The persecution of witches was part of this - women being burned or buried or drowned for not conforming, for being too alluring or not attractive enough, and for being, one way or another, too sexually threatening.
And as long as they can allow the people who obey them to eat, people who don't to not, and they eat themselves, They don't have any interest in the currency, the economy, none of these things.
But casting menopause as sad and a bit of a joke (" Haha, hot flushes! Brain fog" ! ) while not accommodating it at work is another way to marginalise those increasingly non-compliant older women.
Because you know that there were people who were there who were worried about not going along with it because they knew they would be next on the slab.