To wish people understood that saying women can do what men can do isn’t doing much for equality?

[Luuccqep]

I know this is a bit of a rant. Just feel utterly despairing sometimes. My colleague has severe period pain and associated medical condition which means every month she can barely move and feels rubbish for around 24 hours.

In our industry there are large companies that allow women to have a day off a month for menstrual related reasons. Our company is not one of them and we have been campaigning for this, only to have been met by other women in particular saying that we are undermining feminism by suggesting women need a day off a month due to biological differences.

I find this sentiment utterly depressing. Women DO have periods. Some women DO need to rest when their period arrives. Saying we can do what men can do makes me sick… I don’t want to do what men can do. I want the world to treat women with respect and to respect their needs as women.

Why are so many women resistant to stand up for other women? It’s not just in relation to this point but lots of other points too. Often women are quick to feel being equal is being like a man. That’s not equality.

Well I think men also want sick leave school events, pet dies leave medic appointments leave and they generally show up for ivf too.. They also want paternity leave.

So the only ones women specific are period and menopause? Which most women have said no to...

It would be better to take women’s health more seriously by improving access
to gynaecology, reducing wait times,
having clear pathways for extreme period pain rather than normalising it.

At least in UK there are sick days or annual leave.

I get it no one wants to use those - I rarely did and had horrifc period pain from teen to late 20 when had kids. What I did sitting exams and starting a carrer was learn to cope - to mange the pain and flooding - not great TBH.

What I really would have prefered was to be taken serioulsy by any number of the GPs I saw about it - rarther than have pill shoved at me and then when I had problems with that insisted I didn't or for them to insisted it was me with a low pain threshold - post kids I know that's rubbish.

I do agree many posters will patronising ask have you consulted a GP - as if that won't have occured to a woman - I consulted many male and female and they were all utterly shit and dismissive - move roudn UK for work so was at several pratcises- and I often had to take annual leave to get to GP in first place.

It's kind of like the menopause suggestions of time off. I've just got to the time of my life when I'll no longer face hidden discrimination due to being in childbearing years then whoosh media and politician are all women this age have brain fog and medical problems that need time off - well some might and other sail though and others need some medical help but are then fine. I don't need more things counting against me in workplace just becuase I'm female and may not have these issues.

Women want equal pay for equal work, yes? If were expecting 12 years a day less work, are we going to accept 12 days' less pay?

Fwiw, if her condition is that bad, she may be able to approach it as a reasonable adjustment, specific to her situation. Not all women need this adjustment, it would be unhelpful to most women to suggest that they do.

Well women shouldn’t need a day off for such things really- and just shows how shoddy female healthcare is

I think you are wrong here.
If the period is regularly painful or/ and draining enough that she cannot work, then there is a medical condition. Endometriosis or other. The real issue is that women's health is rather ignored by all, including doctors. She has a cronical health issue and she needs reasonable adjustments from her employer. Same that a male with arthritis or severe allergies or other health issues would.
Whatever is the point of putting all women in the same basket? If we are actually not.
We do get rights specific to our sex: maternity leave (now can be shared!), prenatal classes attendance time off, lower weights on the manual handling guidance...
We are fighting against the lower pay for the same job and I insist on the same job bit. I think men and women do, statistically speaking, have different abilities and strengths. So that needs to be taken into account, but I fully disagree with this statement that women can now have extra days off at work.

It would just lead to more employers not wanting to employ women

Reading PP posts and I just read about the menopause shite too.
I am almost enjoying it. Less damn hormones makes me actually feel better. I am at the stage in my career I do have experience combined with confidence and drive. Less family commmitments as children old enough. And now have this shite that menopause makes me stupid and some sort of needy thrown around me. Because many idiots use excuses like this to try to climb over others, obviously. I really hope no one ever asks me anything about menopause at work, because I may hit the roof. And the amoint of BS spouted about the issues is glorious. There has been a thread in MN where someone was claimimg that the menopause was the only cause her friend ruined her marriage, because it made her some sort of crazy......

@1SillySossij yes and thus the patriarchy continues to hold force

But it’s not a medical condition!! It’s a natural body process that half the population experiences and it varies wildly within that population. If it doesn’t affect you, lucky for you but how does that mean NOBODY should be catered for just because your period is fine? So the option to take time should be worked into the system. As if women don’t bloody well make the time up anyway

People don’t know the difference between equality and equity. What we actually need in society is equity not equality.

Periods that are that painful absolutely are a medical condition. Half the population isn't suffering with debilitating period pain.

It doesn't help women to legislate that we're all good for nothing one day a month

If it’s something that makes her feel unwell, then it’s absolutely what sick days are meant for.

@KimberleyClark its a natural process. It’s not meant to be entirely pain free.

But it does mean that sometimes you need to just experience that process without being in a work environment to be able to manage it.

@Batteredtoe

it’s not being ‘good for nothing.’ It’s actually vital to sustain the human race. HTH.

This

OK, legislating that women are not fit for work one day a month, is that better?

Your post is difficult to understand but are you saying that the menopause has affected you positively and anyone who says it's affecting them differently is talking shite?

There are plenty of things that are both entirely natural and have the possibility of affecting people badly. Periods are one but some people get migraines, hearing loss, etc etc. In my personal opinion, giving extra consideration to one over the other isn’t right but I also ensure I treat all my staff with compassion and do my best to accommodate people for any reasonable situation - vet appointments, headaches, IBS, whatever.

"My colleague has severe period pain and associated medical condition" I took this from the OP to mean the medical condition causes severe period pain, something like endometriosis? Or have I misunderstood?

Don't be a misogynist, one woman doesnt speak for all women, nor does it mean we're never fucking working. Do you generalise about men in this way?

You know what I want? I want to do my job without a lot of assumptions based on my gender.

The issue with this for me is that nobody sees men as some homogeneous mass. Men are treated as individuals in the workplace, considered for promotion or employment based on their individual skills.

I don't want my employers to assume I will need a day off every month for period pains, just because I am a woman who has periods (OK, when I had them pre-menopause). I don't want it to be assumed that I will be a mush-brained moody nightmare when I hit menopause.

I want to be seen as an individual who may have these problems and is free to broach the issue with her employer if it happens, just as individual men do. It isn't assumed all men will get prostrate cancer, so why must we start with a base assumption that all women get bad periods?

I get the difference between equity and equality, I really do. But I don't think equity is making assumptions about 50% of the population whilst treating the other 50% as individuals.

In the days when I had periods, I hated it when (usually) men dismissed any concerns I might have with 'are you on your period?'. Women have fought for a long time to get past this idea that every single one of us is debilitated by having a womb. That every emotional response is because we have a womb. That we shouldn't be taken seriously because the problem isn't Joe Bloggs from accounts' wandering, lecherous hands, it's because I have a womb, which makes me fragile and oversensitive.

The very last thing we need is an automatic day off because we have a womb. Joanna Bloggs in finance has bad periods pains and needs time off. Joanna Bloggs needs understanding and sensitivity from her employer, as anyone in pain does. Obelix does not have painful periods and does not need time off, just because she has a womb like Joanna does.

Obelix is not Joanna. Equity isn't giving Obelix time off every month for a problem Joanna has. Equity is showing Obelix the same understanding and sensitivity when she has a migraine as Joanna gets when she has a bad period and vice versa.

No I am saying that you cannot go around blaming stupid behaviour ( including leaving a husband..) on a fully grown up woman's hormones just because some other person claims x, y and z, well far from hot flushes and lack of sleep and so on...
What I have seen is that the myth that middle age women have brain fog and are more sensitive seems to have rooted now and people assume all women are so. That is actually negatively impacting us, at a time where we are at the pwak of our carrers. Not positively. And I have witnessed used against women on the promotion scale. It has not happened to me. Yet. If it does, I think the angerwill hit some max levels.
In other words, "she is menopausal" is replacing the " is she on her period?" attitude.

Pwak is meant to say peak

YABU. It doesn't make any sense at all to allow all women a day off work per month for their period when the vast majority absolutely do not need that.