India’s top court has rejected a petition seeking menstrual leave for working women and female students with the judges saying if they were to make such a law, “no-one will hire women”.
The two-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Surya Kant said mandatory leave would make young women think they were “not at par” with their male colleagues and would be “harmful for their growth”.
The subject of menstrual leave has long polarised Indian society - while many agree with the justices’ views, others argue that a day or two off can help women deal with painful periods.
Some states and a number of large private companies have introduced menstrual leaves for employees over the years.
The top court’s comments came while hearing a petition filed by lawyer Shailendra Mani Tripathi, seeking a national menstrual leave policy, legal website LiveLaw reported.
Tripathi later told news agency IANS that he had hoped that working women would receive “two-to-three days of leave” to account for menstrual difficulties.
The judges, however, said that introducing such a policy would not benefit women - instead, it would harm them by reinforcing gender stereotypes and affecting their employability.
Do doctors in India have to tell the employer why their employee is not able to work? I would think that just getting a doctors note would solve the problem.
… of course that would assume that the doctor is not a piece of shit and accepts menstrual issues as a valid reason to stay home resting.
Oh how I hate how shitty the world is and always has been. Plaargh.