Pain is Valid. Period.

Earlier this month, Zomato came out with a period leave policy that allows all menstruating employees (women and transgenders) to avail 10 days of leave in case they need to rest it out during their periods. The company has factored in likelihood of a person’s period falling on a weekend and also, it shall allow only one leave per menstrual cycle. These leaves are quite conditional. One cannot just drop out of work suddenly on a day when there are important meetings or deadlines.

Amidst massive applause there also have been significant voices of disagreement to this policy. The loudest of them being one of the most remarkable journalists of the country — Barkha Dutt. Her stance that this leave is sexist and a step backwards in the fight for women’s rights, is not new. Also, I must say that it’s understandable. Covering a war from the front lines in the India of 90s when the few working women stuck to safer desk jobs, would not have been possible if she had thought about her menstrual cycle at the time. In 2017, when a Kerala based media company, Mathrubhumi gave First-Day Period Leave to its female employees, it was the first time I read Barkha Dutt’s opinion on the issue. Even in disagreement I did understand her stance. I am a person who is forced to pop 2–3 over the counter or prescribed painkillers very often just to pull through a single working day during my periods. I have had to cut short or even leave classes, fieldwork, meetings, parties, dates and other social gatherings citing an “urgent call from home”, because the painkiller refused to kick in causing dizziness, sweaty palpitations and hot flashes, not to mention, the gastric side effects. I wanted to avoid a meltdown in public at all costs. I learnt to hide the pain and discomfort long back.

I was in 5th grade, barely 11 years old when I started menstruating. My mother sent me to school on that day saying, “I understand it’s uncomfortable but this is not a good reason to miss school.” Of course both my parents came to speak to my teachers and pick me up that day because I was a terrified child at the bottom of it all. A year later, it started in school once and I was crying from the cramps. My class teacher, a woman I have always admired for her grace and poise, gently called me aside after I had come back from the medical room, spending two periods and the recess in fetal position. She said, “Dear we all face this. But have you ever seen me cry or show it in the classroom? Never show your pain or weakness to anyone in school.” As I absorbed this lesson an image floated in my head. Another stoic and composed subject teacher couldn’t come to the classroom to teach us one day despite having come to school in the morning. Being the class monitor, I went to the staff room to get instructions and I saw her sitting in a corner with her head between her hands, slumped over her table, almost whimpering, visibly in a lot of pain. An image that scared the daylights out of me till the substitute teacher for that day gently escorted me back to my classroom and we went about the day as usual. Before leaving the staff room I overheard “Meftal didn’t work”, “period pains”, “send someone to the medical room to get a Brufen”. Somehow this imagery and these words from 16–17 years ago have stuck with me.

Over the last several years, there have been days when I have taken offs for my periods and I have been extremely embarrassed to admit it to my superiors or colleagues because it would seem “unprofessional” or it would seem like an “excuse” or an “abuse of feminism”. What stumped me about Dutt’s article was that she probably had a point about biological determinism. Haven’t women been reduced to their biology time and again? Haven’t we all received snarky comments from men as well as women such as “Why are you PMSing?” or “Is it that time of the month?” when we have been critical about something at work or even at parties? Haven’t our bodies and sexual differences been used to take away our independence time and again?

Yet, while I understand Barkha Dutt’s contention with the period leave, I still disagree with her stance. One in five women in India suffer from PCOS and 25 million suffer from Endometriosis. These problems cause varied forms of menstrual disorders which could be debilitating at times. Given that a large chunk of women in our country do not have access to or are discouraged by their families to avail the services of reproductive healthcare professionals like a gynaecologist, these numbers are likely to be far higher. Furthermore, cramps (dysmenorrhea) and heavy bleeding (menorrhagia) are the most common discomforts faced by women during their period. So are these conditions or menstrual disorders really exception?

Do We Need Period Leave? Doctors Explain | The Quint https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5WI1zV-Ji0

Now then what about women in sports or women in combat? I was asking the same question to myself. It has been argued that the period leave undermines the struggle of women to get equal respect in sports or be in combat positions in the military.

Women in sports around the world are known to use strong birth control measures to stop menstruating during tournaments to delay getting periods. Because certain contraceptives can affect bone density, many women use painkillers for days beforehand so as to manage cramps. Some are known to report every single detail of their monthly cycle to their trainers so as to curate practice routines accordingly. However, most admit to not wanting to interfere with their natural cycles if they could help it. Many do admit to facing the same problems as any other woman during periods, or probably more severe at times.

Women in combat use these same measures to manage their cycles during training or deployment. However, they are not deployed in war zones everyday, just like their male counterparts. I began to search online on how women in the military managed their period days. Senior Airman Elora McCutcheon of the US Air Force who goes by Elora Jean on YouTube opened up about getting diagnosed with Endometriosis and taking days off at work and managing her periods in Basic Military Training (BMT). There are a number of women from the US military who are on social media platforms showcasing and informing anyone interested about life of a woman in military and what to expect during training. While these women were not serving in combat positions at the time, from their narratives I understood that even in BMT and deployment zones, there are provisions such as in-house medics and for bigger problems, referred doctors who can help women with menstruation related discomforts and disorders. This basic bodily function is normalized and acknowledged even in the military in some parts of the world instead of being negated. In fact, almost all these women said that they stopped menstruating due to the physical and mental stress of the training or deployment. For many others, periods can become way more intense during deployment. Fact is, even the military cannot be blind to the bodily differences of women in active duty, hence some countries invest in research in the area so as to manage menstruation related issues during deployment. In fact, extensive studies are done even to assess and manage the impact of a woman’s reproductive health post-deployment. Same kind of research goes into sports medicine. Since period leave is not an option in these professions, ways to manage it better, to ease discomfort and maintain reproductive health are constantly researched. This does not make women in sports or those in combat any weaker.

The fitness and endurance levels of athletes or combatants and their work environments, cannot be compared with the fitness levels of regular people engaged in common civilian professions which are largely desk jobs. Moreover, period cramps could still be debilitating even when you undertake 30 to 45 minutes of strength training and cardiovascular exercises for 5 to 6 days a week. I myself am an example of the same. One can encourage increased investment in physical and mental fitness of women, especially in sedentary workplaces. However, period pains still remain very real and for many, very debilitating and to negate that is to deny them agency to simply rest a little. It is better to be miserable and under-productive at home than at workplace, having to give hundreds of explanations to fellow workers as to why you are not able to put in your best that day. No one likes to be in fetal position in bed unable to move, unable to eat anything, and unable to focus, but it still is better than suppressing the pain constantly every single month with painkillers and birth control. Such medications, while they make our lives easier, do have long term ramifications if overused — something that should not have to be a necessary occupational hazard for every menstruating person who wants to be employed. And no, menstruation related issues, cannot be treated as sickness either. If sick leaves are used up for this, many women would be forced to come to work either when they are sick or when they are having painful and heavy periods because if both of those things happen in the same month, they are looking at a pay deduction. Regardless of their profession, most women, even the ones who might just collapse in a heap when they get home, do not use periods as an excuse to not work. Most of us do not take a leave unless there really is need for it. We are in fact taught to hide our pain at all costs. It is already negated in the public domain. It is likely that a lot of women still won’t avail a menstrual leave just because they aren’t comfortable revealing their monthly cycles at their workplace.

End of the day, even at Zomato, the period leaves are optional. The founder of the company in a note to men writes, “we need to trust them when they say they need to rest this out.” Maybe, this note applies to women as well. I have often found pain and discomfort so normalized amongst women that they end up negating the fact that something could be actually pathological about someone’s period and that they may not be whining or cribbing. Women who don’t experience severe symptoms hardly understand “what all the fuss is about”. I have personally heard irresponsible comments from women such as “oh don’t give me that excuse now!”, “everyone has periods!” or my personal favourite “I think you’re overreacting, build some inner strength!”. And many women who themselves experience painful periods are conditioned to think that it’s normal and one must “grin and bear it” as a show of strength. This sickening romanticization of pain endurance as a symbol of female strength is drilled into us so aggressively that even female gynaecologists sometimes do not empathize with patients who complain of excessive pain that hampers their routine day to day activities. It is very common for several Ob-Gyns to just prescribe birth control and higher dosage of painkiller every single time one goes to them without even considering a more thorough diagnosis of a possible underlying cause. Or worse, they say things like “it will get better after you get married” to 16 year old girls. I have seen female bosses not being able to relate to or empathize with their female employees about this. I have heard women judge other women as “weak” or “delicate” for taking painkillers or using hot-water bags in the office. No wonder women who go for a C-section for childbirth or choose an epidural are judged for violating a “natural process”. (By this logic anything that makes our lives more convenient is violating a natural process, from using a car instead of our legs to getting a vaccine instead of the disease itself.)

The taboo around periods does not end by fighting for the right to enter religious places of worship, combat positions in the military or fighting against cultural taboos which alienate and humiliate women, often hampering their psychological, social and economic development. The taboo does not end by making pads accessible or teaching menstrual hygiene or ditching the ominous black plastic bag at the pharmacy or grocery store. While these are all vital causes that by no means should be demeaned, so long as period related discomforts are tabooed or dismissed as “exceptions”, we cannot move forward. Just like periods, we even talk about the pain and discomfort in coded language. We call it “stomach ache” or “weakness” or “tiredness” or “being down” instead of simply saying “period cramps” or “heavy bleeding”! The cause of the pain is so tabooed that it has to be wrapped in newspapers and spoken about in code or whispers. Thus, any expression of such a pain must be ironed out from the face and wiped out from language. For we won’t be taken seriously otherwise. For we won’t be strong women otherwise. Is this not the same logic that is applied to men who show pain? Is this not the same logic that brands men who cry, men who express emotions as effeminate or unmanly?

Agreed. A period leave policy in a company would do nothing to address gendered wage gaps or improve female labour workforce participation rate which has gone down to an alarming level in India. The policy won’t address the issue of high taxes on menstrual hygiene products, or girls dropping out of school when they “come of age”. Because it is not meant to. Much larger changes in economic and social developmental policies, and practices are required to change those and the battle should by no means be undermined. A mere period leave however is not enough to derail those struggles. Workforce participation of women hasn’t improved despite increased access to menstrual hygiene products and increased awareness programmes about reproductive health. Girls are taken out of school once they attain puberty because, they are born “unwanted” — 21 million of them — hence they are not considered worthy of further investment by parents. No amount of access to menstrual hygiene products and reproductive healthcare can change this mindset that perpetuates preference of a son over a daughter and encourages exchange of dowry and women. Sad as it is, a gainfully employed son would bring in a larger dowry. A gainfully employed daughter would still have to be married off, to a more gainfully employed man, and by extension, with higher dowry. Education and financial independence don’t automatically give a woman complete agency to fight her family and the society.

A period leave policy in an organization is only a step aimed at acknowledging that some of its menstruating employees may need to stay home for a day, once a month.Those who don’t need it, need not avail it. Despite being a progressive step, it would require a great amount of sensitization, continuously, at such a workplace, to ensure that a woman’s privacy is not violated because of these leaves — that she is not faced with microaggressions and latent harassment by superiors or colleagues because she chooses to avail these leaves. A female body is different. And difference is not disability. However, difference also means different needs at times. How is a step acknowledging that, a step backward? That way new mothers should not get daycare facilities for their babies at work. That way, a company provided medical insurance shouldn’t cover fibroids, ovarian cysts or even miscarriages, because men don’t have these problems and women need to be equal to them. Whether we hide it because of the stigma or we hide it to be taken seriously, and treated as equals, by hiding, by negating the pain, by shunning it, we are only perpetuating yet another taboo around the topic.

Women shouldn’t need to be exactly like men in every way to be taken seriously or to be treated equally at the workplace.