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A media company in Mumbai is giving women a day off during their periods

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Re: A media company in Mumbai is giving women a day off during their periods

#71

Why not give women 12 extra days of work from home (when applicable) for a year and see how it goes rather than setting up different rules for different genders? Or am I missing something here?

Your suggestion is different rules for different genders?

There is no shame in that, given that it is well defined. For instance. In almost all sports you have a male and a female devision. Just based on pure strength or something.

Call it what you want. There ARE differences in various humans. Some are male, some are female, some have kids, some don't, some have two legs, some don't, etc.

Want to give them all equal chances? Listen to what they can and experience and get them to listen to each other for mutual respect.

Re: A media company in Mumbai is giving women a day off during their periods

#72
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was in so much pain that I could not move. Over the counter pain medicine did not touch it. Getting out of the house to go to an unnecessary doctor's visit was out of the question.

Obviously too little too late but a phone call to the OB would have had the note prepared for you, possibly even sent to your employer after the fact. My wife received one when she had her IUD removed that was for the day of the procedure and 1-3 days after (obviously they could have extended the dates if she was in a great deal of pain).

Here's a couple more details that were omitted from the story. My boss at the time was an extreme evangelical christian and my OB is Planned Parenthood. I am an atheist and I was not open about that at work because I was afraid that telling the truth would hurt my chances of promotion. Bringing in a note from Planned Parenthood to my extremely traditional boss would not have gone over well. Even though Planned Parenthood offers so many more services, a lot of people only see it as an abortion clinic.

Re: A media company in Mumbai is giving women a day off during their periods

#73
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sick leave? As far as I know that's exactly what it's for. It also has the benefit of not discriminating whether it's period cramps, migraines, a broken leg, food poisoning, or depression. EDIT: I'm German. Sick leave is completely separate from vacation days here and not limited (although you get less money after six weeks because your health insurance takes over from your employer). Generally I find that one of the…

Speaking for myself (as a standard US employee with a "progressive" HR, I mean Human Asset Management dept), I get 0 sick days. I get three weeks (15 days) which is supposed to be for both vacation and sickness. Someone who can't work two days a month would either be fired or be taking leave without pay, and never able to take paid vacation.

I feel very sorry for you and others in your position to hear that.

the UK has some very forgiving policies on sick leave (https://www.gov.uk/taking-sick-leave). in fact you don't even have to provide a doctors note if you take just a couple of days off.

Re: A media company in Mumbai is giving women a day off during their periods

#74

Why not give women 12 extra days of work from home (when applicable) for a year and see how it goes rather than setting up different rules for different genders? Or am I missing something here?

I'm not saying this isn't a reason to try your proposal, but you may not be aware that for a significant minority of women, period symptoms can be severe enough to make work difficult or impossible, even from home. Severe headaches. Cramps so severe you can't think or sit upright unless on enough painkillers to make your brain nothing but fuzz. (Even OTC painkillers like naproxen that are commonly taken for cramps ca…

I get what you're saying. Without being overly pedantic, the following are my concerns:

1) Assuming there are 265 working days in a year, extra 12 days of leave would reduce the work value done by 4.5%. Would this somehow lead to discrimination?

2) Can you really quantify the amount of distress a person is in during their periods? Some women might be in quite the pain and some might be pretty much ok. Again, this differs from person to person. Under this assumption, is it ok to give all the women a day off?

3) How would you know that the person utilizing this is actually physically capable of menstruating? Eg: People who went through Hysterectomy or Oophorectomy and or any other medical reasons.

Re: A media company in Mumbai is giving women a day off during their periods

#75
post #3

Question for the women ou there: Do you perceive this as a magnificent idea or as implying women have a periodic weakness that impacts their performance every month? Do you think this sort of policy feeds into wage gap stuff, or fights against it? As a reasonably feminist guy, I can't decide how to feel about this. It seems like it's implying women can't work one day of every month, and also seems like a great idea b…

As a woman whose period symptoms are not currently severe, but were for several years...

I used to have one morning per month when I could barely move from the pain and the naproxen I took to make it bearable would prevent me from concentrating on anything more complicated than children's cartoons. But I stumbled into work and faked productivity anyway because I only got 10 days of PTO - vacation and sick days combined - every year. If I'd taken time off to deal with menstrual pain, I would never have had a vacation at all.

And I'm a lucky one. My menstrual symptoms were only moderately severe, and they usually eased by mid-afternoon. Given flexibility, I would probably have worked remotely, taken a couple hours off in the morning (only answering urgent communications), and worked a couple hours later in the evening to make up for it (instead of bolting out of the office at 5pm sharp because being there sucks even harder when you're bleeding like a stuck pig and your intestines are revolting against your OTC meds and you generally feel like you've been hit by a bus).

Probably 25-30% of women (even without additional medical conditions like PCOS) have more severe symptoms than I did. I do think it's valuable to take menstrual problems into account and I would appreciate a workplace that is sympathetic to women who suffer severe menstrual symptoms.

But I hate that this particular proposal creates gender differences in the workplace. Yes, it feeds into the wage gap and into reluctance to hire women. It also creates weird medical privacy issues as several other posters have pointed out.

The right solution probably involves some combination of schedule flexibility; remote work; more sick days for everyone, not just women who happen to menstruate; and separating sick days from vacation days.

Re: A media company in Mumbai is giving women a day off during their periods

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying this isn't a reason to try your proposal, but you may not be aware that for a significant minority of women, period symptoms can be severe enough to make work difficult or impossible, even from home. Severe headaches. Cramps so severe you can't think or sit upright unless on enough painkillers to make your brain nothing but fuzz. (Even OTC painkillers like naproxen that are commonly taken for cramps ca…

I get what you're saying. Without being overly pedantic, the following are my concerns: 1) Assuming there are 265 working days in a year, extra 12 days of leave would reduce the work value done by 4.5%. Would this somehow lead to discrimination? 2) Can you really quantify the amount of distress a person is in during their periods? Some women might be in quite the pain and some might be pretty much ok. Again, this dif…

2 and 3 are why adding more days of sick leave for everyone is a better solution than "period days".

1 is a reason why remote work as needed should be offered as an option (not just for women). I'm just pointing out that it doesn't fully solve the problem.

Re: A media company in Mumbai is giving women a day off during their periods

#77

That's sexism though.

Now I'm wondering if you consider it sexist against men, who are denied this benefit. Or against women, who are (once again) stereotyped as weak and unreliable? I guess the answer is "both". But I can't shake the feeling that this is actually much worse for women than it is for men. In principle, I don't even have a problem with some groups getting a few more days off, or other special arrangements. Some countries ha…

Even though I am not a Christian, I get every Sunday as a day off work.

Re: A media company in Mumbai is giving women a day off during their periods

#78
post #62
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm British, FYI :-) My suggestion, while obviously extreme (flexible scheduling as mentioned elsewhere in this thread would be a much more reasonable 'solution') wouldn't fly in the USA as nobody takes their holiday days anyway!

I don't know where this idea that Americans don't take their vacation time came from, but it is 100% wrong in my opinion. I have coworkers that have had negative PTO balances for months. Whether with PTO or holidays, I try to get at least one 3-4 day weekend each month. I take least one 2-week vacation every year. Everyone I've worked with over the past decade, with rare exception, is the same. A friend of mine is a…

You would be hugely outside the norm in a country where most people get 0-5 days off a year of leave (including sick time)

Re: A media company in Mumbai is giving women a day off during their periods

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this logic is that you would never hire a woman, for fear that they could get pregnant and become "unreliable" for 9 months, and completely unavailable for the duration of their maternity leave (while having to keep their job position unfilled). It's far better to apply some humanity to the equation and just give everyone those extra 12 days off (and (mat|pat)ernity leave), so you're not tempted to d…

Im not saying its humane, or just, or right. Its business. The reason you point out is exactly what has happened in the past. In fact my mum used to work for a company that straight up fired any female staff in the secretary pool which got married to protect themselves from exactly the losses you speak of. Luckily we don't live in that world anymore (40 years ago). And we are working to reduce the dis-incentives of h…

> Im not saying its humane, or just, or right. Its business.

I'm sure the same was said about slavery too.

Society had some tolerance for unethical behaviour, but you'd want to hope that it improves overtime. One such way is when a business does the uneconomical thing, but gains good will and recognition.

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