“You're upset — you must be on your period.”
It's a comment arguably every woman has heard at some point in her life, and when said in the workplace, it can be infuriating and, let's face it, embarrassing.
But while jokes are often made about "that time of the month,'' menstrual issues can have serious consequences for women’s
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Three in five women have used up
Two years ago, Intimina introduced a policy that allows its own employees to utilize what they dub Menstrual Care Days, letting workers arrange and rearrange meetings based on their menstrual cycle in order to increase productivity. Women working at Intimina are able to arrive at work one hour later than usual to account for increased tiredness, one of the key symptoms of menstruation. The company also provides women with free eco-friendly menstrual care allowances.
“We believe it’s important that every woman feels empowered not just on their period but throughout their whole menstrual cycle,” says Danela Zagar, Intimina global brand manager. “Which is why we have introduced this policy to help ensure that our teams can take advantage of the many positive side effects that our periods bring.”
Women lose an average of nine days of work productivity each year due to menstrual cramp discomfort, according to a 2017 study published in the British Medical Journal. Twenty-six thousand of the 33,000 women surveyed in that study said they often push through the pain each month, but admit that as a result, they are not working at 100% productivity.
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“It is a well-known fact that menstruation comes with different symptoms which can vary from woman to woman. Some are experiencing light periods without feeling any of the typical side effects, and on the other hand, there are women who seek medical help,” Zagar said in the survey. “Women are often too embarrassed to speak about the problems they are experiencing, which leads us to the defeating statistics we can also see in this survey.”
To Zagar’s point, 52% of the women surveyed by Intimina have had a bad experience asking for or receiving advice or help from someone else, which has left 46% of them feeling lost or alone when a potential health concern arises. Additionally, three in 10 of the women surveyed have had their menstrual pain minimized by others with phrases like, “the pain can’t be that bad” or “you’re being dramatic.” Other women said they were told they’d feel better if they just exercised, drank tea or went to sleep.
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Employers have made great strides in making employees feel more comfortable discussing their mental health and financial wellness needs through the use of specific benefits and policies that work to remove the stigma around those topics, but no such efforts have really been made for women as it relates to their period — and the data suggests this is long overdue.
Sixty-four percent of women are in support of normalizing conversations around menstruation, according to the survey, yet 44% don’t feel comfortable talking to anyone in their life about their period, and 11% don’t like talking about it at all. Three in five of the women surveyed said they prefer to deal with health-related concerns on their own instead of asking for advice or help. Additionally, 40% of women said they have not confided in their primary care doctor about their overall health concerns.
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Just like mental health and financial wellness concerns, open conversations and education can help to remove the stigma and make women more comfortable discussing this issue, and more importantly, seek help when they need to.
“For too long premenstrual symptoms have been looked upon negatively by women and we want to help encourage them to embrace and take charge of the way their bodies work,” Zagar says. “In turn, we hope that this will help increase productivity, happiness, and satisfaction in the workplace.”
