It’s been more than a month since Zomato announced its period policy which stormed the Internet. With the good, bad, and ugly remarks, the people of the Internet reacted to this inception in Zomato’s policy. Zomato, the global food delivery giant, instituted India’s policy, allowing women and transgender people up to 10 days off per year to combat the stigma that surrounds menstruation in India and comfort the women of the Zomato workforce.”There shouldn’t be any shame or stigma attached to applying for a period leave,” Zomato chief executive Deepinder Goyal.
Before I get on with the article, I must add for the few people who must be aware of the menstruations of women, the rupturing of the uterus lining which results in the bleeding for four to five days of the month, I would like to bring to your notice that, menstruation is not a homogeneous experience in terms of the pain experienced, and the respective threshold to tolerate the same widely varies.
For someone like me, who has never experienced period pain or cramps of the sort that disrupt my mood or work, I had a hard time understanding that it’s not the same pain for women ranging from different medical histories and ages. The medical name of the period cramps of a severe kind is “dysmenorrhea.” The most common symptoms are cramps in the lower part of the belly and/or lower back pain during your period.
Given this heterogeneous experience of menstruation among women who experience the biological phenomena every month from puberty till menopause, the period policy can be anything but an end-all; for the progressive move made by women, who in their company constitute 35% of the total workforce. While a single corporation cannot battle the age-old drawback, in its small capacity, which is limited to the cities and Zomato women employers, it is a step forward to give agency to women in a man’s world; who have always been asked to ‘man up’, ‘pop a pill and carry on’, or ‘just power through it’.
This policy is representative of the women in the workforce and the necessary consideration for biology’s sake. If you kept two poultry animals on a farm, would you expect them to function the same, or would you expect them to perform with the ‘consideration’ to their biological determinism? What would make for an equal ground?
We are well aware of the patriarchal society we live in, the sexism towards women and women at work is unfortunately dated centuries and decades back. Even today, we are fighting for equal rights, equal pay, and equal treatment for merit. While we have seen improvement and take long strides towards a society of equal opportunities for women, we must not forget the inherent lack of agency women have incorporated in India.
Something as simple as your gender becomes a deterrent in the kind of sector you work in, the projects you land, the opportunities you are considered, even matters as intricate and personal as your marital status, the choice to start a family.
If we don’t want to ask the big questions, just the washrooms’ lack of infrastructure must provide water facilities, sanitary napkins, and wipes. Given this heavy history, which makes its way dragging to the present, the period policy is a small and significant step to normalize humanity’s ‘second sex.’
In the many articles, panel discussions, and tweets that I observed, a very few minds highlighted their nuanced opinion; most were in a hurry to stand in the for or against. However, except for the nuanced opinions, both the extremist for and against did not settle with me. The ones who were ‘for the period policy’ believed so, for it would give them the rest without affecting the sick leaves or the salary deduction.
That makes sense, but it made me wonder if these leaves would still serve the purpose of addressing the comfort amongst employees and reduce ‘shame or stigma attached to applying for a period leave’ with just the facilitation?
The solution of period leaves needs to be facilitated by the company’s culture in making women comfortable, too, right?
Secondly, the women who were highly against it, firstly, I do not understand you. For example, in particular, one tweet said that ‘this would put all the work women have done in past to prove their mettle, go to waste,’ and the past no longer is considered to take up challenging work. It’s no secret women have a genital which is different from a man’s. We have a womb inside of us that will potentially conceive a baby. The uterus lining shedding, a biological function, needs certain consideration in a sphere until it happens.
This organization holds men and women, not ignorance, consideration, and representation welcome women in the workplace to work better. If anything, the period policy empowers women.
Just think of the young girl who will one day enter the workspace knowing that she doesn’t have to ‘whisper’ for a sanitary napkin in the workplace or feel like something has been ‘granted’ to her when she wants to rest during her periods, isn’t that more than a step back, a giant leap forward for the women in the workplace?
The nuanced opinions talked about many things that lead towards the point of how the period policy is only a way forward to providing agency to women in the workplace, a small brick placed in the right direction. At the same time, we still have a whole bridge to make for women’s safety and operation in the workplace.
While the enactment of this period policy is a solution-oriented approach, there is a lot of work which needs to be done in the back-end of it, like the comfort we place in the organization for comfortable conversations on periods, the confidence we place in our women that this would not affect their perception and potential as a provider in the workplace, the menstrual hygiene maintenance in the workplace, etc.
These days what starts as a heated debate on the Internet, even a thing of great importance and dissent, soon loses its steam, and we forget why we were so angry about it and why it matters. Thus, making such decisions in systems have a way of inculcating the change, for real. I don’t know your opinion on the period policy but we must start a conversation at the workplace. This change was brought along for a micro of the Zomato corporation. Still, its function’s efficiency has the potential to be carried forward to different companies and empower their women in the macroscope.
Change starts small; its significance grows with time, with cultures, generations. If taken by more and more corporations, the conversation of the period policy has the power to seep in our work culture, which can then transcend to the much bigger, unorganized sector of work for women. And just like that, we would be set to create a working ground for women in which they don’t have to ‘man up’ to fit in. Beyond the internet heat and the twitter stream, this conversation is too important for us to not engage in and contribute to.