05 November 2023 , 07:00
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As soon as she appears on screen for our video chat, Mariella Frostrup is an absolute delight – straight-talking and passionate, but a delight nonetheless.
After becoming one of the most recognisable faces and voices on radio and television (she’s also the voice of the London Overground) over three decades, she’s spent the past few years transforming into a voice of a generation for menopause awareness.
“As a woman of my generation I’ve grown up suffused with shame about almost everything to do with my body,” she tells us. “Menopause seems like the final insult to me. It was this thing I knew nothing about, and nobody else seemed to know anything about, and it came with so many challenges. It comes at a time when you’re already feeling really vulnerable and like the world might be passing you by, and suddenly you feel not fit for purpose – that’s devastating and completely wrong.”
Two years ago Mariella, who turns 61 next week, stepped away from her role as a presenter and host and wrote Cracking The Menopause to help empower women before, during and after what was once only referred to as “the change”. Last year she founded the Menopause Mandate, a coalition of campaigners with Davina McCall and Carol Vorderman as patrons.
While both are useful tools for conversation and change, her latest role as ambassador for the Always Discreet “Squeeze the Day” pelvic floor campaign, working with Dr Philippa Kaye, may seem a little more playful, but with only 9% of women doing pelvic floor exercises as often as they should, it’s no less important to Mariella.
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Mariella Frostrup speaks to Notebook (Kate Martin)
Mariella of Channel Four's 'Big World Cafe' programme in 1989 (Getty Images)“At first, I thought, ‘Do I really want to be talking about that?’, but if I can’t, who can?” she laughs. “One in two women going through menopause may suffer from bladder leaks, and some are not going to know it’s a menopausal symptom. So to be in a position where maybe some women might listen, and it might make a difference, feels like a privilege.”
As Mariella chats from the London home she shares with husband Jason McCue, a human rights lawyer, it is clear that she is fiercely passionate and frustrated at the way society treats and views women and their natural biology.
“I’d be very surprised if there’s very many girls of my daughter’s generation who step into this [menopausal] period of time with the degree of ignorance that my generation have,” says Mariella, who is mum to Molly, 19, and Danny, 18. “My daughter will announce to a roomful of total strangers she’s on her period and needs to go and buy some tampons. I used to tuck them up my sleeves because I was ashamed.
“When you think about the idea that women are ashamed of the very thing that is kind of emblematic of our superpower, which is to carry children, it brings home to you how completely unbalanced the whole discussion and mythology around menopause has been. It’s just ludicrous.”
Mariella, who began her TV journalism career in the late 1980s on shows including Big World Café on Channel 4 and Thames Television’s Video View, moved to London from Ireland with her parents when she was a teenager.
The TV presenter with her husband and children (Instagram)At 42, she became a mum to Molly and her son, Danny, arrived the following year. Having spent “such a long time trying to get pregnant” with her daughter, when she became pregnant again around six months later, it was “a bolt from the blue – but such a welcome one”, she tells us.
Now, with a 30-year career in the public eye, what are her thoughts on society’s view of ageing? “Appalling,” she says. “There’s a sort of, ‘Isn’t it time you moved on now, love, and made way?’ concept. Whereas men at the same stage are going through some of their best working years.
“They’re imbued with the devilish attraction of the Silver Fox – you don’t hear women described in those terms.
“I used to do a lot of commercial campaigns, and since I started talking about menopause and openly embracing the fact that I’m a middle-aged woman, I could literally count on one hand the jobs I’ve been given, until now, when everyone wants to know about the menopause!
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“We need to move the goalposts. Maybe it won’t happen in my lifetime, but I want it to happen in my daughter’s so that she’ll be seen to be sexy, relevant, worthy and important when she reaches maturity. There’s no reason that you should denigrate the sort of experience, wisdom and strength that women have in their fifties and upwards.”
Mariella goes on to praise women in Iceland who held a 24-hour strike to push for gender equality. “They basically didn’t do any work in the workplace or in the home for a day; I thought it was a genius idea! We should take that on board for International Women’s Day. Why don’t we make it a day of strike action across the world? It would be so powerful, the world would probably have to be put on pause; think of all of the things that wouldn’t happen.”
Visit Always Discreet Menopause Hub for more W on the “Squeeze the Day” pelvic floor campaign