Good Employers Understand Women’s Periods
That’s right. We’re going to talk about periods and gender diversity hiring. I’ve been thinking about how the two connect after I interviewed Miki Agrawal, the Co-founder of Thinx, two weeks ago on my Facebook Live show for Elle Magazine and PowerToFly, the platform I cofounded where we connect women with companies that value gender diversity and inclusion.
Women get periods for about 40 years, every month for about 4 days (if we’re not pregnant). That’s a lot of time spent on managing “the curse” — also part of the reason we’re on the planet to begin with. If employers want to do a better job hiring women and retaining them, they need to understand a thing or two about what’s frequently happening to their female staff members and why menstrual innovations are key to female productivity and our bank accounts. Here are some highlights Miki and I discussed that touch on that:
1. Equal work for equal pay… because we have to buy products for our periods that not only cost a lot over time, but they are taxed higher.
Thank you Lilly Ledbetter (and Obama for signing the Equal Pay Act), as well as states like New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Oregon for repealing taxes on feminine hygiene products. Shame on states like Texas, Illinois and Connecticut that continue to collect state tax on tampons, denying them tax exemption as medical products. In the meantime, you can buy dandruff shampoo and lip-balm tax free — because apparently getting rid of dry lips is somehow more medically important than functioning while menstruating! (If you want to get really depressed then read this study by Huffington Post on how much women spend on their periods.)
2. Many cultures still attach a stigma to women on their periods that actually keeps them from working.
Miki told a fascinating story about how her Indian grandmother wasn’t allowed to cook when she had her period. She also speaks about girls in Africa who don’t go to school for about a week each month. In the western world we’re lucky to have not institutionalized this as a problem, but many women do feel ill during their time of month. We cope, but we shouldn’t have to ignore it for the sake of making our colleagues feel more comfortable.
3. Advertising around periods is ridiculously taboo.
Miki told me all about how she lobbied the team that does ads in the New York City subway to accept a grapefruit in her advertising for Thinx. They said no because the grapefruit looked too much like a vagina. Then Miki pointed out that they let grapefruits be used for breast implant advertisements all over the subway…
4. Better period products equal more productive women.
Women go to work. We get our periods. And yet there has been very little innovation when it comes to managing women’s menstrual cycles. Just think of the loss of female productivity when women are forced to use rags that hinder their mobility? Think about the time we waste constantly buying tampons and pads or worrying that we’ll have an accident.
Clearly much work remains to educate employers on why it’s a great idea to hire more women and treat them (and their cycles) as the valuable resources they are. At PowerToFly, we’re proud to partner with businesses like THINX to better the lives of all women, everywhere.
Check out some companies that care about women on the PowerToFly platform:
