The British are so often portrayed in the media as having sophisticated, spot-on vocabularies. Bank of England’s Deputy Governor Ben Broadbent, not so much. He felt moved to describe the UK economy as “menopausal,” meaning past its peak, in a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph. Excuse us — age discrimination much?
A strong volley of criticism headed Broadbent’s way, with people taking to Twitter to air their reactions to his sexist and ageist comment – basically, a big, “WTF, Ben?” Perhaps the most on-point response came from Claire Perry, 54, an English politician, who said, “I can’t be the only 50-plus woman objecting to Ben Broadbent’s pejorative description of the UK economy as ‘menopausal.’ I’ve never been more productive! How about ‘andropausal’ instead? You get declining potency and bonus grumpiness thrown in!”
Broadbent apologized for using the word and the offense it caused, but this moment shows how embedded the “old female = useless” belief is in our culture. We applaud all those who called him out for his word choice. The more we push back, the less of this nonsense we’ll have to listen to.
– Janet Siroto
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