Written by: Akshita Pandey, Moitrayee Das
Even when a woman hunches over in pain on her desk at the office, she is expected to reply to all emails with a smile. She is expected to be productive and professional despite the pain that runs throughout her body, the fatigue that clouds her mind, and the nausea that secretly plagues her during this time. But once the issue of menstrual leave hits the public sphere, the topic inevitably turns away from pain to speculation. Will they use the leave wrong? Will companies stop hiring them?
Menstrual leave has become widespread in various parts of the world, but the adoption of such policies has revealed an even more awkward reality regarding contemporary workplaces. Organizational structures continue to have problems dealing with bodies that do not conform to the image of the ideal worker, an image shaped by the productivity rates of men over time. Menstrual leave has become something much more than just a policy matter; it has now become a political issue as well.
Some countries that have implemented menstrual leave policy include Spain, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Zambia, while many firms in India, United Kingdom, and the United States are considering adopting it (Kantor, 2026). Spain was the first European nation to adopt paid menstrual leave policy in 2023 for employees with very painful periods. However, despite its increasing popularity, it is still very controversial.
In many cases, menstrual leave presents a paradox in terms of workplace feminism. While some supporters of menstrual leave see it as recognition of biological facts and a way to enhance workplace dignity, opponents view it as a practice that may unwittingly perpetuate the stereotype of women being emotional and unreliable workers.
The above-mentioned contradiction is not just hypothetical. Studies have shown that symptoms associated with menstrual cycles substantially influence work efficiency and psychological state. In particular, Sohil et al. (2025) found that 45 per cent of people who experience a menstrual cycle report decreased productivity at work because of cramping, tiredness, headache, and other symptoms. Dysmenorrhoea is common for 50 to 90 per cent of all women worldwide, while severe pain can be observed in 10 to 20 per cent of cases (Levitt & Barnack-Tavlaris, 2020). Nevertheless, discussions of menstrual cycle issues at work are highly stigmatised.
The silence surrounding the issue of menstruation can be seen most prominently in India where menstruation is still considered a matter of social embarrassment even with the modernity of the city. Women are brought up with the belief that the discomfort associated with their periods should be borne in secret and silently. The practice of menstrual leave breaks through this silence by making menstruation a topic of discussion at work.
The problem is that menstrual leave is being introduced into work cultures that are already unequal. In such contexts, policies that are meant to support women can quickly become tools of exclusion.
A report on the Financial Times in 2026 emphasized the apprehensions of the employers regarding the possibility that the introduction of menstrual leave could cause complications for their recruitment policies and even make them suspect the reliability of female workers (Kantor, 2026). The apprehensions of the employers are quite realistic because of the nature of the patriarchal work markets in which women already suffer from prejudice related to motherhood and career advancement.
In India, this is of great concern because of the extremely low participation of females in the workforce. According to estimates provided by the World Bank, the participation rate of Indian women in the labour force stands at about 32%.
Women face structural obstacles like being exposed to risky working conditions, performing unpaid care work, a lack of child care facilities, and a discriminatory working environment. Menstrual leave alone will not be enough to solve these problems.
Menstrual leave is supported from the perspective of compassion and well-being but there are warnings not to take a biologically essentialist approach. How will the idea of granting women “special leave” monthly because their bodies require rest affect the sexist notion that women are innately less able as employees? Levitt & Barnack-Tavlaris (2020) suggest that menstrual leave can only be implemented if other cultural changes are made in the workplace.
This issue gets accentuated when one considers the fact that women’s bodies have always been considered in the domain of pathology. Right from the Victorian age when women were believed to be hysterical to the present age where men feel that women are too emotional to be good leaders, women’s biological nature has been used as a reason for their exclusion.
However, to reject the concept of menstruation leave totally misses the point regarding the actual suffering experienced by people. Severe conditions like endometriosis and adenomyosis continue to be underdiagnosed around the world. The National Library of Medicine states that endometriosis impacts about 10 percent of reproductive age women and leads to chronic pain, infertility, fatigue, and anxiety (Levitt & Barnack-Tavlaris, 2020). However, women have reported being told their pain is being dismissed by their employers, doctors, and even families.
The issue, then, is not whether menstrual pain exists. It is whether workplaces are capable of addressing it without reproducing discrimination.
Menstrual leave is currently discussed in polarised terms of either empowering or weak. The truth, however, lies in both perspectives. For one, menstrual leave provides workers with affirmation and respite from pain. On the other hand, it subjects them to discrimination by their organisations which may have a patriarchal culture.
This dilemma can be seen in places where menstrual leave has been in place before. In Japan, menstrual leave has been a legal right since 1947, but very few people have taken advantage of this leave. There are studies which show that a lot of women do not avail of the leave because of the fear of stigma, judgment, or burdening others (Tripathy et al., 2026).
In addition, menstrual leave discussions tend to completely ignore marginalised groups of people. The discussion that takes place in corporate settings regarding flexible leave tends to cater for office-based workers. What about the house helps, factory workers, sanitation workers, and gig-economy workers who can’t afford to take unpaid leave? In many cases, the reason why working-class women suffer from menstrual cramps is due to economic necessities and not empowerment.
This class perspective reveals the inadequacies of performative workplace progressivism. An organization that provides menstrual leave at the same time as retaining exploitation-driven workplaces is not feminist. Justice in the workplace is not about symbolic leave programs; rather, it demands flexible workplaces, access to health care, sanitary conditions, safety from psychological abuse, and the end of presenteeism.
The issue of whether menstrual leave should be gender neutral needs to be considered. Some women do not have their periods, nor do all people with periods identify as women. Modern debates have highlighted the need for inclusive language in the workplace that acknowledges transgender and non-binary identities. Yet, many menstrual leave policies still use fixed gender binaries, and thus exclude marginalised groups.
Menstrual leave became an issue in India following the adoption of rules by certain organisations and institutions for the provision of menstrual leave of one or two days each month. The Menstruation Benefit Bill would have provided legal backing to this right; however, there was immediate backlash to the bill. According to some, it would encourage businesses not to hire any women.
According to Roy (2025), menstrual leave can no longer be seen as an extra but rather as an issue of workplace justice. In this way, the issue of special treatment can be transformed into an issue of equal access to support systems. Nevertheless, even when focusing on issues of justice, it is impossible to ignore the capitalist nature of workplaces.
The most telling part about this issue of menstrual leave, possibly, is the fact that people feel uncomfortable when this is being discussed. Menstruation is one of the few biological processes left that people treat as something that is not appropriate for work or business discussions. It is okay to discuss migraines, infections, broken bones, but not to mention menstrual pains.
The question that needs to be addressed is not whether menstrual leave is necessary, but how to create a workplace culture wherein acknowledgment of bodily functions does not equate to professional repercussions. As long as this situation persists, menstrual leave will remain an uncomfortable balance of care and control.
References
Aggarwal, B. (2025). Articles – Manupatra. Manupatra.com. https://articles.manupatra.com/article-details/Menstrual-Leave-Necessity-or-Controversy
Kantor, A. (2026, June 16). Menstrual leave is more common, but it raises complex challenges. @FinancialTimes; Financial Times. https://www.ft.com/content/9ce4a9f0-652e-486d-aec0-c0bb37d856c3
Levitt, R. B., & Barnack-Tavlaris, J. L. (2020, July 25). Addressing Menstruation in the Workplace: The Menstrual Leave Debate (C. Bobel, I. T. Winkler, B. Fahs, K. A. Hasson, E. A. Kissling, & T.-A. Roberts, Eds.). PubMed; Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565643/
Roy, K. (2025, December 16). Beyond Biology: Why Menstrual Leave Is A Workplace Justice Issue- Not A Stigma Problem. Livelaw.in; Live Law. https://www.livelaw.in/lawschool/articles/paid-menstrual-leave-and-workplace-equality-debate-513415
Sohil, P. S., Mahajan, S. A., Murarkar, S. K., & Adhya, S. (2025). Let’s talk about it: The controversy surrounding menstrual leave policy. PubMed, 14(7), 3045–3046. https://doi.org/10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_1630_24
Tripathy, A., Dwivedi, R., Tripathy, T., Tripathy, B., Das, S., & Tripathy, S. (2026). The Issue of Menstrual Leave. Cross Currents, 2394-451X. https://doi.org/10.36344/ccijhss.2026.v12i05.002
Akshita Pandey is an undergraduate psychology student at FLAME University, Pune, and Moitrayee Das is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at FLAME University, Pune.