In India, period leave should be every working woman's right
India is a country of warped contradictions. While on the one hand, a huge majority of boys/men in the country do not possess any relative knowledge of menstruation, on the other, Mumbai-based media company, Culture Machine, has decided to give its women employees First Day of Period Leave.
First Day of Period Leave entails an optional day off every month, on the first day of a woman's period — owing to the discomfort and painful cramps that come in tow with the red devil every month. There are, however, exceptions too. While for some women the first day of menstruation feels like fighting the battle of Waterloo singlehandedly, for some others it's cakewalk, with mild discomfort, at best — it's safe to say on behalf of the entire world's women population, we're extremely envious of the latter lot.
Which brings us to the hot debate that has ensued ever since Culture Machine took the decision to give women employees period leave — do women in India need period leave? Is it a welcome move to make offices more women-friendly? Or will it ostracise women in the work space?
First things first, for the uninitiated, India is not the one to start the trend. Countries like South Korea, Indonesia, China, Taiwan and Japan have been offering period leave to women for years now. In Indonesia, in fact, women are offered two days off every month for menstruation. The private company that set the ball rolling for period leaves, however, was Nike — the company introduced menstrual leave in 2007 and made all their business partners sign a memorandum of understanding to ensure they maintain the company's standards.
Since the announcement of an Indian company adopting the move, prominent voices from all over the nation have been presenting arguments listing the pros and cons of this special allowance for women.
Clinical and social analyst, Dr Jayanti Dutta, told India Today, "If you are in pain, get medical leave and stay out. Don't make it public; it will only lead to more room for harassment of women. It's a private, personal affair for a woman; why make it public?"
While we do not concur with Dr Dutta's views on "not making periods public", we do agree that such a move could create a large room for harassment of women at the workplace, given the widespread ignorance about menstruation among Indian men.
Devlina Mazumdar, HR head of Culture Machine, makes a concrete argument about women being biologically different, and thus having different needs: "The idea is to come out and ask for leave. In our company, it's an optional leave. It does not make a woman weaker; we have to accept that we are biologically different. Menstruation is not a sickness, that's why one should apply for menstruation leave, and not sick leave, as opposed to what some people are suggesting. I don't believe that period leave is going to be detrimental to women's status at the workplace. We need to respect the fact that biologically women and men are not the same."
As true as the biological argument stands, the biggest defence for men all over social media, ever since the rise of the debate, has been that if women are going to get 12 extra days off in the whole year, they should be paid less too. To this, I have just two rational arguments to make:
- Periods, unfamiliar to many Indians, are a natural biological process. Women are not choosing to take that day off, if at all, nor are they making merry every month on the first day of their period. Left to women, all of them would choose not to go through that pain and discomfort, and thus not take the day off.
- According to a report published in The Hindu in May 2016, the gender pay gap in India stands at 27 per cent. Twenty-Seven per cent. In France, the gender pay gap was 15 per cent, protesting which French women left their offices at 16:53 hours on November 7 last year, to make the authorities realise that compared to their male counterparts, women were getting paid only to work till 4.53pm on November 7. Women in Indian workspaces are not protesting the gaping pay gap — be it because of being uninformed or due to the fear of ruffling some egoistic feathers or as a result of the simple lack of unity. The point is, India is paying its working women much, much lesser than its men. In keeping with the same, would giving them the option of period leave once a month really be too much to ask for?