To think menstrual leave should be a thing?

[ItsTheSeasonOfTheStick]

It might just be me, but I find coming into work on my period really hard. I get awful cramps, I feel sick, I am exhausted even after sleeping a full night and I can feel myself bleeding all the time. I just find it so overwhelming and I’m in an awful mood. I’d happily work extra hours for the rest of the month to make up for it, but I genuinely find the first couple of days so hard to work through.

@Kirbert2 if it was classed as a medical condition and you were performing throughout the month, then reasonable adjustments could be made so work and you don’t lose out.

lots of workplaces are able to make reasonable adjustment and do for other illnesses/ conditions so it’s not inpossible- if it’s one or 2 days a month and rest of the month you are performing.

Batshit.

To be honest I wouldn't want everyone knowing all the time I was on a period

Women of a certain age would never be employed.

I really have heard it all now! You think all women should have one week off every month as 'sick leave'? How about you just get on with it as women have done for hundreds of years? Why should the employer be inconvenienced just because you are a 'normal' woman? It's about time some people got a grip and got on with their lives instead of dwelling on how 'ill' they feel.

You'd be giving ammunition to employers to not employ women.

My god, I am struggling now to adjust my employee's work schedules to make them more regular, so they can have lives outside of work, arrange childcare, take a class.

Previously they were more flexible, in that most worked fewer hours, so I could more easily get others to cover shifts necessary. But when one person retired we redistributed the hours to the others so they could increase their incomes without having to try and juggle two jobs - this was the arrangement when they were happy for.

So now we use back-up workers which we share with other units, when people are ill. But it's difficult to get the balance right. Too few and there aren't people for necessary shifts as they come up, especially in summer when people go on holiday. Too many, and they don't get enough work to make it worthwhile for them.

If people want more flexibility, we need more employees working fewer hours, and they will make less money. Guess how many are on board for that?

Sorry you get that poorly OP but it would be such a set back for women and an excuse to not respect or employ women. Not all jobs can have flexible working, WFH etc so can’t make up hours. Many jobs and businesses just can’t accommodate it. I couldn’t run my team if they were all off randomly. Workplaces are struggling with their own CoL and increase in NI etc. they can’t afford to have lots of people off.

That only works if WFH is possible which wasn't the case with my job. Even if it was, it isn't really when you have a child in hospital. There is no space, no privacy and often incredibly poor Wifi if it even works at all. I saw several parents in tears stressed over attempting to work from their sick child's bedside.

In the end my choice was to leave my sick child in hospital or lose my job. I'd rather a paid leave for parents with sick children in hospital before any type of menstrual leave honestly.

For women with a diagnosis of dysmenorrhea, endo etc fair enough. Otherwise no. We don't want yet more reasons for employers to treat women unfairly or avoid employing them. Also it just wouldn't really work in some jobs.

Only if it’s unpaid, as then people would just go in.

Rather than it become an employers problem (giving them a lack of staff headache), menstrual issues should be taken more seriously by GPs/NHS generally.
Have you tried cloth menstrual pads or cups? I know several people who say they are in less pain/bleed less with these.

Indeed! I'm now well past menopause but for 20 years I bled for 10 or 11 days in every 23!

I'm afraid, OP, that women have always sucked this up and will have to continue to do so.

Absolutely not. I loathe this idea of employers deciding what type of inconvenience is worthy (typical examples on MN: period pain, miscarriage, pet death) and needs special arrangement.

Sick leave if you are too sick to work, your time off/holiday allowance for the other stuff, and my private life is my business.

I WAS diagnosed with dysmenorrhea! As a teacher, WFH during my periods (for 20 years, they lasted 10 or 11 days in ever 23) wouldn't have been an option.

Someone has said that what IS an option is GPs being trained to take these issues seriously. This is what ended my 20 years of it - a late middle aged (female) GP who said to me "I see you've been going to GPs for years with this - were they all men?" (Reader, they WERE). She sent me to a specialist, I had a Mirena coil fitted and felt like human being at last.

I can know that some people don’t understand how bad it can be when there are people on the thread saying shit like just get on with it. They still say this despite listening to what other women have said on the thread about their awful periods. Even before my periods were bad, I would never have said that because I would have listened and believed when they said it’s impossible to just take a paracetamol and get on with it. However, without experiencing it myself, I couldn’t know how bad it could be.

It would need to be classed as a disability.

Medical condition =/= disability.

Yep.

You also can't ''perform'' if your child is in hospital and you need to be with them which was what ultimately cost me my job.

There are two separate issues at play here.

One is medical misogyny. I'm certain in my mind that this exists. I'm aware of many anecdotal experiences in which the health complaints of men have been taken seriously whereas women's are more likely to be dismissed. The quality of maternity care, for one, is atrocious in the UK. Fertility research is still in its infancy. As for periods, these are too often treated frivolously, as something that doesn't necessarily affect 'real' people. It took years to get my endometriosis diagnosed, it caused further years of fertility problems and horrendous pain, and also nearly cost me the chance of having a family. For several years my doctor insisted I had a hernia: gave me steroid injections down my right groin. It's an issue. It needs taking seriously and women need the right treatment rather than our heads patted and sent away with antidepressants (as happened to my aunt who turned out to be terminally ill).

That's one part of the problem. The workplace issue and our fight for equal status - still a long way off being won - is a separate one. What we need to be careful not to do is throw the baby out with the bath water - and that's from someone who knows very well that doubling up on sanitary protection will do little to contain the flooding and who regularly experiences the kind of period pain even codeine won't touch.

I'm not suggesting martyring yourself is particularly clever, but there will also come a time in any workplace where repeated patterns of absence will cause an employer to raise the question of whether you're fit to do the job you were employed to do. If you're not - and you don't have a disability that's covered by the EA 2010 - you can be dismissed. And whilst awful periods are debiltating and can make your life extremely miserable for a time - a situation I've been intimately acquainted with for decades - they are not a disability.

Women have to be aware that if we want taking seriously in our career then we have to devote a great deal of time and commitment to this. However unfair it is, we probably have to fight harder to break the glass ceiling than do men.

This is reality. Whichever way you slice it, we can't get away from this.

Oh my! No thank you! Most women value their privacy and wouldn't want thier bosses charting thier cycles! The women who really need it will probably just struggle on or say they are unwell rather than divulge private information. Women will become less appealing to employers, who wants to risk employing someone when they could take off one week in four?

The piss takers will love it though! "Sorry I can't do that awkward shift or help with that difficult project, I'm on my period"

Imagine being passed up for a promotion because your boss figures out you're late and assumes you'll be taking maternity in a few months!

You literally suggested it was in your previous post?

No- otherwise every woman every month would take time off if they could! It would be an abused rule to say the least. And this is coming from someone that suffers a lot. It’s just not going to happen and will also just take back from everything women have raised concerns about in the past to be honest. If you’re too poorly to go to work then don’t go!

You can see why more men have the top jobs than women. This is exactly why women struggle to get to the top. Not only do they have pregnancy and all that goes with that to be taken into account now some want to be given special treatment for periods. Something that will happen every month for about 40 years. If I was running a business I would want to be employing men.

If you’re in pain that’s the same as a lot of chronic conditions though.