AIBU additional period leave from work a backwards move?

[1DAD2KIDS]

There is a growing movement to give women a set amount of paid days off a month for periods. This is happening in many countries including an article I read about a company in the UK. To me that sounds a backwards move? A way of treating women differently in the work place. I do think we need better understanding in the work place and more openness about it. Why should something so natural be so taboo? From what I have read a third of women get extreme period problems. So I would say that periods are a natural thing but extreme problems are a medical complication that can be treated and should be treated as in line with existing paid sick leave. Across the genders unfortunately some suffer from permanent conditions from birth. I think treating men and women differently in the workplace is a backwards move?

I think period problems should be covered by existing sick leave, so yanbu. It's a medical problem and should be treated as such.

Sorry, would you be able to explain further? Time off for women who have their period? Why? (Not intending to be inflammatory, I suffer quite badly from PMT, period pains and I bleed very, very heavily, but I'm not sure I've ever required a day off work for it)

Whilst I like the idea of a few days off every month when I'm bleeding heavily and feel like shit, I'm not sure it would be worth it, given I would be tipping off all the men as to when I was menstruating. I'm sure they would get a bit funny about it.

I get bad cramps but it doesn't warrant sick leave. Unless you suffer from really bad periods there is no reason to treat it as a medical condition.

I agree but I also think increasing maternity and parental leave/flexibility works against women (as it's still almost always taken by women) so I clearly don't know what I'm talking about.

If 1/3 of women are "ill" every month, surely a more valuable campaign would be to get medical science to do something about that?

Generally I think serious period-related problems should come under ordinary sick leave provisions.

Also this is another argument for workplaces to allow flexible working when business needs allow. E.g. if your period has just started and you're not ill enough to need a whole day off, but could really do with coming in a couple of hours late to allow the painkillers to kick in. Then make up the hours another time.

TBH I've never worked in a place that pays for sick leave, so I'd welcome that as a standard to ALL rather than just some companies offering extra days to just women

If you have problems with menstruation it should be just standard sick leave - I was admitted as an emergency to hospital mid October due to a 'period' and given morphine, before being started on a chemical menopause and kept off work for 4 weeks. That was treated as standard sick leave as will the laparoscopy I'm having in January be.

It's 'easier' as sick leave, I get my standard pay to a point (nhs), there's a set guidelines already in place, help from union and occupational health etc. My periods are an absolutely bloody nightmare - vomiting, diarrhoea, fever, hallucinations, fainting, pouring down my legs etc - so I'd be off every month which if you compared to another person who's periods are normal and easy to cope with, it doesn't seem fair.

Far better to treat menstrual problems as a medical problem and use sick leave when required.

can you imagine being in HR and having to track it? Like pointing out that someone has had 4 grannies dying and time off for their funerals.

Oh Mary had her period only 2 weeks ago????

And of course women with no periods (ie many longer term contraceptives mean no periods) but heck, why not get off that extra 1 day a month :D

I think the intended benefit of the scheme is that it wouldn't go on your record as sick leave, in the same way that pregnancy related illness has to be taken off sick leave figures provided to prospective employers etc

Very weird... surely the effort that's gone into this would be much more usefully directed into campaigning for more medical research and better training for doctors to take women's reproductive health seriously and not just expect women to put their lives on hold for a few days each month?

Here's a few articleso on it:

mobile.abc.net.au/news/2005-02-11/unions-seek-menstrual-leave-for-toyota-workers/1517308

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/mar/02/uk-company-introduce-period-policy-female-staff?client=ms-android-orange-gb

www.google.co.uk/amp/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/37606726?client=ms-android-orange-gb

And surprisingly it has been enshrined in Law in Japan since 1947. Aparently it is common in East Asia.

There are treatments out there to make things better such as the pill. But I guess some women understandidly don't taken them due to side effect know. Like with many treatmentshould the side affects can be bad and it is up to the individual to take the medication or not. And of course there is an extreme pernanet fix that naturrally most will not want. Definitely be good to work on better treatments as this affects quality of life for a lot of women and productivity. People often fail to see the importance of good health care and the economy

something else for the misogynists in the work place to joke about, "what to be equal then whine about their periods !" yeah, can just hear that one.
i'm all for women dealing with stuff in the way they need to but this will get abused in more ways than one, and how would it be assessed when some women really have a lot of problems whilst others might see it as a glorified skive. for the record i used to very heavy confined to bed for two day types with pain, so i know my stuff on this

It is very unfair for a womens sickness record to be so bad they face dismissal simply because they have severe periods.

yanbu
if your periods are so bad that you are effectively ill a couple of days each month you need to see a dr. preferably a gyn consultant to get treatment.
or take sick leave.

I actually think the bad feeling would come from women pipsqueak. Ime male colleagues are understanding about "women's problems" or at least they know better than to show otherwise. It would be some female colleagues who bitch about a woman's pain not being as bad as she says it is etc.

Those of us have needed time off for periods will have taken it as sick leave. Some women won't ever have taken a day sick for periods. Some, like me, will have taken the odd one or two across years, but most months I'm okay with just painkillers. Some women will take one or two days every month, with very severe pains, vomiting, fainting.

It also depends on the job role. I can usually work from home if I need to, and I can make up time when I'm feeling healthier. But if you're meant to be teaching Year 9 at 10:00am, you need to be there in person, or someone else has to cover it.

Where I think the current way of doing things doesn't work well is with employers who use some form of the Bradford factor when looking at employees' sick records. It's possible you get a meeting with HR and they say, okay, we can support you with this, and we'll make this exception for you - and I guess if it is required every month, it might be covered as a disability. But I'd put money on it that some employers will be totally unsupportive and just see it as evidence they shouldn't employ women, regardless of whether someone's work is exemplary the rest of the time - rather than, wow, she has to put up with that, and she can still do her job well.

I do have a problem with us having to behave like periods never happen. Most women of working age will have periods at some point when they're working - not everyone will be able to use the sort of hormonal contraception which stops periods, and for some women, they get constant bleeding, rather than none. Most women will go through menopause years before retirement (especially as the retirement age seems to be getting shifted further and further away.) That can bring all the joys of unexpected timing of bleeding, the likelihood of heavier bleeding and flooding, generally more severe symptoms and less predictability. I don't want special treatment per second, but I do want more flexibility that if I flood, it's okay to go home and get clean clothes and work from home, and I want a stained chair to be sorted out just as a matter of fact, not shame, and it all just to be seen as normal, not a taboo secret. Even jobs which can't be as flexible as others can often have more flexibility than they might currently do, if people are just more imaginative about how we work.

I don't think granting all women period days is necessary - but if women do need to take time off work for it, they should be supported, not penalised.

So, if I'm a woman am I going to have to accept lower pay for 'period days' which I neither want nor need? I don't want my employers to know the details of my menstruel (sp?) cycle or the fact that certain conditions and the treatment of them mean that I no longer have one as such. Do periods have to be a certain level of insufferability before the leave is granted, or is it just for everyone?

What about the menopause? Again I wouldn't want people knowing whether or not I was menopausal.

In the past I have taken sick leave due to periods (complicated by other health issues) so do appreciate that it is an issue. I have PCOS so could go months without a period, then have one lasting three weeks in the past.

I'd like to see acceptance of how difficult periods can be to manage and more done to enable proper treatment, but I don't think period leave is the way to go.

I do remember going to work one day with a very heavy period, having had a hospital appointment in the morning that made things 300 times worse. At 4pm (12 hour shift) I had to go to the toilet, wash and get changed. I was 5 minutes in the toilet and my colleague was standing in the corridor glaring at me and tapping her watch. In full view of patients, relatives and other staff she berated me and asked exactly what I was doing in there that had taken so long. I did wish I could have taken that day as sick.

Thankfully work are being very helpful with me, not going to progress to a warning or anything, but I do worry about the next job . Just praying that the laparoscopy I'm getting fixes me.

Over the last 2 years I've lost a huge amount of time at work due to menstrual issues.

Days I've been unable to go in due to extreme bleeding, flooding every 30 minutes, pain, issues with low blood pressure. Plus the time lost due to gp and gynae appointments, investigations and operations. Illness due to side effects of new treatments. It's been a nightmare but has all been treated as normal sick leave - I haven't had to give any great detail and to be honest that suits me.

I've just had the pre-op ready to have a total hysterectomy and the time off work following the operation and recovery will also be treated as standard sick leave. I don't think I'd have been treated any differently with these new guidelines.

I have horrendous periods. I am sick, dizzy, migraines, my anxiety goes through the roof, get an upset tummy, feel tired and lethargic and just feel awful for about 4 days before I come on and then I start to actually bleed and get crippling period pains and it pours out of me, on top of all this. I have tried many pills and none of them make a difference. I generally just get fobbed off by the GP as there isn't much they can do for me.

We don't get sick days at my work and I am a single mum so every month I have to pray that my period will fall on a weekend and when it doesn't I have to take painkillers like they are smarties and just suffer through my day. Sometimes it's so bad I have to take an unpaid day off. I dread my period and it really does affect my quality of life.

Agree with PP though about more research going into helping women with awful periods rather than giving a few days off a month.

I think this is the wrong way of going about things and open to abuse. Plus it gives so much ammunition to those who want to degrade women's contribution in the work place. Serious problems are not the norm. Although technicaly its targeting is gender specific I don't think it should be treated as special female case. Maybe in some extreme cases it could be seen as a disability and thus with the right medical documentation employers would have to employ under these laws for the worst cases.

Also I don't see that not taking treatment is much of an excuse. If I wanted more time off sick for any other condition but wasn't taking the prescribed medication I wouldn't see my employer being to understanding.

It seems the biggest problem is hidding it. Why can we be more open and supportive like we are with other things?

On the first day of my period It often makes me physically sick and I get cramps so bad that I can't walk. I have very short light periods but that first day is horrible, I often used to work from home if it was particularly bad but that then raises another issues of an expectation that a sick day really is just a work from home day and people would never stay at home and completely turn off.

I can't really see it going anywhere. And I would actually be really irritated if my work introduced this.

Campaigning for better sick leave rights across the board would be a better focus in my opinion.