“I remember that suddenly [ma mère] opened the window, she was very hot. She said ‘ah, I’m hot, I’m hot, it’s the hormones’. But we didn’t talk about it.” Years later, Claire Fournier became an adult, a journalist, a wife, a mother, and then menopausal in her turn. An obligatory passage that she evokes without taboo in her podcast Warm inside, produced by Binge Audio. For her, talking about it became obvious the day after her gynecologist’s announcement, which seriously shook her, because of this feeling of “to pass to the other side, to be an old woman”as she confided to Current wife in an interview. A feeling exacerbated by the lack of information surrounding this age of life, which, although it constitutes an inevitable stage in a woman’s life, remains largely taboo. “I started having problems sleeping, night sweats, feeling hot in the subway, at work,” says the journalist. “So, I started to be interested in the physiological manifestations perimenopause and menopause and I told myself that I absolutely had to share all this information with other women, becausethere is no reason why we should be left alone with these questions.”
“My husband was a little surprised that I intended to reveal myself like that”
This educational work that she initiated in her podcast, in which she invites health professionals and personalities who work to unwind menopause, she has also engaged in the private sphere. “The private is political,” feminists have chanted since the 1960s during rallies and interventions. And often, changes in mentalities germinate in the family and relational field. Thus, Claire Fournier decided to address the issue with her partner, TV journalist Julian Bugier.
“With my husband, I had to do some teaching, indeed, at the beginning,” she confirms. “He was a little surprised that I intended to reveal myself like that, because he told me ‘all the same, you are an extremely modest person’. It’s true that we don’t The two of you never, well, very rarely show yourself in public.’Why do you want to go and talk about this sphere of your privacy? You’re not going to talk too much about our privacy?‘So I told him ‘don’t worry, it’s really going to be about me, and I’m not going to talk about our relationship specifically’. But I must say that after having done this teaching, he understood that it was important to me and today, he supports me”. Indeed, in our columns, Julian Bugier declared on December 6, 2023 “my wife does a wonderful podcast about being a woman over 45, I really admire what she does.”
Educate children from a young age
Men’s lack of knowledge on the subject of menopause is great, because no education is given on this subject most of the time, neither at school, nor within the family, nor even within the couple very often. . “I have a lot of messages from men who say to me: ‘your podcast is great because’finally I understand what is happening to my wife. She herself didn’t tell me about it because somewhere, she was ashamed. She thought I would love her less if she told me she was menopausal.’ So, it’s good, we must continue to teach, to educate people.”
This education must begin from a very young age according to Claire Fournier, as she did with her two children, Lucien (12 years old) and Gabrielle (10 years old). “My children, they know what it means to be menopausalthey know that I can no longer have a baby”, assures the journalist. “And my daughter, I try to have this dialogue with her because I actually suffered from my mother not talking to me about it .” It is only at the cost of this educational work that the taboo will be able to be completely lifted. “Today, it goes through education in fact, we have to talk about it very early and I hope that the fact that it becomes a societal subject, that’s okay help open dialogue between generations.”
The podcast Hot inside by Claire Fournier and produced by Binge Audio is available now on all platforms.