Company Gives Women Leave For Their Periods And It's About Freaking Time

This company is recognizing the need to give women more work flexibility during their periods

Ah, periods. Cramping, bloating, headaches, mood swings — not to mention, actual blood coming out of you for several days straight. If this happened to a man, is there any question whether he’d miss work for it once in a while? Yet, women deal with it every month and largely, continue on with life as usual. But should they have to? One British employer doesn’t think so and has instituted a policy to allow women more flexibility during that special time of the month.

According to Independent, a UK community interest firm called Coexist has announced a “period policy” to help women and “create a happier and healthier working environment.” Coexist director Bex Baxter explains, “As a manager of staff I have seen women really suffer with their periods and I have found them doubled over in a lot of pain.” She adds, “They feel guilty and ashamed for taking time off and often sit at their desks in silence not wanting to acknowledge it.”

Hell yes. Finally, someone gets it. The pain and misery of our periods is aside from the annoyance of having to covertly transport tampons to the bathroom amid gawking male co-workers and the worry that we’ll somehow leak blood onto our work clothes. If they even fit, that is, due to the horrible bloat some women experience.

Periods are fucking miserable and in the true spirit of women, we usually solider on. But why should we have to? If companies acknowledged what a literal pain they are, maybe women could get a little flexibility to shorten their work days when Aunt Flo visits or possibly, work from home.

And because it can’t be stressed enough — let’s acknowledge that if this happened to men, their whole world would stop until they felt normal again. Christ, there are men who would miss work for a particularly painful paper cut. Why should women be forced to suffer with their bodies in revolt for nearly a week straight?

Independent cites a statistic from the NHS suggesting that 90% of women experience period pain. This is basically most of the female work force, so it’s not as though this policy would only help a handful of people. However, there is also the fact that some view this kind of policy as “discriminatory” as though both men and women bleed from their genitals for a week each month with only women getting the preferential treatment. Sorry, that’s nonsense.

The fact is, this only happens to women and to make things equal with men who don’t experience any such bodily upset, it’s important that employers try to work with women so they can be their most productive despite the monthly obstacle most of us deal with.