Do Periods Leave Ghettoise Women?

: A Tussle Between Gender Roles and

Equalities.

Introduction
In many parts of the world, menstruation tends to be a taboo topic, surrounded by silence and
shrouded in myths. Yet, menstruation and menstrual hygiene are emerging as pivotal issues for
gender equality, human rights and development.
The boiling topic of Menstruation gained the spotlight and hype in India when the
‘Menstruation Benefit Bill’ was tabled by Ninong Ering, a Member of Parliament in Lok
Sabha representing Arunachal Pradesh in 20181, triggered widespread discussion on the need to
have menstrual leave policy for working women every month and is it in violation of “Right to
Equality?”
Alongside the bill various individual companies like Zomato 2, Culture Machine based in
Mumbai and Kerala based Media company Mathrubhoomi started providing FOP leaves i.e.
“First Day of (their) periods Leave” to their women and transgender employees3.
This step triggered wide ranging debates and discussions on various platforms regarding
women’s health, workforce participation and gender equity at work. This paper addresses the
issue in the context of urban women in the organized workforce.
This “policy could be seen either as a positive recognition of the realities of everyday life as a
menstruating woman, or as a regressive return to the dark days when women were discriminated
against on the basis of biology, under the veils of gender inequality.

Historic Background
Dating back to the time immemorial, we have generally seen and heard in our households that
menstruating women are often segregated and not allowed to undergo household chores typically
freed from all her mainstream obligations of cooking, cleaning, fetching water etc. Women

1Sri Ninong Ering, MP, ‘Menstruation Benefit Bill,2017’,Lok Sabha, Bill No. 249 of 2017, accessible at :
http://164.100.47.4/billstexts/lsbilltexts/asintroduced/2651LS%20As%20In.pdf
2 “Introducing Periods Leaves for Women”, Zomato, August 8, 2020, Accessible at :
https://www.zomato.com/blog/period-leaves
3 Jyotsna Latha, “Menstrual Leave Debate: “Opportunity to Address Inclusivity in Indian Organizations”, Indian
journal of industrial relations. Vol. 53.
during this period are barred from entering the temple and are alongside prohibited from getting
involved in any religious engagements (rituals).
Swaying right to the positive aspect of this practice, there are speculations and beliefs that such
actions were undertaken to provide women with the utmost rest during their menstruation days as
their bodies turn biologically weak and sensitive and this was a major reason for associating it
with religion. In mid-20th centuary the sex education books for the girls stated “ menstruation
dosn’t make you any different than you are on any other day” 4. Historically in Indian culture,
menstruation was considered auspicious and served as an offering to goddesses, women were
considered to have great stature as they used to bleed and still not die. Thus, it is safe to say
“periods leave” was an accepted and practised concept back then, till now. But soon this practice
was regiouriously toppled upside down and was abetted as the means of gender discrimination
by our patriarcial society.
The most recent incident being the Sabarimala Case which began in response to comments by a
priest at the Sabarimala temple reiterating the temple’s policy of not allowing women of
reproductive age to enter due to the concern that they might be having their period, which caused
a major hue and cry in the country and the need for creating awareness regarding the same.
“Let’s just not hang on the same thread as others; that all women are maimed by periods
or a woman's intelligence is dripped out of her body along with her uterus linings.”

Weighing the Pros and Cons of Periods Leaves

We would like to point out to the fact that a workplace environment and rules are written
according to men’s needs and so that has become the status quo and the standard to measure up
to. Isn’t this what we are fighting for, an equitable workplace environment that is not hostile to a
woman’s needs, and dealing with a crippling biological process that happens every month to
some women being one of them? There is a definite need to restructure the present workplace
environment and make it more gender-friendly and inclusive.
Beginning with Cons of the situation :
Menstrual leave policy may fortity the old-aged thoughts that women are dazed creatures who try
to seek special care: thus giving more ammunition to the so-called “men’s rights activists' '.

4 Calra Poscoe, “Does gender equality suffer when women get menstrual leave?”, Scroll.in, September, 2020,
Accessible at :https://scroll.in/article/804610/does-gender-equality-suffer-when-women-get-menstrual-leave
Since the Maternity Benefit Act(2017)5 has already granted maternity leave from 12-26 weeks,
there will be a concern that providing women with more leaves would cause resentment amongst
men. Absence of women from the company on various board meetings may push them out of
taking various decisions, lesser pay, biasness may arise against them and their consideration for
the promotion may also be delayed.
Accordingly, The World Economic Forum data shows that “menstrual leave countries” such as
Indonesia, Zambia and Chile have the greatest gender pay gaps, suggesting “a relationship
between relatively extreme gender inequalities and menstrual leave policies”6.
Alongside there has been contentions that equality goes parallel through all sexual orientations
and it doesn’t serve us to have a policy that covers a small part of the female experience such as
menstrual leave, because it doesn’t necessarily cover people who are female but not
menstruating, such as trans women, post-menopausal women or women who just don’t have
periods. What we need are more involved sickness policies that encompass a broad spectrum of
how biology affects our health as people and not just women, better trust in employees and better
awareness in the workplace.
Also, a hot wave of tweets was doing rounds around the internet, asking companies to forgo
period leaves as it’s completely against equality and smashes down the entire gender equality
fight, and shockingly women had been the active part of the same. Recently after Zomato
launched its periods policy senior journalist Barkha Dutta tweeted : “Sorry Zomato, as woke as
your decision on #PeriodLeave is exactly what ghettoizes women and strengthens biological
determinism. We cannot want to join the infantry, report war, fly fighter jets, go into space, want
no exceptionalism and want period leave. PLEASE.”7
From the entire segment of the cons we can roughly gather that people opposing it fear that the
decade old fight to bring gender parity may be long lost due to such special treatment but on the
brighter side there are various countries on universal level trying to provide such leaves legally
and completely kicking out the concept of gender. For eg. :

5 Maternity Benefit Amendment Act,2017, Ministry of Labour and Employment, June 30, 2017, accessible at :
https://labour.gov.in/whatsnew/maternity-benefit-amendment-act2017
6 World Economic Forum (WEF). (2017). “The Global Gender Gap Report 2018 Insight Report”. Accessible at :
https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-gender-gap-report-2018
7 Smita Singh, “To support ‘Period Leave’ or not is the question”, National Herald India, August 12, 2020,
Accessible at : https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/opinion/to-support-period-leave-or-not-is-the-question
 ● “In Indonesia, under the Labor Act of 1948, women have a right to two days of menstrual
leave per month.
● In South Korea, not only are female employees entitled to menstrual leave according to
the Article 71 of the Labour Standards Law, but they are also ensured additional pay if
they do not take the menstrual leave that they are entitled to.
● In Taiwan, the Act of Gender Equality in Employment gives women three days of
“menstrual leave” per year, which is not calculated towards the 30 days of “common sick
leave”8.

Thus, a clarification. Gender equality between men and women does not mean that women must
be treated as men. This appears to be a wholly troublesome misconception because it implies
that we can achieve gender equality when we treat a woman as if she were just like a man. By
doing this, we’re violently erasing women’s lived experiences as women. We’re refusing to
acknowledge that the female experience of the world is very different from the male.

To quote from Caroline Criado Perez’s book Invisible Women9,

“Women are not scaled-down men.”

What gender equality really means is that men and women must be treated as equals. That they
must have access to the same resources, privileges and rights. The point of gender equality is not
to conflate male and female experiences as one, but to dismantle the universality of the male
experience which deems women as “atypical”.

Conclusion

“Thus, any change or revolution is often met with protests and so would a policy like this one.
Supporters of this policy state that this can be a giant step towards empowering women by
tailoring a safe work environment where they can voice their concerns and grievances without

8 Amarjot Kaur, “ Periods.. Leave”, The Tribune, September, 2020, accessible at :

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/lifestyle/leave-period-432121
9 Caroline Criado-Perez, “The Invisible Women”, March 7, 2019
any hesitation. This, in turn, becomes a long-term investment for the company ensuring
employee satisfaction and thereby increasing productivity. While critics state that women could
misuse this policy by faking symptoms, not only can the same be applicable to other illnesses,
but creating a successful company requires basic employee-employer trust.”

“In a country where the word menstruation is met with raised eyebrows and disgust, proposing
for a ‘Menstrual Leave’ policy will be difficult but nevertheless a much needed change in the
right direction towards understanding gender roles and responsibilities.

Submitted by :

Rakshita Data

Mayank Srivastava

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