Duchess Sophie once candidly opened up about her struggles with menopause and urged the subject should be talked about more to help get over the stigma. The Duchess of Edinburgh suggested that women should celebrate menopause and that more should be done to educate girls about it and their periods.
But she also revealed that during her menopause, she was left feeling like someone had taken her brain out at a royal engagement.
The royal, who is married to Prince Edward, made the candid revelations during a roundtable discussion back in 2021 to support the “Menopause Workplace Pledge” campaign with charity Wellbeing of Women, which she is a patron of.
Sophie said: “Really, we should be celebrating the fact that we don’t have to have periods any more. It should be a liberation, but it feels like a shackle. It’s described as something incredibly negative.”
She added: “I go back to education; how much are young girls actually told at the beginning?
“When we’re told that we’re going to begin our periods, are we told that they’re going to end as well?”
The 58-year-old went on to talk about her own experience with menopause and how going through it affected her during a royal engagement.
She revealed: “You know, in the middle of a presentation when you suddenly can’t remember what you were talking about… try being on an engagement when that happens – your words just go.
“And you’re standing there and going, ‘Hang on, I thought I was a reasonably intelligent person, what has just happened to me?’.
“It’s like somebody’s just gone and taken your brain out for however long before they pop it back in again and you try and pick up the pieces and carry on.”
She went on to say that women should be informed about menopause as much as they’re being informed about having babies.
Sophie explained: “It’s up to us to… inform women about that knowledge, about those choices they have, in a way that is bringing the subject into the open and not making it some kind of behind-closed-doors conversation that people have to have.
“The menstrual cycle, periods, the menopause, having babies… We all talk about having babies, but nobody talks about periods [or] the menopause.
“Why not? We need to… say ‘let’s talk about this’.”
