I am compelled to write this essay in a deeply subjective tone and tenor. Only because an honourable minister chose to share her "personal views" as a "menstruating woman", I'm responding to the said views as another "menstruating woman".
I also write as a menstruating woman who hasn't taken a single day off work because of menstruation in my 15 years of work life. I should get an award for not seeking a "paid period leave". My periods are anything but pleasant. Actually, they are deadly. Yet, I have run a half-marathon on the first morning of my period. I have travelled to villages, hiked the mountains, trekked in forests, cycled across valleys, and used makeshift sanitary items when surprised by a period. I have a clinical diagnosis of obsessive hygiene - my domestic fights are only about cleanliness. I am constantly worrying whether I'm subjecting people around to my bodily odours: mouth, armpits, feet, or period. When I'm menstruating, my hygiene-related anxiety peaks.
Before moving further, however, let's get certain things out of the way.
It's not a matter of hygiene. It's a serious health concern. Yes, the oft-joked-about and chronically meme-fied period. When we use words like hygiene, the onus is conveniently shifted to the suffering individual. Somehow, it is the woman who is responsible for, firstly, not dealing with periods cleanly and bravely, and then feeling entitled enough to demand a paid leave for it. It is a part of a woman's existence, after all.
By that argument, sexual harassment is a part of a woman's existence, too. Shall we shut our eyes to it in the name of equality and say that it's not a "handicap"?
Should women get their uteruses removed before joining the workforce? You want productivity? Here's productivity. Ironically, it's the same set of people that demonises women for choosing to not have children. Productivity without reproduction doesn't bring women laurels. Basically, women need to be producing and raising children quietly. Not a squeak about an enabling environment. Because, hey, it's not a disability! Work like you don't have children, be a mother like you don't have work. Ask for nothing for it will upend the equity cart. And, remember, it's not a handicap!
We live in a country where menstrual health is in the pits. The informal sector is like an active killing field for women with little to no access to toilets, clean water, or even privacy to handle menstrual products. The corporate world, on the other hand, with its glitzy feminist campaigns, kills women metaphorically. By punishing them for being women. Women continue to be subtly penalised for seeking maternity leave, childcare leave, safe commute to work, safe working environments, or mechanisms to deal with sexual harassment.
Before anyone quotes the latest women in workforce statistics to gloss over the issue of equity, here's the truth.
Yes, as the periodic labour force surveys show, female participation in the labour force has gone up from 36.9 per cent in 2017-18 to 42.4 per cent in 2022-23. But the numbers are made up largely of rural women engaged in either self-employment enterprises (family work, agriculture et al) or NREGA work. Many women are finding the corporate world biased against them and are, rightly, choosing to quit.
Why bear the biological burden of maternity and be called a freeloader on top of it? It is not women's responsibility alone to keep the human race alive, even after being sniggered at and ridiculed for the process involved. Because reproduction is only seen as a "part of a woman's existence", men can easily go about being unaffected by it, unless they can somehow profit from it.
The patriarchal way of looking at reproduction is the reason why endometriosis or dysmenorrhoea, cervical cancer, hormonal imbalance et al are not seen as serious health concerns despite impeding women's everyday functioning in a significant manner. Postpartum depression is still something of a legend. Why go to boring science when something can be easily explained by epithets like "moody", "weak", or "bad mother"? In many cases, it's the women who are the harshest in their condemnation of such "weak" women. Because in the arena of patriarchy, they must play their best to retain their tiny corner of influence.
When I quit my job, my leave encashment amount was higher than my monthly salary. Forget about period leaves, I didn't even take marriage leave and decided to marry during a long weekend in December. I've braved my worst period days, stared blankly at the computer screen, and ordered large helpings of desserts at my desk in the office. Not because my employers were particularly averse to the idea of paid leave. (In fact, I once turned up very late to the office and told my boss that I overslept. I did not get penalised for it.) I continued to work under physical and mental distress because our general work culture punishes any kind of weakness. We women have to always be on top of everything, whether our bodies and minds are up to it or not.
Things spoken from a pulpit, religious or secular, have far-reaching consequences. When we argue against paid menstrual leave, we make it even more difficult for women to find a stable footing in the workforce. And when menstruating women do it, it is even worse.
(Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based author and academic.)
Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author.