Betts sums up how I feel about it: “I wouldn’t want to apply for designated time out – not because I don’t like talking about periods, I talk about mine with man, woman and child – but because I don’t want women to be reduced to their biology any more than they are now. This policy plays into the hands of
But you can choose not to drink so much that you are too ill to work the next day. Women knocked out by their period for half a day or more have no such choice. And to dissemble, month after month, that your dishwasher exploded or you have got norovirus again feels morally wrong. And yet to confess what is going on – your cervix is dilating in an indescribably slow and torturously painful manner – feels like an unprofessional over-share.
But according to others working in the equality sphere, this attitude lacks vision and ambition. Sophie Creese is the founder of, which works directly with businesses to tackle issues such as menstruation leave. She thinks that if we don’t start a frank conversation now, we will never get anywhere. Creese rejects the idea that an employee-wide, no-questions-asked “sick leave”, as implemented by some companies such as Google, is the answer. First, you are not “ill” when you have a period, even a troublesome one. Second, what happens if a woman uses up her sick leave due to her period – and then actually does get ill? Third, we would still be stuck in a situation where women are forced to conceal basic facts about their lives, Creese says.