In a viral stand-up set Ghosts and Periods, comic Urooj Ashfaq teases out a hypothesis: “Agar mardon ko 150 bar period hua hota, toh ab hum period jayanti mana rahe hote. There would be a period minister and a PMS Relief Fund.” The line draws laughter, but the satire lands hard. If men menstruated, periods would likely be a symbol of masculine pride, wrapped in government-backed policies, social empathy, and institutional support.
Ashfaq’s joke finds its roots in Gloria Steinem’s 1978 essay, ‘If Men Could Menstruate’. In it, she writes, “…the characteristics of the powerful, whatever they may be, are thought to be better than the characteristics of the powerless — and logic has nothing to do with it. What would happen, for instance, if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not? The answer is clear — menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event…”
Simply put, it would be woven seamlessly into public life.
Karnataka’s approval of one paid menstrual leave every month, applicable to government offices, multinational companies and industries, follows in the footsteps of Bihar (1992), Kerala (2023), and Odisha (2024). But its recognition of the importance of menstrual health “as a fundamental part of women’s rights and workplace welfare” still feels like a hard-won battle because in workplaces designed by men for men, policies that centre women’s physiological realities appear to be radical departures.
We live in a reality where women’s bodies are seen as deviations from the norm that is male comfort. From temperature settings to the rigidity of schedules to office ergonomics to assessment criteria, nearly everything about the modern workplace is calibrated to male biology and life patterns. Women experience them on borrowed terms, through menstruation, pregnancy, and caregiving. In this framework, they need “special” accommodation rather than being part of the baseline policy design. And so, menstrual leave — something so basic it should be unremarkable — has taken decades to even enter global policymaking.
The conversation around menstrual leave has had a long, complicated arc. The erstwhile USSR was the first to institute a menstrual leave policy in 1922, but it was retracted within five years. Japan introduced a menstrual leave policy in 1947, followed by South Korea in 1953. Spain became the first European nation to legislate paid menstrual leave in 2023. In April, Portugal introduced a more limited policy for those diagnosed with endometriosis or adenomyosis. But the validation of equality on paper becomes a challenge in implementation. In Spain, the number of women availing of menstrual leave remains negligible. Likewise, in Japan, low uptake is linked to discrimination, cultural stigma and reinforcement of stereotypes. In many systems, the sanction of leave depends on disclosures and medical certificates, a tedious, intrusive process at the best of times. In effect, policies meant to empower women get trapped in the very structures of bias they were designed to challenge.
India reflects this ambivalence. In July 2024, responding to a petition to include menstrual leave for women under the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, the Supreme Court dismissed it, stating that “mandating such leave will lead to women being shunned from the workforce” and advised the Centre to frame a model policy in consultation with states and stakeholders. In December 2023, the then Union Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani had had similar reservations, speaking in Rajya Sabha against paid menstrual leaves so that “a natural part of a woman’s life journey” did not open her up to discrimination.
The implication is not without merit. The pathologisation of a biological process can have unintended consequences in a workplace where women are already at a disadvantage. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2024 shows that women in India earn only about Rs 40 for every Rs 100 earned by men. There is also the matter of narrowing representation further up the hierarchy. Women make up just 26 per cent of the Indian workforce in 2025, according to the State of Inclusion: Where We Stand in 2025 report by Great Place to Work, a global consultancy that partners with organisations to improve workplace culture. An acknowledgement of menstrual discomfort, of conditions such as endometriosis and dysmenorrhea, or, simply, of biology, therefore, becomes a potential liability in the eyes of employers, a reason to doubt women’s productivity or commitment. The Centre’s draft Menstrual Hygiene Policy has languished in legislative limbo since 2023. The Right of Women to Menstrual Leave and Free Access to Menstrual Health Products Bill, 2022, which proposed three days of paid menstrual leave for cis-women and others, has had a similar trajectory. The hesitation reveals a persistent anxiety: That recognising the female body in policy might reinforce its perceived fragility. And so, it fuels cultures of presenteeism, of misuse at both ends.
At heart, patriarchy’s discomfort isn’t really with menstruation itself; it’s with what it symbolises: A reminder that the default worker is not necessarily male. This is why menstrual leave, when offered, is frequently treated as a concession rather than a correction, an inconvenient disruption to the male order of work itself, and hence, “unfair” or “unequal”. This masculine calculus of fairness misunderstands equality altogether. Equality does not mean identical treatment. It means equitable access to the same chance at thriving. It means building systems that respond equally to the differing needs of men and women. Menstrual leave is not an extra benefit but a corrective lens, a recognition that biology interacts with labour differently for different bodies.
Karnataka’s inclusion of private-sector workers marks a rare expansion beyond government offices. But what the debate truly requires is a reimagination of the workplace. If that feels radical, it is only because patriarchy has made the perfectly normal into the impossibly political.
paromita.chakrabarti@expressindia.com
