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A sweeping reform bill is updating the country’s policies on reproductive health. If passed, it would grant women struggling with their periods paid time off every single month.
For those of us who menstruate, it’s not uncommon that we often feel conditioned to accept that debilitating pain is normal, nay something we should pay no attention to.
In fact, ask anyone with a regular period about this, and I’m sure they’d readily list off the occasions on which they felt compelled to keep going, regardless of the discomfort brought on by their time of the month.
To put this into perspective, previous studies estimate that 60 to 90 per cent of young women worldwide suffer from dysmenorrhea.
And although exact figures are difficult to verify, a significant majority of them communicated their reluctance to let it affect their daily lives, whether or not it impedes their capacity to focus.
Simply put, despite recent strides towards closing the gender health gap, outdated attitudes prevail, and no matter how forcefully we’re hit by the mental or physical symptoms of our cycles, we’re still encouraged to ignore them.
This may be about to change, however, as Spain’s socialist-led coalition government is preparing to introduce a law that would grant menstruating employees paid leave.
It seems they’ve heard the cries of those among us most severely impacted by our ovaries, who during those dreaded few days must experience what I can only liken to being punched repeatedly in the abdomen for hours on end. I’m sure Professor John Guillebaud’s finding that it can sometimes ‘feel as bad as a heart attack’ will help you muster up the image.
‘When there’s a problem that can’t be solved medically, we think it’s very sensible to have temporary sick leave,’ Ángela Rodríguez, the secretary of state for equality, told El Periódico.
‘It’s important to be clear about what a painful period is – we’re not talking about slight discomfort, but about serious symptoms such as diarrhoea, fever and bad headaches.’
