We've all had those days when
we're so overcome with cramps
that we want to call in sick and
stay curled up in bed all day rather
than get dressed up and attempt to
sit upright in a chair for eight hours.
But are your periods so bad that
you would want the option to take
a paid “menstrual leave?”
According to the
Atlantic(http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/should-women-get-paid-menstrual-leavedays/
370789/), in several, mostly East Asian counties, paid “menstrual leave” is a legal right for
female workers. [Tweet this fact(http://ctt.ec/cg8Vn)!] But the policies are not short of
controversy. Is the special treatment a human-rights move or is it cramping the feminism
movement as a form of reverse-sexism?
Japan, for example, has had seirikyuuka (literally meaning “physiological leave”) for intense
period pain since just after World War II. In 2013, Taiwan amended legislation allowing female
workers three additional days of menstrual leave a year, while Indonesian women are
guaranteed two days a month of menstrual leave. And in South Korea, female workers were
granted menstrual leave in a controversial policy in 2001. Even Russia proposed a “menstrual
leave” law last year that was quickly denounced by Russian feminists.
Should the United States be next? Tell us what you think! Do these PMS-prompted policies
further the notion that women are weak or are they simply accommodating a biological
difference between men and women? Comment below or tweet us