In a ground-breaking move, people in Spain are set to be granted paid menstrual leave — making it the first European country to enshrine such measures into law.
It means that those who menstruate will be able to take between three and five days of sick leave off every month. There are not restrictions on how many times Spaniards will be able to claim their sick leave, though they will need to get a doctor’s note each time.
Don’t listen to the naysayers, this represents a massive leap forward for the rights of women. In fact, it may prove to be one of the most effective ways of bringing about radical change to the attitudes and systems which govern our working world — a world created by and for men.
At almost every stage of their working lives, women still struggle to have their needs met by the systems we currently have in place. Most obviously this happens in motherhood. Despite the fact that the culture around parental leave is changing, when a couple becomes pregnant the vast majority of companies put the burden of care on the mother (many workplaces still don’t offer adequate paternity leave provisions) and then penalise her in myriad ways once she attempts to return to work. A robust legal framework to defend the rights of mothers has been in place for decades. And yet sociologists, politicians and equality campaigners continually complain of the ‘motherhood penalty’ which affects women’s pay, perceived competence and benefits in the workplace once she has children.
Clearly menstruating isn’t the same as having children, though it is something most women experience and it’s not without its difficulties. The largest menstrual study to date, conducted in 2021 by Radboud University Medical Centre, found that one in three women experience such intense pain during their periods that they are unable to carry out daily tasks — and over half of these women kept their symptoms a secret. The impact on a woman’s career, not to mention on her mental and physical health, could be alleviated if workplaces were configured to be more sympathetic and to offer more support to women experiencing these issues. But no dice.
The beauty of Spain’s policy is that it hits them where it hurts: in the economy. Last year, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research, poor health and sick days cost the British economy £43 billion. Were it to be implemented here, paid period leave would undoubtedly incentivise businesses to begin asking serious questions about how they can best support women going through period-related difficulties.
I’m not saying I support the idea that menstruation should be treated like some kind of illness. There’s something ghettoising about equating a period to an illness, so of course, this policy is far from perfect. But at least it’s a step towards creating workplaces which recognise and cater for the needs of women.
