Decoding Paid Menstrual Leave and its Alleged Impediment on Feminism
Could paid menstrual leave be a hindrance to the women’s liberation movement?
Last month, Spain passed a law providing women with three days of paid menstrual leaves.
These leave could be extended to five days for those with disabling periods. Euro News states this leave requires a doctor’s note and the public security system that would foot the bill.
Now, while this is an excellent initiative toward women’s reproductive rights, it raises the question if menstrual leave could contradict the feminist theory of equality and further stigmatise women in workplaces.
Firstly, let’s understand what disabling periods are.
Disabling periods, medically known as Dysmenorrhea, is a condition that occurs mainly in women in their teens and early twenties and generally gets better with age.
About 50% of women experience dysmenorrhea and about 10% have severe cramps that could hinder daily activities like going to school, college or offices for at least about three days per month.
Spain’s progressive law of providing paid menstrual leaves is surely a stepping stone in giving importance to women’s sexual and reproductive rights.
But, there are concerns.
Several social activists have come ahead and expressed their worries over it (menstrual leaves) stigmatising women in the workplace to the point of companies not hiring women.
Another unfortunate fact is that several women, despite going through extensive processes such as aptitude tests and interviews as a part of the hiring process, still get asked questions regarding their marriage and pregnancy plans.
So, yes, in a way, this new law could corroborate the existing issues that women in the workplace generally go through.
Supporting the forenamed discussion, Indian journalist Barkha Dutt, in an opinion piece in the Washington Post, stated how menstrual leave may ghettoize women in general. Dutt said:
“First-day period leave may be dressed up as progressive, but it actually trivializes the feminist agenda for equal opportunity, especially in male-dominated professions.
Worse, it reaffirms that there is a biological determinism to the lives of women, a construct that women of my generation have spent years challenging.
Remember all those dumb jokes by male colleagues about ‘that time of the month’ or PMS? Well, this idea only serves to emphasize that there is something spectacularly otherworldly about a bodily function.”
While Dutt does give an insightful perspective, she mentions something one-dimensional:
“Sure, our periods can be annoyingly uncomfortable and often painful, but this reality usually demands no more than a Tylenol or Meftal and, if needed, a hot-water bottle.”
I believe it’s important we realise that not all women go through similar pre-menstrual/during menstruation/ post-menstrual symptoms.
I know a lot of women that bleed for over a week but have no cramps, and I also know those that bleed for three days and have stabbingly painful cramps.
Also, this doesn’t take women with endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome into consideration.
So, even though I understand and somewhat agree with the aforementioned opinion, I still believe it is one-dimensional and excludes 50 percent of women.
Individuals often fail to understand the implications of certain laws and what they mean to the ones suffering (without them) or benefitting (from them).
The initial idea of demanding paid menstrual leaves was to combat stereotypes and myths that have surrounded periods for a while now.
Doesn’t that just put light upon the fact that patriarchy has trivialised menstruation to ‘just work through it,’ or ‘surely, it couldn’t be as painful as getting hit in the penis?’
Having said that, let’s talk about the feminist agenda and understand if this law hinders it or not. What exactly is the feminist agenda? It is a movement about empowerment, equality, knowledge, and rights for women.
Now, since Spain’s new law comes under the female sexual and reproductive rights, doesn’t providing menstrual leaves further adhere to the feminist agenda and give women their rights?
With that being said, bringing about menstrual leave could hopefully destigmatise and highlight the pre-existing issues women go through in workplaces, and it could help eradicate them.
At the end of the day, as a menstruator that goes through an insurmountable amount of pain in the days preceding and during my periods, I would want menstrual leaves to be a thing in my workplace.
I also agree that it might stigmatise women in the workplace, but don’t you think the system is answerable for that? Why should women suffer and not get reproductive rights just because the system is at fault?
In conclusion, my presumption suggests that ideally, menstrual leave cannot impede the feminist agenda.
Yes, there might be a few loopholes and spaces to take advantage of it and could actually be helpful in bringing about gender disparity in workplaces.
