Another news article

[Whatwouldscullydo]

www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/18899456.oxford-school-tells-girls-attend-period/

So while Scotland acknowledge the need for free period products for girls to attend school, back in England.....

This is deeply unfair and dismissive. It shouldn't be a one size fits all policy. Dysmenorrhoea** is awful and can be debilitating. I used to have incredibly heavy and painful periods, painkillers didn't always work and I'd often feel faint. I regularly used to bleed through my protection. Those girls have every right to feel they're being treated unfairly.

Its extremely easy to think of multiple reasons why that letter was inappropriate.

As if sitting at home flooding your maxi pads doubled over in pain is something girls spend the entire month looking forward to just to bunk off school for a couple of days.

I'm.lucky with my periods but I'm certainly not stupid enough to think everyone else is the same.

Plus, how widespread is it? If it's a handful of pupils regularly missing school then discussions with individuals should take place about how the school can best support them to maintain their learning. Sending the letter to the boys as well seems like the intention was to cause shame.

hmm, that is rather unsympathetic sounding letter, especially as it is aimed at 6th formers (I think) who are generally not trying to skive off anyway.

I realise that the school wants to encourage attendance but it just makes the girls who do have an actual problem feel more self-conscious about it.

I used to faint in the middle of lessons (I think I fell off a tall biology stool once) and it was quite disruptive for the class, not to mention unpleasant for me. I think the school should do everything they can to encourage attendance but shaming girls who have terrible periods is not helpful or kind.

And how many woukd ve punished of caught taking medication in class.

I mean you aren't supposed to do that really are you? Although I'm sure we all send our dds in armed with feminax...

And imagine thinking a trip to the office for a paracetamol and a heat pad will solve the issue

That’s pretty awful. Some women have extreme pain and can’t function during their period. Mine is better now but as a teen I used to faint and vomit from the pain. I still can’t really work properly during the first day of my period and often have to take the day off, although it’s not noticeable because I work from home most of the time.

Also, it’s so bad but I was relieved when it said the head talked about ‘being a woman’. Could just imagine some smug woke person talking about how this is what you have to go through if you’re a person with a uterus or something. So at least the school still believes in biology, even if it treats its girls like crap.

Small mercies

Aaah well girls are allowed to be acknowledged when you are about to treat them like crap I guess...

I cant work out what sending the email to all the boys was meant to achieve.

I guess you can't get a doctorate in common sense or emapthy.

Pressed send too soon,

This sends out a terrible message to boys as well and the misogynists in the comments section prove that.

She's talking bollocks, isn't she? e.g. 'She said: “Anywhere where you work you can’t take two days off for being on your period.'

But that's not true. Lots of workplaces will allow women time off if they have debilitatingly painful periods.

I also hate when women who don’t have bad PMT make a big thing about how periods are fine, no problem at all. For some of us it literally ruins our lives with pain, depression and anxiety. I’ve noticed quite a few woke people taking that line when they’re denying that female biology has anything to do with oppression.

Between severe pain and PMDD, I reckon I’ve lost months of my working life to my biology. I’m too embarrassed to raise it with my boss so I just suffer in silence. Infuriating.

She's talking bollocks, isn't she? e.g. 'She said: “Anywhere where you work you can’t take two days off for being on your period

Frankly until shes solved the issue where anything involving periods is laughed out the drs door she can piss off .

I get that there are sometimes options if you are able to get a dr to take you seriously, but again these may not be suitable and in the younger children , you wouldn't necessarily want an 11 yr old put on the pill where being allowed to stay one 1 or 2 days with some work to do if possible, would improve the situation without medication. Not that they shouldn't ever be put on the pill just that its a very personal choice and certainly not something that a child or any woman really either should be blackmailed into cos its more convenient for someone else..

Awful. I was a conscientious pupil but often needed to take a day or two off per period. My experience of dysmenorrhea compared to childbirth is that for me it was worse - similar pain but more continuous.

I was 'fortunate' that I wasn't regular so less than once a month, and that going on the pill when I was a student alleviated the problem.

She's talking bollocks, isn't she? e.g. 'She said: “Anywhere where you work you can’t take two days off for being on your period

Yup.

And she might be interested in the idea and introducing her female students to it, that there is a certain amount of the work force who are disabled or with chronic illnesses and have had to go part time or self employed or quit work entirely because on a monthly basis the hormonal surges aggravate their conditions unpredictably and may make them too ill to work. And there's not much inclusion or disabled friendly/woman friendly policies supporting that. In reality, pushing on through isn't always an option.

There's always working from home...I mean of course women are refused the option more than men are, and yet lockdowns have proven that actually it can be done in more instances than first thought, now if they could just get past this arbitrary 9-5 thing which I'm sure is probably more flexible than some employers let on, and it could well accommodate far more people and allow them to work.

What is it with work places and schools and this bum on seat above all else thing. I mean they just provided weeks of online learning for students, emailing a worksheet amd/ or a link can't be that much more work. Dd1s school are still posting isolation work

I dont see how having them in class unable to work is any better then them being t home with showers and bath tubs and pain killers and joggers at their disposal...

Learning wise what's the difference

It’s covered in the Times today, much the same info

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/oxford-spires-sixth-form-girls-can-t-take-time-off-for-periods-because-pain-just-part-of-being-a-woman-w8d9gpp5p?shareToken=91a3a2ea155075c15b058461bb868858

What a vile, ignorant, unsympathetic, irresponsible and arrogant woman.

Still loving all the " see a dr" comments

Not only do drs to this day still not take women seriously they still treat them like small men eveb when that can kill them. Like heart attacks

And Why should young girls who may still be in the stages of their periods regulating themselves, start taking medication for the convenience of everyone else. If that's what they decide to do having been through the pros and cons and decided what side effects they feel they can live with , then fine. But its their choice for medical reasons not becuase their head teachers an idiot.

Not only do drs to this day still not take women seriously they still treat them like small men

I still can't get over the Viagra story in CCP's Invisible Women - it was tested as heart medication and during that process its well-known benefits for men were discovered. Later tests showed that it relieved serious period pain over four hours but the male review panel, refused further funding into this because 'cramps' weren't a public health priority.