Prepare for the whole argument of “whAt ABoUt thE mEn tHoUGh”.
Long overdue. For some, period pain can be mild cramping that’s eased with normal pain relief. For others, it can feel identical to contractions, where no pain relief short of an epidural is going to touch the sides. Period pain is no joke, and there should be no expectation that someone has to go to work when they can barely walk.
This should be a thing already
In most cases, forcing someone who is in moderate or severe pain to work is bad for both the employer and employee
Employers look after your workforce and it will pay dividends for you!
This is a great thing, although it might increase the pay gap a little further unfortunately
I don’t understand exactly why sick leave as it is set up in the U.K. needs some additional, condition based law. Is it the use of government funding from day 1 that’s important here? If so why? All I can see is that women who are currently using sick leave for this issue will just get SSP instead, wouldn’t that be worse?
It’s a medical problem, so already covered by sick leave like every other medical problem. There isn’t really a need for this.
In an ideal world no one would have to work in pain. However I know what companies are like and I can bet a lot will just make it very difficult to work for now.
Partner has endometriosis, boggles my mind that she is expected to go to work while going through that pain.
I’m a woman and I don’t see this as any different from any other medical condition. One can ask for accommodations from work based on one’s medical issues, I don’t see why this particular problem requires specific legislation. The majority of women don’t suffer from debilitating cramps during their period. Especially if they’re on hormonal birth control which many are.
The instinct is that this sounds reasonable, but in the UK, we don’t need to give stick notes for short sickness absence, nor do we need to explain what is wrong. So I’m a little unclear what adopting this Spanish law would achieve for us. Gender and age based sickness rates indicate that women already are taking sick leave for menstrual period. I’m guessing something carefully crafted to give some protections for people in cases where it’s a repeated long term problem could be helpful. Not sure how it differs from any other long term condition in that case though (and I don’t know what protections are like for those, despite having a chronic condition myself).
I would be a little worried about the impact on gender bias in hiring though.
Can I identify as a lady and get time off??
Just to add a bit of much needed insight to this thread, I have endometriosis and had to become a freelancer to manage this because the repeated absences became too stressful to handle in a full time job. Having to explain repeatedly to changing managers, dealing with cruel managers and judgmental colleagues, passive aggressiveness etc. meant I needed more flexibility.
My symptoms aren’t even that bad compared to some women. I didn’t need time off every month. It has still affected my career hugely and even as a freelancer I have to be careful about which jobs I take knowing that some will he very hostile to me missing a couple of days every month or two.
These charities represent women whose entire lives, talents, contributions to society are shattered because of rigid and old fashioned work regulations. With just a fraction more flexibility they could be given the opportunity to be valuable employees and colleagues.
For anyone saying “what about X” – well initiatives like this are what pave the way for flexibility over other conditions as well. If your instinct is to snap that you work hard and other people shouldn’t get the time off, rethink who that thought is in service to. Don’t we all deserve better flexibility and a better work life balance where we aren’t dragging ourselves to work when we are sick?
I think its a good idea. If somethings too painful to work, then its too painful. The thing is, there’s a type who simply won’t accept period pains as an acceptable reason. Its specifically for them that I think it might need to be put into law, in some way.
Isn’t that just the sick leave we already have? If you can’t work for whatever reason, you go off sick.
I am actually against this.
It seems stupid to me – we don’t give anyone else with long term conditions ‘COPD leave’ or ‘mental health leave’ we just call it sick.
Even more, this gives people an additional 36 days off a year if they want to claim ‘menstrual leave’.
Even the Spanish politicians who brought it in, are stupid imo. Just put it down as sick leave like literally every other condition?
I’d say there are two things about this:
– As far as I’m aware it’s already covered under sick leave. Yes, that means some women might have to go to their possibly male superiors and explain they’re suffering really debilitating period pain. I’m sure we can all cope with that idea.
– This is the really dangerous part of this: it risks making official the idea that women are somehow less capable of holding down a job than men are. Of course plenty of men also end up with chronic pain (which is also covered under sick leave and, in extremis, disability rules), but if you put in place a set of rules which specifically state that women need more time off than men, then you legitimise the argument that women are less useful employees. Because, under those rules, they literally are.
I don’t think we want to legitimise that argument, do we…
Fair enough, there’s no point in asking people to work if they’re in pain.
What I want to know is, how do you arrange it?
I imagine that if you have a history of painful periods then you would get a Drs note, does that then allow you the extra sick days when you need it?
Or do you have to phone in and get a Drs note each time it happens?
It can take 2-3 days just to get a Drs appointment.
Nice, and guaranteed way of making sure companies will only hire men, as they would not be off sick for a couple of days every month.
I can already see this being abused by people who can’t be arsed coming into work.
I’m not sure this is the best solution to the issue. It could well discourage smaller businesses from employing younger women, as shit (and illegal) as that may be.
If you’re a small business owner with only a handful of employees, it could be prohibitively expensive to employ someone that you may have to cover for three days every month.
Rather than making this so specific, surely it would be better to improve sick leave conditions for all workers experiencing severe pain.
If you are suffering a cyclical pain, you shouldn’t be at work during the times you’re in pain.
I’m not talking about “What about men” but anyone who is suffering, it just so happens that women experience it about once a month so would majorly benefit from this.
Which is fine.
Then the the law will have to define implicitly or explicitly what a woman is.
My wife has polycystic ovaries which give her terrible period pains and I so wish there was a mechanism by which she could take days off or even work from home during the worst episodes without risking repercussions from her employer. Periods pains can be no joke, chaps. Make sure you take her pains seriously and do what you can to help her manage it.
Why is special leave needed for a specific ailment? Will there be special migraine leave? Or bad cold leave? How long will it take to have sunburn leave? Or hangover leave?
As a woman who suffers from PCOS, this sounds like a great idea. However, my biggest concern is that now people will be hesitant to hire women because of this.
I’d rather see a reform of sick leave in the UK in general. Being unpaid for the first few days is useless and SSP is such a pitiful amount its barely batter than unpaid.
Even if you do get it, if a pattern of sickness can be established such as every month then you can be reprimanded or lose your job.
There’s a culture of unless your vomiting or diarrhea you should be going to work, anything less than that can just be worked through.
So 50% of the workforce is going to stay at home for 5 days every month, and employers won’t be allowed to do anything about it? That doesn’t seem particularly sustainable to me, and it seems like something that would lead to discrimination against women – why would employers hire women if they are legally guaranteed to be about 15% less productive?
If my boss hired someone who took a week off every month for period pain, unfortunately she wouldn’t last very long. He’d find a reason to get rid. It’s sad but that’s the truth.
Does stuck leave not cover it?
I get painful erections. Do I get to have it off too?
Yeah, why not. The only real question that I have is: why not simply call for leave for severe pain? Does specifying a specific cause help or hinder the argument?
My periods have been so much worse since perimenopause started. I used to go to work and have to struggle through crippling pain that doubles you over, plus an awful lot of lightheadness and feeling dizzy. If you feel rough like this and you have a manual, physically-demanding job, it’s an accident waiting to happen.
3 days off per period is 36 days a year. That’s over double the annual leave available for a man.
There’s going to be a lot of resentment among the people who don’t get double annual leave and a lot of reluctance to hire people who get double annual leave.
In government jobs they’ll obviously still hire women, but then you’ll just end up in the situation where every female police officer or government worker is taking the full allowance every month, knowing their boss can’t touch them for it. When you’re a woman expected to do that kind of job on 22k a year you’re taking every single one of those days off.
36 comments
They should.
Prepare for the whole argument of “whAt ABoUt thE mEn tHoUGh”.
Long overdue. For some, period pain can be mild cramping that’s eased with normal pain relief. For others, it can feel identical to contractions, where no pain relief short of an epidural is going to touch the sides. Period pain is no joke, and there should be no expectation that someone has to go to work when they can barely walk.
This should be a thing already
In most cases, forcing someone who is in moderate or severe pain to work is bad for both the employer and employee
Employers look after your workforce and it will pay dividends for you!
This is a great thing, although it might increase the pay gap a little further unfortunately
I don’t understand exactly why sick leave as it is set up in the U.K. needs some additional, condition based law. Is it the use of government funding from day 1 that’s important here? If so why? All I can see is that women who are currently using sick leave for this issue will just get SSP instead, wouldn’t that be worse?
It’s a medical problem, so already covered by sick leave like every other medical problem. There isn’t really a need for this.
In an ideal world no one would have to work in pain. However I know what companies are like and I can bet a lot will just make it very difficult to work for now.
Partner has endometriosis, boggles my mind that she is expected to go to work while going through that pain.
I’m a woman and I don’t see this as any different from any other medical condition. One can ask for accommodations from work based on one’s medical issues, I don’t see why this particular problem requires specific legislation. The majority of women don’t suffer from debilitating cramps during their period. Especially if they’re on hormonal birth control which many are.
The instinct is that this sounds reasonable, but in the UK, we don’t need to give stick notes for short sickness absence, nor do we need to explain what is wrong. So I’m a little unclear what adopting this Spanish law would achieve for us. Gender and age based sickness rates indicate that women already are taking sick leave for menstrual period. I’m guessing something carefully crafted to give some protections for people in cases where it’s a repeated long term problem could be helpful. Not sure how it differs from any other long term condition in that case though (and I don’t know what protections are like for those, despite having a chronic condition myself).
I would be a little worried about the impact on gender bias in hiring though.
Can I identify as a lady and get time off??
Just to add a bit of much needed insight to this thread, I have endometriosis and had to become a freelancer to manage this because the repeated absences became too stressful to handle in a full time job. Having to explain repeatedly to changing managers, dealing with cruel managers and judgmental colleagues, passive aggressiveness etc. meant I needed more flexibility.
My symptoms aren’t even that bad compared to some women. I didn’t need time off every month. It has still affected my career hugely and even as a freelancer I have to be careful about which jobs I take knowing that some will he very hostile to me missing a couple of days every month or two.
These charities represent women whose entire lives, talents, contributions to society are shattered because of rigid and old fashioned work regulations. With just a fraction more flexibility they could be given the opportunity to be valuable employees and colleagues.
For anyone saying “what about X” – well initiatives like this are what pave the way for flexibility over other conditions as well. If your instinct is to snap that you work hard and other people shouldn’t get the time off, rethink who that thought is in service to. Don’t we all deserve better flexibility and a better work life balance where we aren’t dragging ourselves to work when we are sick?
I think its a good idea. If somethings too painful to work, then its too painful. The thing is, there’s a type who simply won’t accept period pains as an acceptable reason. Its specifically for them that I think it might need to be put into law, in some way.
Isn’t that just the sick leave we already have? If you can’t work for whatever reason, you go off sick.
I am actually against this.
It seems stupid to me – we don’t give anyone else with long term conditions ‘COPD leave’ or ‘mental health leave’ we just call it sick.
Even more, this gives people an additional 36 days off a year if they want to claim ‘menstrual leave’.
Even the Spanish politicians who brought it in, are stupid imo. Just put it down as sick leave like literally every other condition?
I’d say there are two things about this:
– As far as I’m aware it’s already covered under sick leave. Yes, that means some women might have to go to their possibly male superiors and explain they’re suffering really debilitating period pain. I’m sure we can all cope with that idea.
– This is the really dangerous part of this: it risks making official the idea that women are somehow less capable of holding down a job than men are. Of course plenty of men also end up with chronic pain (which is also covered under sick leave and, in extremis, disability rules), but if you put in place a set of rules which specifically state that women need more time off than men, then you legitimise the argument that women are less useful employees. Because, under those rules, they literally are.
I don’t think we want to legitimise that argument, do we…
Fair enough, there’s no point in asking people to work if they’re in pain.
What I want to know is, how do you arrange it?
I imagine that if you have a history of painful periods then you would get a Drs note, does that then allow you the extra sick days when you need it?
Or do you have to phone in and get a Drs note each time it happens?
It can take 2-3 days just to get a Drs appointment.
Nice, and guaranteed way of making sure companies will only hire men, as they would not be off sick for a couple of days every month.
I can already see this being abused by people who can’t be arsed coming into work.
I’m not sure this is the best solution to the issue. It could well discourage smaller businesses from employing younger women, as shit (and illegal) as that may be.
If you’re a small business owner with only a handful of employees, it could be prohibitively expensive to employ someone that you may have to cover for three days every month.
Rather than making this so specific, surely it would be better to improve sick leave conditions for all workers experiencing severe pain.
If you are suffering a cyclical pain, you shouldn’t be at work during the times you’re in pain.
I’m not talking about “What about men” but anyone who is suffering, it just so happens that women experience it about once a month so would majorly benefit from this.
Which is fine.
Then the the law will have to define implicitly or explicitly what a woman is.
My wife has polycystic ovaries which give her terrible period pains and I so wish there was a mechanism by which she could take days off or even work from home during the worst episodes without risking repercussions from her employer. Periods pains can be no joke, chaps. Make sure you take her pains seriously and do what you can to help her manage it.
Why is special leave needed for a specific ailment? Will there be special migraine leave? Or bad cold leave? How long will it take to have sunburn leave? Or hangover leave?
As a woman who suffers from PCOS, this sounds like a great idea. However, my biggest concern is that now people will be hesitant to hire women because of this.
I’d rather see a reform of sick leave in the UK in general. Being unpaid for the first few days is useless and SSP is such a pitiful amount its barely batter than unpaid.
Even if you do get it, if a pattern of sickness can be established such as every month then you can be reprimanded or lose your job.
There’s a culture of unless your vomiting or diarrhea you should be going to work, anything less than that can just be worked through.
So 50% of the workforce is going to stay at home for 5 days every month, and employers won’t be allowed to do anything about it? That doesn’t seem particularly sustainable to me, and it seems like something that would lead to discrimination against women – why would employers hire women if they are legally guaranteed to be about 15% less productive?
If my boss hired someone who took a week off every month for period pain, unfortunately she wouldn’t last very long. He’d find a reason to get rid. It’s sad but that’s the truth.
Does stuck leave not cover it?
I get painful erections. Do I get to have it off too?
Yeah, why not. The only real question that I have is: why not simply call for leave for severe pain? Does specifying a specific cause help or hinder the argument?
My periods have been so much worse since perimenopause started. I used to go to work and have to struggle through crippling pain that doubles you over, plus an awful lot of lightheadness and feeling dizzy. If you feel rough like this and you have a manual, physically-demanding job, it’s an accident waiting to happen.
Is it too late to identify as a woman?
this will get abused 100%
Those, those, workers, people, those, someone, people, those, those, workers, people, those …
​
WOMEN WOMEN WOMEN
3 days off per period is 36 days a year. That’s over double the annual leave available for a man.
There’s going to be a lot of resentment among the people who don’t get double annual leave and a lot of reluctance to hire people who get double annual leave.
In government jobs they’ll obviously still hire women, but then you’ll just end up in the situation where every female police officer or government worker is taking the full allowance every month, knowing their boss can’t touch them for it. When you’re a woman expected to do that kind of job on 22k a year you’re taking every single one of those days off.