(Sydney Carroll / Daily Titan)
Not every menstruating employee undergoes a universal period experience. The pain may be insufferable and interfere with their work and school performance. Unfortunately, discourse on period pain is taboo discussion in most workplaces.
Offices and educational institutions must empathize with women by offering paid leave and excused absences for menstruation.
Presenteeism, which defines how productivity plummets when employees cannot devote their full attention to their job because they are ill, injured or even suffer with menstrual pain, has repercussions for corporations.
When menstruating employees work through pain, their work may not be as thorough because they are preoccupied with the pain. Female college students who attempt to juggle a work-life balance cannot always meet their employer’s expectations, especially when aching menstrual cramps intervene.
Powering through shifts distracted by pain not only cripples employee productivity, but also employer’s costs. Neglecting employees’ menstrual pain only exacerbates this issue. Allowing sick days or absences for menstrual pain ensures quality employee and student output.
Some may argue that menstrual paid leave is packed with legal and labor ramifications because they apply to those that are of menstruating age and have an intact reproductive system. Yet, this standpoint invalidates the varied degrees of menstruators’ painful symptoms, including women that experience endometriosis.
Six months ago, AtliQ Technologies, a New Jersey-based company, announced that they would offer 8 days of menstrual paid leave per year for their female staff.
According to the AtliQ Technologies blog, “However, with this announcement, we are definitely not terming females as weak for their biological nature. Instead, we respect them for showing up with a smile even through the pain. They are not less productive due to their menstrual pain, but does it really mean that they have to force themselves?”
Japan, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea and Zambia have already implemented or experimented with menstrual paid leave. Spain is on the brink of joining the growing list of menstrual leave supporters.
Such prominence in other countries begs the question as to why the so-called leader of the free world, the United States, has been so slow at entitling women to menstrual paid leave.
Alexis Badilla, a second-year psychology student, is skeptical of the implementation of menstrual paid leave.
“Personally I think in a dream world then females would get paid menstrual leave. But I don’t think we’ve developed enough as a society to allow it,” Badilla said.
Cisgender men could also argue that they are being discriminated against, citing an imbalance of paid work leave based on biological differences as sexism, but biological differences should never be weaponized. Demoralizing menstrual pain ultimately reveals the blanketed misogyny among male employees.
According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, women make up 48% of the workforce and 42% of managers. As inclusivity becomes more important in the workplace, corporate leaders must implement policies, like paid leave for menstruation, to show their commitment and awareness of the issues working women deal with.
Demoralizing menstruating employees who could have access to paid leave benefits is far from ethical in the workplace. At the same time, it is not rational for women to deplete their sick or vacation hours to deal with the fact of life.
Irene Matz, a Cal State Fullerton associate professor of human communications that serves on the Academic Senate, said that CSUF should implement menstrual paid leave for students, faculty and staff.
With successful implementation and results in U.S. companies and other countries, there should be no reason why students should not have excused absences for menstrual leave as well.
“We’re education, we’re scholars. We should have the insight and we should have the courage to say ‘This is what we’re going to do,’ and then follow through with it because if we do there will be others who will join in on offering that same kind of compensation,” Matz said. “I think it’s a great opportunity for us to be the leaders of that.”
Matz said that CSUF already pays respects to religious holidays and honors the death of a family member, and that it should be reasonable to implement menstrual absences paid leave that accommodates students, faculty and staff.
Menstrual leave discrimination needs to be added to CSUFs and companies’ anti-discrimination policies. They should also consider coding menstrual leave as sick days in order to protect the health of female employees.