, where we take a deep dive into topics ranging from endometriosis, pregnancy and the menopause, to name a few. Our guests represent a wide range of experiences and are at different points in their career, and we hope this will shed light on the impact that menstruation can have at all points in our lives. We still continue our quest to find out and talk about how menstruation can sometimes just get in the bloody way. This year we'd like to thank the RSC Inclusion and Diversity Fund, the University of Oxford Chemistry Department and the EPSRC funded OxICFM CDT for supporting the podcast.
[00:01:00] Manami: Hi everyone and thanks for joining us for another episode of Periodically Season Two. My name is Manami and I will be one of your hosts today.
[00:01:08] Charlie: And hi, I'm Charlie, your other host for today's episode.
We are really excited to be joined here with Dr Jenny Maunder from the University of Durham. So without further ado, Jenny, would you like to introduce yourself and a bit about what you do?
[00:01:20] Jenny: Hi, thank you for having me. I'm a physical chemistry based lecturer and most of my job so far has been kind of lab demonstrating and lab leading but I do a bit of lecturing and tutorials and stuff as well at the University of Durham. I do have slightly less fun facty about chemistry, but this is a bit of a full circle moment for me, I'm from Newcastle and I don't have much of an accent, but I was actually born in Oxford, not been back since I was born really, but it's really nice to be here and kind of see the place of my birth. That's kind of a brief history of me.
[00:01:52] Manami: Thank you so much Jenny and today Jenny is going to be talking about her life as an early careers academic who has just recently finished her PhD and jenny will be discussing how menstruation has impacted her career and the struggles she has faced. As a teaching fellow in chemistry, Jenny sees the opposite side of what we focused on in the first season, where we investigated labs, tutorials and just the general workload. Also, as an early careers academic in chemistry, there is a bottleneck to reaching a permanent position, and according to some research, only 3. 5 percent of chemistry PhD students go into a permanent position within a research institution. In terms of the gender imbalance, at higher levels, there is only 9 percent of professors in chemistry who are women. Trying to get more women through the bottleneck and supporting them in their early career means that in the future hopefully this gender imbalance will become more balanced. Jenny is going to talk about her experience and how she has got to where she has today and how that has been impacted by menstruation and systemic gender imbalances.
[00:03:00] Charlie: Thank you Jenny, for coming all the way down from Durham, or even Newcastle, I guess. It's quite a way, and we're really excited to have you here.
Just to start with, it would be great if you could tell us a bit about your experience with menstruation and have you felt like your career has been different to your peers who do not have a period?
[00:03:17] Jenny: I would call myself fairly fortunate of the period having people in that I'm fairly regular. so it's quite predictable, but I do have a weird kind of one month will be super light and everything's fine and one month will be the Month From Hell, where often it's a day if I can work from home I will, because it's hard to get out of bed and it really hurts and all that wonderful thing. So at least I can predict when that's going to happen, but it does make, I guess, an extra level of complexity onto what is already quite a difficult kind of influx time of life. You feel like you've got something to prove, you're constantly kind of working towards something, whether it's the next set of exams or doing your PhD thesis or applying for jobs that may or may not have all come at the same time for me and that has been really difficult and again I would call myself fairly fortunate in the department I'm in. I've had a massive support network of wonderful women who have supported me and I would feel very comfortable talking about this to, but as a particularly more physical chemist, the area is dominated quite heavily by men that are older than me, or people that don't have periods and while it might be quite an internalised problem and I haven't talked about it with them, so I don't know how they would react, but it's almost the safer option to just not bring it up and deal with it yourself because you don't know how they're going to react to it. So trying to navigate that mentally and physically is quite taxing when you're already worried about all the other things of what's the next step coming on and when you're early careers in academia, you are on short term contracts, you do know your time is limited, you do feel like you've got something to prove in order for your contract to be renewed and it's just something that kind of has to go to the back of your mind and you do have to get, have that right, buck up. You've just got to get on with it, it happens to everybody, you'll be fine. But yeah, that's, I guess, the main issue I've faced and I haven't gone on birth control. A lot of people say, Oh, it might make things easier if being able to plan a bit more, but it doesn't really suit me. My grandma passed away of a blood clot very shortly after she went on hormone replacement therapy for the menopause and this was all before I was born, but it has induced that sort of fear in my family of messing with your hormones. So I've always been advised, just stay away from it, you've got a family history of that. So it hasn't really suited me to be able to do all of that, which on the plus side, I'm super regular and it doesn't really matter, but that's not an option for me. So having, knowing that I'm always going to have to deal with that is quite a daunting task, yeah.
[00:06:10] Charlie: Thank you for telling us about that. I think this is also one of the, kind of, things we talked about a bit in season one is that often the pill is seen as, you know, a cure all kind of thing, it's not just given to us for contraceptive, it's given to us if we've got heavy periods, if we've got mood disorders, if we've got basically, I feel like anything that is female health, they're like, Oh yeah, we'll just, put you on some hormone replacement and see what that does and sometimes it works and it's great and for some people it works like a, like the best thing you can imagine. But again, as you said, it's not an option for some people and also the options are quite limited for quite a lot of people. As you say, with the chance of blood clots in your family, there's also things like increased chances of stroke if you have, so I can't have the oestrogen pill because I have migraines with aura, which you can't have if you've got that, so that really limited my options and it's also why I'm not on the pill because the progesterone only pill was the one that made me feel really grumpy and sad all the time. So I just didn't want to have that. So I think this is it as well, it's like, you know, there's, there are options there, but sometimes they're just not good enough and as you say, getting used to your body and trying to deal with it and when there isn't the kind of medical support, there needs to be some kind of societal support to be like, okay, yeah, we understand that you can't actually go through some of these things that makes it easier, like taking pills, but now how can we make it easier at work and things like that? So yeah, I think that was really important what you were talking about.
[00:07:45] Jenny: Yeah, and just on what you were saying, not just the kind of physical pain of back pain and cramps and all of that fatigue, there's also the mental instability, I guess. Instability makes it sound like it's, you're about to snap, I guess sometimes I am a little bit like that, but I would say I have fairly high energy teaching style, which most days of the month, absolutely fine, and it is how I prefer to teach, I kind of slip into it, I'm not doing it on purpose, but I become very aware of that teaching style on my period and it's almost like I have to put on a facade and I can only imagine having to deal with the pill and stuff like that and hormone changes if you are feeling grumpy, because my partner will tell you I get a bit grumpy at that time of the month, but it's hard to keep that up while you're also feeling unwell and I don't want my students to be affected by differences in teaching style across the month, say I've got four tutorials that I give a month once a week. I don't want one tutorial group to be disadvantaged because they always seem to fall on that time of the month, for example. Not that I think It does change, but there's always that internal battle in your head, isn't there, of am I acting different? Am I doing it right? What if I'm doing it wrong? What if I'm letting people down? And there's no way of knowing that because you're not the student, you're not seeing what you're doing. So it's hard mentally to make sure you're doing the right thing and not questioning yourself too much, yeah.
[00:09:15] Manami: Yeah, it can be really hard because you can't see yourself because you are yourself and what you mentioned about your energy when you teach is really interesting and it really does make a difference when you have an energetic lecturer or demonstrator can make it a lot more enjoyable, especially in a long lab day. Do you feel the pressure to maintain this and what do you think causes this pressure?
[00:09:40] Jenny: I guess early careers academic, briefly mentioned, it does feel like you have to prove yourself a little bit. Sometimes you're kind of competing with what's happening with your body and you just feel like you have to get on with it. It can sometimes feel like you're a little bit of a disadvantage compared to people who maybe don't have periods and you're kind of fighting the curve a little bit, but again this pressure is super internal. I think there isn't an atmosphere at the moment of being super open about it and it just being something that you might drop into conversation and be like, oh hey I'm on my period today. Life's a bit rubbish today isn't it? It's not comfy to say that, whether it's totally acceptable and every single person in the department might be absolutely fine with that being a conversation, it's not a comfy thing to be the first person to start doing. So yeah, I do feel pressure to then maintain that, especially like I said, I'm quite lab based as a demonstrator, so I do spend super long hours in the lab. So this year I've been mostly in the third year teaching lab. So that's six hours a day with a break for lunch, two days a week. Next year I'm going to be taking on the second year lab as well, so that'll be Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. I won't be in all of that time, it's usually three to six hours a week, but sometimes it can be more if you have to cover people. But feeling that pressure to have to, if it's a bad day, if you're say the module leader for that course and a staff members not well or has had to reschedule and you haven't realized that's going to be a heavy period day, sometimes you can be in there all day on your feet and keeping that energy up and feeling like you don't want to sit down because I'm a quite an active teacher. I don't feel like demonstrators should just be sat doing something else while the students are all working, you should be on your feet, you should be talking to people, you should be encouraging conversations while you're in the lab. It's a really good opportunity for people to actively learn. and that's where we can capture them the most. So I want to be on my feet. I want to be talking to them and sometimes you just need to find that little lull to lean on a barstool and take a break. But again, that internalizes it for you and I'm sure statistically in that lab, there will be somebody else on their period at the same time and I don't notice people having to take breaks and things like that, so I feel like they can't notice me doing that. So whether it's, I don't know if you have thoughts on this, but almost like, if I was more open to even the students, not just talking about staff members, of that, if I need a break just to sit down and be like, oh, I'll pull up a chair while we chat, because I need to sit down, whether that would then encourage students to feel like they can do the same thing, because well, we don't encourage students to sit down all the time because it can be dangerous working with chemicals, whether there's an area they can go sit down in while we have a chat might be something that we could do.
[00:12:36] Manami: Yeah, I think that sounds great and when you see kind of a demonstrator doing that, you kind of know you can do it too as a student. So I think that would really make students who are going through periods or whatever health issues really feel more comfortable in that situation and I think we can often forget that these lecturers, supervisors and staff members are going through this too and are equally having a rough time in the lab sometimes.
So, do you have any specific situations where your period has affected you in a negative way that isn't in a teaching setting?
[00:13:15] Jenny: Yeah, so on the kind of careers track, so I was finishing up my PhD last year, writing up, submitted, did my VIVA in December, all the while I was having to apply for my current role as a lecturer. So I was a teaching fellow starting last year in January and around the same time that I was having to submit all my thesis and everything, I was also applying for this job because I knew my current position was coming to an end. Those two things you'd think would be stressful enough, but the day of my interview, super important interview for keeping going at Durham because I'm based in Newcastle, I don't really want to have to travel much further than that. I get my period and it was a bad one, so I said I have one month on, one month off, it was there with some fury and the first day of my period is always the worst. It's always the one that I try to avoid if I can, cause it's super painful and as part of this application process, it was a two day long application process. The first day was doing a lecture and a tutorial and then kind of tours of the department and things like that and socialising with the other candidates going out for dinner at the end of the day and then the next day would be kind of interviews, formal interviews and so the first day was the day that I had to be on my feet doing this lecture and on my feet doing the tutorial and on my feet doing a tour of the department, all the while, all the other candidates were male. Luckily for me, it was in Durham and I have perhaps a little bit of nepotism through the fact I didn't really need a tour of the department because I did my undergrad there. I did my PhD there, I have my office there, so they kind of nudged me and said, do you want to just stay in your office while we do the tour with the other people? But it turned out that because of my period, I was just in so much pain. I'd just done my lecture, and like I said, I'm quite an upbeat lecturing style, so I was on my feet, I talk with my hands and I move, and at the end of that I was being punished for it. So I went up to my office, I made a little bench out of the chairs I use for my tutorials, I curled up in a ball, took some painkillers and just set a timer for when I had to do my tutorial and tried to rock the pain away in the fetal position on this bench of chairs and that's the kind of behind the scenes that you might not see happening, but I'm sure I'm not the only one that's had to go take a break and sit in the toilets and just curl up in a ball because it's more comfortable to be curled hunched up than it is to be straight and on your feet. So I thought that was quite resourceful, made a bed instead of lying on the floor, which has happened before. But yeah, it's not something that you necessarily think of as happening and I'm sure when you're planning interviews and stuff, I've seen the other side of it now of planning for upcoming interviews in the department and that is stressful enough trying to balance timetabling versus what you need to cover during the interviews and it is unavoidable that you have to do all of that during the day. But I was so lucky that it was at Durham and I did have an office that I could go and I always keep a kit of period stuff in there with painkillers and pads and tampons and things, so if anybody was in that position, including myself, it's there. But if I was visiting, Oxford to apply for a position. I wouldn't have anywhere to go really other than the toilets and I would have to break away and I'd be gone, I'd be worrying that I'd be gone for a little bit too long and I would have to put on a brave face and keep going and then having to go and do the tutorial and I'd had this whole thing planned where I was going to be super interactive and run around and I ended up being slightly more on the spot than I had planned but yeah, it's really hard to just do the basic things like walk around the department and I know it's my job, give a lecture, it doesn't feel like that's something that hard standing and I guess people think the worst bit is standing and talking in front of a bunch of people and it's not, it's sometimes the physical. aspect of it as well, and that's not just having periods, it's any sort of disability or anything that requires you to have to stand for too long. You also have that, again, imposter syndrome, not worrying you're not going to be yourself, but then is yourself good enough, it's all that, there's extra anxiety during my period, and it's just not a simple thing. It's not just the anxiety of the interview, it's the anxiety of the interview and am I leaking? Can people see? It's super heavy today and I've got my emergency kit with me but I haven't got all the other stuff that I brought with me and can I sneak away to go get some painkillers and all that. So yeah, but luckily I did get the job, so it can't have been as bad as I thought it was in my head, but yeah, it was tough.
[00:18:04] Charlie: I think what you were saying about kind of the unseen side of things, how you could kind of, you had the opportunity to go into your office and just kind of, almost like, do a bit of self care, look after yourself. I think that is something that is not even just useful for those who have like really painful periods, but for anybody who has kind of a disability, who needs a bit of time, you know, and they're going through the interview process to take some time for themselves to sit down and also maybe just to process what they're doing and you know what they're going through because I have had some of these interviews, days where they're like full on days, you know and they've got the timetables for everything, and you kind of think, oh, even just as, you know, maybe not having a sick day, you kind of think, oh, well, it would be good just to have five minutes to myself to sit down and process it. But when you're ill and you need somewhere to sit down and kind of medicate and look after yourself for a bit, as you say, also I've done it so many times in the toilet as well, like, it's just not a nice place to sit down, is it really? It's like, not exactly what you'd want to be doing, but as I said, I've done it before. So, I think this kind of idea of bringing in a space that is, you know, can be private, but it's also accessible for people so that when they're having their interviews, they can take some time out. I think that would be really good and as you said as well, you know, it's not something that you'd want to maybe bring up even at an interview and it's not something that you should want, should have to bring up. But it might be good that if the interviewers already are aware of and they might say at the beginning of the day, you know, we're understanding that some people have some different requirements and accessibility needs, you don't have to tell us what that is, but here's me signposting you to things in this brand new department that you've never been to before so that you know where things are. I think that could be quite a useful thing for you to have, I don't know what you think.
[00:19:57] Jenny: I think it's also important to actually name menstrual issues as well, say if you're having your period or something like that and you need a break because while it's all well and good, I wouldn't want to then say, hey, I'm having my period, is there somewhere that I can go to just have a bit of a sit down? It's almost like I would only be comfortable doing that if somebody said to me, if this is an issue for you, you can go here, they don't have to list every single disability you might have and every menstrual issue you might have, but making it more obvious that it is okay to say that, not just, we are saying this to tick some EDI boxes for the university. This is, we genuinely mean it and it's not going to affect you in any way, even if everybody else doesn't need that, is I think, super important for people to understand. create an atmosphere of kind of actual inclusivity.
[00:20:49] Charlie: Yeah.
[00:20:49] Manami: Yeah, I think the atmosphere is really important because even if people say it's okay, if you can't feel like it is actually okay and it won't affect your grade or the job or whatever, it can really have that barrier of not wanting to take those opportunities because it doesn't feel like an actual thing that they want to help you with.
[00:21:08] Jenny: And it's heightened, right? In interviews and exams and stuff, you already feel like people are judging you, like you're going into that environment where you feel you are being judged. So it's just another thing that you feel you might be able to be judged on, even though that's absolutely not going to be the case nine times out of ten. But what if it's the one, right? You want to match the people that don't have I'd be like, look, I can do all of that. and have a period, look at me go, but that's not how it's seen.
[00:21:39] Charlie: No and this is, I think that internal barrier that you talk about is really important and I like, only just thinking about it then, I, like, came up with my period the weekend and I have the same as you, I have like a, kind of a chill one and then I have like the period from hell that just wants to like, eat me up, basically, for a week and one started at the weekend and all I could think was like, I've got to go record the podcast and I've got to, I want to be like, really excited and show people around and like have my amazing guests here and you know, be able to talk to them and like, be really happy. But at the same time, I was like, but I know at this time of my period, I'm not really like that, I'm not my favourite self at this time, I think that's how it is, I'm still myself, but I'm not who I really like to be, I'm a bit more, like, tired and all these things and I had the same mental barrier. I had this thing in my head where I was like, well, this episode's just not gonna be like how I want it to be and all this kind of stuff and I don't think that's necessarily true. I'm really, like, happy with the episodes, but I think that the internal barrier that you also get when you're thinking about periods is again this extra work that's hidden that nobody really equates for or thinks about in terms of, you know, it's not only that we're having periods and we're dealing with the physical symptoms, we're also dealing with the mental health behind it, but also preconceptions that we have as well and battling with ourselves in a way, because we are in a society that's not really normalised it and I think that only by talking about it, as you said, we can get to a bit more of a comfortable place with this stuff.
[00:23:12] Jenny: In fact, it's been really nice talking to you because I thought I was the only one that had to take myself away and curl up in a ball in the bathroom or now I get an office. But before, when I was doing my PhD and you were in shared offices and stuff, it was the disabled toilet and I'd never openly talked to someone about having to do that because it was shameful. Toilets are dirty, right? Periods must be dirty and it's a taboo subject and it's really nice to hear that you've done the same thing and you've done the same thing and like Just being able to say that and maybe have a little bit of a laugh about it, it's not a big deal. We make it sound like it's all big doom and gloom and being a woman's just rubbish. Being a woman's great in loads of respects, but I like to find the humour in things and it's nice just to be able to chat and smile about it and be like, oh yeah, isn't this a rubbish thing that we all have to go through together? But that would be so lovely to just be open and like in the taxi on the way here, we were talking about it, all the episodes you've been doing and it was really interesting to talk about periods and stuff, but there was a moment where I suddenly realised the taxi driver was a man and being like, I wonder what he's thinking about all of this. Wow, that was a thought that was in my head just, I couldn't stop that kind of almost intrusive thought of, but there's someone else here that isn't a period having person or that I know of and I guess that's the issue, right? It's just constantly something that's ticking in the back of your mind that you have to, not fight against, but almost marvel at the fact that there are other people listening to this conversation and I think that is the important thing that the taxi driver is listening to you talk about it and the person passing in the street is listening to you talking about it and that is what needs to happen more.
[00:25:00] Charlie: Yeah, I think that's exactly hitting the nail on the head there. It's just this, you know, this normalisation. If we start talking about it like we do, I think a great example of it was, you know, when we started to really tell people we were sick when we were dealing with COVID and the COVID pandemic, we started to actually say, you know, I'm not feeling very well today, I'm not actually going to come into work because it could be, you know, at the time it could be COVID and that's why we didn't want to be contagious. But that got us so in a really good position to just start talking about health a bit more and about being able to go to work and that firstly not be a safety issue for everybody else at work, but also, you know, comfortable enough to be like, I'm actually not 100 percent today and it could be this, so I'm going to stay at home and I think that is something that It worked really well in terms of like, that got normalised very fast, it was obviously a crazy situation to be in, but it shows that, you know, once we do start talking about stuff, we can change it quite quickly and hopefully we can really get people to understand a bit more about periods and everything that comes with them. So yeah, I think that kind of hits on the head.
[00:26:06] Manami: One thing that we need to consider is the balance and lifestyle and the self care, taking time for yourself and balancing that all when you are early careers academic. How do you go about this? Do you have any tips for anyone who is going through this right now?
[00:26:25] Jenny: Yeah, I'm finding it very rewarding. I love teaching, I love working with students, it's... can't imagine doing anything else right now. But in the early career stage, it's quite intense. There aren't that many of us on the education track and we do have to pick up a lot of stuff. We've been doing quite a lot of course restructuring and things like that and there have been days where I've been in at eight and haven't left until the department closes at seven and then commute an hour to get home and then I get home at eight o'clock at night, have some food and then it's pretty much time for bed to repeat. So they are quite long hours and while that's not encouraged, sorry Durham, I'm not meant to be working that long contractually, but sometimes you just have to because otherwise it doesn't get done and like I said, it's super rewarding. I feel I owe a lot to the students and I don't want to let them down, but then you don't get to balance the lifestyle quite as much as you might want to. So, bringing it back to menstruation, I find that when I exercise, when I have a healthy diet and stuff like that, my periods are a lot more manageable. I would say I have led a fairly sedentary lifestyle, but during COVID, actually that was a good thing that came out of COVID, I did the Couch to 5K program and it was the first time that I've actually exercised regularly and I wasn't expecting it, but the main side effect of doing the Couch to 5K was not just getting a little bit fitter, but it was actually my periods were a bit lighter, they were a bit more manageable, my cramps were less intense and that was magic and it was one of the main driving forces for me keeping going, really. It wasn't so much the fitness, because I hate exercise, but that was such big eye opener in terms of being able to exercise and having that balance during Covid was kind of okay and that was good but as soon as I got back into kind of now normal hours I can't do that anymore. There's also the being a female where I live, I'm in the kind of city centre of Newcastle, there are some not super safe after dark areas quite near where I live, super safe during the day fine but if you're not getting back until after it's dark I don't really want to go trek out to the gym. It's a bit intimidating when I'm not really an exerciser, I feel a bit like a fraud so I just want to go run in the park during the daytime. That's not going to happen with my current lifestyle. I've still got really long hours, I don't want to go off and use my lunch break to go for a run and then come back sweaty for the rest of the day and on my period. So that has fallen by the wayside a little bit, I am trying to pick it up, a bit more now it's coming towards the summer and there's longer days and I can get out for maybe half an hour as soon as I get back from work, but sometimes you're just knackered. If you're on your feet all day after being in the lab, I just want to come home, stick in an oven pizza, watch some rubbish TV and then go to bed. Especially if you're on your period, it's always the joke that my partner will, bring a milkshake the day before my period and be like, I know it's coming and I won't even realise and he knows way before I do that it's happening because my mood will change or something like that and that's all that I want when I'm on my period is a chocolate milkshake. So that's not the healthiest and that makes the cramps worse, which makes the cravings worse and it's just a vicious cycle. So there isn't that facility for me right now while I'm still quite, again, internally forcing myself to do kind of longer hours and maybe work in the evening because I've got marking to catch up on or things like that, which again, isn't encouraged, but it's kind of the norm, to then fit exercise around that at the moment is a no, which is making the menstruation worse. I know you said some tips for people. I'm not sure I figured it out yet, but there is definitely a lifestyle balance that I think is super important that becomes a conversation that I know employers try to support healthy lifestyles and stuff like that. But it's not always given with the same recognition that the healthy lifestyle leads to fitness and it's better heart health and you're less likely to have a heart attack and stuff like that. But they don't think about the benefits of healthy lifestyles towards menstruation and actually it can make it a lot easier if I had lighter periods. I'd be much happier demonstrating for the day versus the heavy period where, thank goodness, the physical chemistry lab have bright red lab coats. But if I had to wear a white lab coat all day, I would be absolutely mortified and as a senior demonstrator, I can't leave the lab. So we don't have two senior demonstrators in there, I need to be there as safety cover. so my junior demonstrators can go and come in and out if they need to go quickly nip to the toilet, but I have to be there for the entire session unless I can somehow, like, Teams message someone else to come in and be that safety cover while I nip out, so I know I'm in there for three hours minimum, so I need to make sure that I'm set before I start and things like that and it's just, yeah, I'm not sure I figured out the whole lifestyle thing yet, but I know it's a problem and I know it's something that I need to maybe schedule my time a little bit better.
[00:31:44] Charlie: I think this is something as well, I think that comes with academia in general and also like at different points, is that I also have the same thing when I exercise, I actually find I get really bad backache, but by exercising I go swimming and it really helps my back pain, but also I don't like going swimming when I'm on my period. so there's like a lot of issues cause that's like how I like to exercise, like I can't run, I will never be able to run, I tried the couch 5k during COVID that did not go very well.
[00:32:14] Jenny: I only did it on my second attempt.
[00:32:17] Charlie: Yeah, that's that is very good though, but yeah, so I think this is a thing about like exercise and also trying to find the time to go and do the exercise is hard with the kind of long hours you're expected. I guess it could be at any point in time any kind of career but especially when you're trying to start out as a career and it feels like oh actually you know like oh I shouldn't be spending my time on that because I should be writing this or I should be writing that but as you said it actually makes things easier and as long and trying to find ways that departments and institutions can be supportive in this, whether they are like put on a run club, because I know that Edinburgh used to have like a run club, or they put on five a side football or something like that. It's like a really nice way because then you can do it and you go straight from department with people who are in the same situation as you and then it becomes like maybe more normalised.
[00:33:10] Jenny: Or even if you don't want to do that but you can see that they're doing it and people are talking about it, that gives you the motivation to be like, maybe I'm not a team sports person because I'm a little bit embarrassed or I've got this or I've got to get home for, if you've got family that you've got to get back to or anything like that, but just seeing that the university is allowing it to happen kind of gives you the motivation to be like, right, I can do it. Once you get started, it's less daunting, but it's the idea of then having to like, oh, I've got to go to the gym this evening and it's already negative, it needs to be a positive thing.
[00:33:46] Charlie: Yeah, I was just going to take it back as well to when you were talking about being in the lab.
So as a demonstrator and a lecturer, is there anything that you would like to kind of standardise to make sure that staff are kind of all in the same boat when they're dealing with things so that the whole situation is easier for both students and staff who menstruate?
[00:34:07] Jenny: It's kind of a two sided thing, especially when you're kind of education focused, is that you've got to talk to the students and you've got to talk to the staff and they're kind of, actually three, you've got to talk to the undergraduate students, you've got to talk to the postgraduate students and to the staff, because they will all have different responsibilities that they work with you about. So the undergraduates, you are teaching, you are helping them. You need to make it a supportive environment for them to be able to come and talk to you about it and I'm very proud of being a female and I would hope that I'm a fairly approachable one through being, trying to be high energy and trying to talk to them and make them feel like people rather than statistics. But I can imagine, I mean, I did my undergrad there and in the physical chemistry teaching lab there was maybe one female demonstrator but wasn't there all the time. It was mostly male and I certainly would not have been comfortable saying at that point, I mean, I would call myself fairly confident speaking now, but at the time I was incredibly quiet and anxious, people used to have to pick on me to ask me questions because I wouldn't offer information even if I knew it because what if it's wrong or something like that. I was much more of an independent learner. So it didn't feel like the environment and then now being staffed there, I'm super conscious. I want to be that person because there wasn't anybody like me at the time that was young and, or young looking and clearly has a period. But there isn't an official kind of pastoral care support network that I knew of at the time and there is much more in place now, like free sanitary products in the toilets and we have regular talks, in fact we've got menopause awareness talks coming up in the next couple of weeks, which will be really good. But that all seems to happen in the holidays because that's when staff aren't so busy because students aren't there, so the undergrads miss out on that sometimes. So having more student focused stuff like that and actual avenues in place where people think they're not going to be disadvantaged. I know I did have a student the other day that I could tell there was something wrong and they were sitting down a lot and they looked like they were struggling a bit so he just went over and said she was having cramps and I know what that means. There's, nobody says I'm on my period because somebody might hear you say you're on your period. But you use code words like I've got stomachache or cramps or something like that doesn't sound quite so much as a taboo word and then you're like right that's fine and that's fine. But students don't know that's absolutely fine, that's okay and I checked in on them afterwards and it was absolutely fine. But knowing that it's okay isn't always an official thing, it's have you found the right staff member that you're okay talking to about that and we need to make sure that it's every staff member and not just the right one in the right place at the right time to be able to do that. Which is where conversations with staff comes in, I guess. So you've got to talk to the undergrads and make them feel safe, you have to make sure the postgrads feel safe, they're your junior demonstrators, you're working with them as colleagues. At my stage, because I've only just started, I mean, I'm 27, just about to be 28, so there will be PhD students that are the same age as me, that I am responsible for their safety and need to make sure that they feel like they can say something if they're not well that day either and it all comes back to having open conversations with all the staff members and making sure everybody is aware that this isn't just something that is on the student to have to deal with and while primarily it might fall to that and yes, we do have a responsibility to make sure that we're okay, there is also a responsibility of all the staff members. You don't even have to do much. You don't even have to go up and be like, hey, you on your period? Are you okay? We don't want that. But it's that awareness of what to look for in students that might be struggling. So I knew something was wrong because she was sitting down a lot and was quieter than I'd seen her be before and that comes back to the, I don't want to just be sitting doing other work while I'm in the lab. I don't know my students that way, so I can't tell if something's wrong. But I know my students now. I know that they were quieter and I could look out for that without having to make it a big deal and I think that is the important bit of it is that you have to look for the signs and if you don't have a period I can sympathise that might be quite difficult because you can't really understand it until you've had it. So there's some sort of sensitivity thing that needs to go on there as an official training almost. I hesitate to say training because it just feels like it should be something that is there but it does need addressing when people are being trained to be demonstrators, and often you have demonstrator training before you start the year and that's mostly focused at junior demonstrators because they might have been doing it for a year, two years, three years, but on the grand scheme of things are fairly new to it. Researchers who have been doing it for decades don't feel all the time like they need to be trained because it's been running successfully for this many years and it needs to be a refresher maybe, of what to look out for as it becomes more visible, I think is super important.
[00:39:37] Charlie: When you talk about, you know, also refresher training for, you know, people that are maybe been doing it for a long time. I think that would be really good because we've talked about in like series one about demonstrator training and they've actually started to put it into demonstrating training here which is really nice because the staff in our teaching laboratory have really been super receptive to things that we've been saying on the podcast which is great.
[00:40:05] Manami: Which is really nice to see.
[00:40:07] Charlie: Yeah and it is, it shows you that once you start talking about this and you start asking for things, like people are willing to listen most of the time and are willing to help as much as they can. But as you say, I think this is something that we hadn't really thought about is some refresher training, maybe for some of the senior demonstrators or I know that in other universities where they just have researchers that come in and do a lab stint for a few hours, it would be good for them to also have this, kind of, maybe not training, but you know, just a mention when you do tell them that, you know, these are things to look for, you know, we're looking for things that might be kind of, you know, some orange, red flags of how they are acting and this could be, you know, it could be that they're with they're having a really bad period, but it might just mean that they've got like a really bad stomach ache or, you know, all these other things.
[00:40:54] Jenny: Or they may have something going on at home.
[00:40:55] Charlie: Yeah it's just good things to be able to pick up on and just, you know, that pastoral care being, are you okay? And even if they say, I don't want to tell you why, but you still ask them and say, you know, you can take five minutes or something is really nice.
[00:41:09] Jenny: And like we've both kind of said, I think that would be received really positively. It sounds like, oh, there's going to be loads of grumpy academics who aren't up for that and that's why we need the training, that's not what I'm saying. It's that everybody will be game for this, I think and it might actually be quite a nice thing for people just to remind themselves. It feels like when you offer people training, it's because they're lacking in some skill in something. In fact, everybody has that skill, and it's just being reminded that's the time that you need to use it and things like that and I'm sure people do already without even having to be told. But it would make, I think, the junior demonstrators feel that they're in safer hands. It would make the undergraduates feel like they're in safer hands and as a young woman starting her career, it would make me feel like I'm in safer hands if I know the colleagues that, if I'm a module leader now, I am often having to coordinate men that are older than me and were my lecturers and it's intimidating and if I knew that they specifically had to do that, they might have done it a few years ago, but knowing that they've done it now would make me feel a lot safer in talking to them about it and being like, Oh, that student, just keep an eye on them. Whereas at the moment it feels like if I had, it's a little bit more cagey, but yeah, it would stop there being, sometimes, you know, there are academics that maybe might be more receptive to talking about it and some that are less receptive, but they might be if you have a conversation with them, but it's knowing who to talk to and you need to kind of target conversations that I talk to a lot of my colleagues that are of a similar age to me, whether that be period having or not, I'm comfortable talking. It's generally if they're kind of a similar age or they're female, they're the people that I've had these conversations with. I haven't really broached the topic with anybody I work with who is kind of on the Venn diagram furthest away from me demographically and again, not because of them, but because they are probably the people that I see as being less open to talking about it because they won't have experienced it or have same life experiences as me, most different to me.
[00:43:29] Charlie: So much of this could just be integrated into other trainings as well. You know, when you're doing your support and your students training. Be like, here are some other things you can think about that maybe we haven't put in the training before. Like menstrual health or, you know, if they're struggling with some other things. I think that it can also go into stuff that's already there and it could just be a slide or two and it doesn't have to be much, but it's just making them aware that is something they could just slip in there.
[00:43:58] Jenny: So we do have, some things in place. So things like we have learning modules that staff are have to do compulsory. We have our data protection, which happens, we have it once a year. you have to do your data protection quizzes and read all the information and you have to score above 80 whatever percent to pass and we have it for, I recently did one on kind of suicide prevention and mental health and things like that, which is really good to see that sort of conversation becoming more visible for staff members. But so far, I might be wrong, but I don't think I've got a compulsory one about menstrual health specifically, so it would be really nice to see some sort of compulsory training for anybody that is student facing on specifically menstrual health at any stage of your career. So, what is it like for an undergraduate experiencing this? What is it like for a postgraduate experiencing this? And what is it like for a staff member experiencing this? Because students don't always see it in reverse of Oh, my lecturer does this too. So it is important to be aware of all of those aspects and I think there is a lot of complexity, as you've discovered through doing this many podcast episodes. Everybody has a different experience with it, which means training is all the more important and might have an optional training module somewhere that people that are so inclined can go and do, but making that compulsory before you start teaching, I think would be really valuable and it's not just menstrual health, there's all sorts of different things that might be suggested, but it's making, I guess people aware that they could suggest things as required learning. I'm sure there's someone I could talk to and be like, can we have this please? And they would say, yes, absolutely. This is a really good idea. But until this moment even I hadn't even had that as a thought pop into my head. I'm just like, Oh, there must be older people with more experience that know better than me and they've already deemed this as not a good idea, like not a thing that's required and therefore, why should I suggest it? There maybe needs to be a, do you have any suggestions for things that people might need upcoming to people in the right places? Like education, track people who know what students are going, slightly more student facing and having that open. If you've got anything to suggest as required learning, suggest it now.
[00:46:20] Manami: Yeah and I feel like the experience is so different for everyone and even just listening to the other episodes about people talking about endometriosis, I personally have a period but I don't know about certain things and I would really benefit from just learning more about it because you just and about the menopause and things, you just don't hear about it enough and it should be, you know, brought up more.
[00:46:44] Jenny: And we could be our own worst enemies. I mean, it sounds really kind of virtuous talking about it like I'm an expert in having a period through virtue of having a period, but that is not the case and sometimes you can come across people that are like, oh, well I deal with it too, so you should be fine. But like you say, it's so particular to a certain person, that sensitivity training for even people that have periods is important, it shouldn't just be aimed at the people that don't have that experience. It should be just as targeted towards people that do because knowledge is power, right?
[00:47:17] Manami: Jenny, do you have any questions that you would like to ask us?
[00:47:21] Jenny: For me, I'm always second guessing myself at this stage in my career because I want to be doing, this always feels like there's the right thing to do, I always want to be doing the right thing. But it's hard to know now because it's so different to when I was an undergrad, even though that wasn't really that long ago in the grand scheme of things. From a student perspective, as a teacher, as a senior demonstrator that they want to trust and talk to, how do I make myself more visible and approachable for that respect? What, how do students really want to be treated post grads and undergrads? What language, is there some sort of buzzwords, like, you know, how there's code words for if you're not feeling safe and stuff like that? Is there a code word that would be more comfortable? Or would it just be better to be able to just say, I'm on my period, I don't know how to broach that subject, I guess.
[00:48:11] Manami: Yeah, I think personally just making it not a taboo topic, being able to say I'm on my period so people don't think, oh, they're on their period. and kind of see that as a slightly, not dirty, but unsanitary thing and just for the demonstrators, as you said earlier, to, for you to approach us being like, are you okay? And even if it's not digging deep into what is actually going on, just showing the kind of compassion and the care, I think, can make such a big difference, because when you're feeling bad sometimes you just don't want to talk about it and you don't really need to do anything other than just take five minutes to just not have to stand on your feet. So yeah, I think what you've said throughout the episode is very much what we as students would like to see all demonstrators doing and that would make us feel really comfortable.
[00:49:04] Jenny: That's reassuring.
[00:49:05] Charlie: Yeah, I think also as well, I think by the sounds of it, you are one of these demonstrators that we would be very comfortable to come and talk to and I think that comes across just in the way that you are and I think that is something, I think that is kind of, I don't know how to, you can't really teach that. I don't know if you can teach it, but you know, having someone that is approachable, friendly, that is not just there to be like a safety warden, but is someone that's going to, first start asking you questions about the chemistry, make sure you're getting on with your lab work, finding you're interested and you're engaged. But I think that comes with the fact that then you feel more comfortable because you have a relationship with these students to then say, actually I'm not feeling very well today, because they are comfortable with you and they have this nice relationship. So I don't think that necessarily, like, you could do anything more. I think maybe what could be more is that making sure that all the junior demonstrators are aware that this is how they should act and this comes with their training and that they are expected to engage and have conversations and you know, build these relationships with the students because that's how the students feel comfortable to tell them about, you know, any variety of things. It makes them tell you about safety things much easier because they're not embarrassed to do that, because they're comfortable with you. So it's not even just a kind of something that would benefit from people who are in the period not feeling very well. But as I said, like, I don't think you need to necessarily worry about that at all.
[00:50:34] Manami: When you mentioned how you actually try and learn more about your students and get to know them, I think that makes such a big difference, because when you see your demonstrator having an actual interest in you and seeing you as not just one of their students, it's so important because then I feel more comfortable asking just silly questions as well, because in chemistry it can be quite dangerous with chemicals and sometimes you're a bit embarrassed to ask because you feel like maybe I'm supposed to know this, I've been doing this for two years, but when someone shows that kind of genuine interest in you, as a student, I think it makes it a lot easier and I think Charlie did that for me when I was in my first year. She actually chatted to us and got to know us and that's what made it really easy. Yeah, so I feel like you're doing all the right things.
[00:51:23] Jenny: That's reassuring and I hadn't actually thought about it from that perspective of actually building a relationship with them through talking about the chemistry and making them feel comfortable with that being a role that is played in that, even just having conversations and oh, I'm not sure that's a really good question and all that. sort of conversation you have being part of that relationship you're building and I think that's a really interesting thing that I'm going to take away from this conversation and in that vein, I guess, it's very easy to do that in the lab because you're there with the students and doing stuff. I guess it's harder to do that when people are being examined or having to do their summatives and stuff like that, which may be by themselves, or I know exams are a big thing when you're on your period and then it comes on the day of your exam and you're like, oh, I've got brain fog, I've got this all going on and there isn't necessarily, you've just got the invigilator there, right? So you don't have that relationship with them. How do you tackle that? What would you guys do in that situation? Would you come and find someone, say like me, that you know you can talk to about that and see, or does there need to be, I guess, something easier?
[00:52:34] Charlie: Yeah, we were, we've been talking about this a bit recently within the group of having some defined exam guidelines for menstrual health. So where it says, you know, you can take these things into the exam because we still don't know if we're allowed to take sanitary towels and stuff like that into the exam. We would like to be able to know. We know that we can probably go and get them from our bag, but that's an extra process that sometimes that, you know, isn't even allowed because you can't go and get, you might be getting notes out, you know, all this kind of thing and that's like, important to know and medicine. So can we have them on the desk, like in a clear bag for beforehand would be good to know, for good to be written out and told to us. Also, I think having menstrual supplies in all the toilets so that if this is not allowed, which it might not be, that there is a kind of back up there and also we talked about this bit in series one, but having some of this training, a bit like what we've been talking about, for the invigilators as well. So they know the things to look out for because that's also really important. Manami, I think, has a pretty bad experience herself in this situation and yeah, you can maybe say a bit on that.
[00:53:46] Manami: I feel like I was comfortable enough to just, there was a female invigilator so I just went to her and said, I kind of feel like I might faint, might, I feel quite horrible. So I told her if you see me like on the table, like, can you just make sure? But yeah, I feel like I was lucky enough to feel like that, but maybe if they were all male invigilators that looked a bit scary, I might not have felt like that. So maybe having someone, I guess just that is approachable.
[00:54:18] Jenny: Yeah, I think the guidelines would be good and I'm gonna take that away and make sure that's in place for us, I think, yeah.
[00:54:25] Charlie: So thank you so much, Jenny, for coming down and for traveling all the way, it's been a really great conversation and I've really enjoyed listening to the other side of the story. In season one, we had a lot about our experiences as students in labs and tutorials and lectures, but hearing it from your side as someone who works in this area, I think is great and also made us think about, oh, it's actually not us, not just us that are also dealing with these problems, but also staff members as well. So thank you so much and I think that it will be great to see what you can do in the future because I'm really excited about that.
So just to bring the end of season two of Periodically, I want to say a huge thank you to every one of our guests that's been involved. Thank you especially for Jenny for being here today. But yes, if you'd like to hear more about what's coming next for Periodically, then please follow us on our social media @periodically_ox and yeah, we hope to see you soon.
[00:55:25] Lottie: Again, we'd like to thank the RSC Inclusion and Diversity Fund, the University of Oxford Chemistry Department, and the EPSRC funded OxICFM CDT for supporting the podcast.