Readers torn over Bella Hadid’s call for menstrual leave – ‘try working a 12-hour shift on your period’ – UK Times

Independent readers have responded to calls for women to be allowed time off work during their periods, following a recent tongue-in-cheek suggestion from model Bella Hadid that it “should be illegal” to work while menstruating.

Many readers, especially those who have suffered from endometriosis, PCOS, or debilitating period symptoms, voiced strong support for better medical care and flexible work options.

One commenter recalled fainting while gardening due to anaemia and lack of support, while others said severe period symptoms were only taken seriously after years of dismissal by doctors.

However, others warned that formalising period leave risks worsening the gender pay gap and harming women’s job prospects.

While many agreed that more awareness and medical support are long overdue, others felt monthly leave proposals were impractical or even regressive.

Still, as Bella Hadid’s remarks highlighted, working through hormonal pain and fatigue remains an unspoken burden for many women.

Here’s what you had to say:

I was severely anaemic due to periods

As a teenager/young adult, I was severely anaemic due to periods. The pain wouldn’t be touched even with paracetamol and ibuprofen, and I had a few times on the heaviest days, having dizziness and fainting episodes.

Only once I went home working as a self-employed gardener because I was lone working with a drop, and I didn’t have access to water, so I couldn’t get my blood pressure up by drinking a lot. I was lucky I could rearrange with my client to finish the garden on another day. I certainly remember my first job in a supermarket getting pulled up on going to the toilet too much during my period weeks, then making the (female) assistant manager very uncomfortable saying I was soaking through super pads every two hours.

Luckily, the male manager seemed keen to skip the details and give a free pass. I think an odd day off, no questions once a month, might be good for men and women. That said, the gender pay gap can only be solved by pushing through. I now work nights around my period as a theatre porter, and recently made a middle-class potential beau uncomfortable when he realised, due to nights and working a lot, I earned a fraction more than him.

Unlike my teenage self, I now know tranexamic acid tablets exist, and there are alternatives to suffering on. Access to medication and getting female issues sorted shouldn’t be so bloody difficult! Period anaemia caused heart palpitations, and probably knocked off a couple of brain cells and IQ points. A bit more awareness on normal and abnormal periods could go a long way. Any dads raising teenage daughters running through super absorbent pads like no tomorrow — ain’t necessarily normal, as is uncontrollable pain.

Cottagewitch

Add your opinion in the comments here

We need adequate medical care for women

Instead, we need adequate medical care for women. If your period symptoms are so severe you can’t work for a week, that’s a medical issue, not an employment one. I have PCOS, and it took decades to get a doctor to recognise my periods were interfering with my regular life. I was told it was normal to frequently vomit due to the severity of cramps and to go through a tampon an hour for the first two to three days. I was never offered medicine or advice other than “don’t worry, menopause will come eventually.”

I got the PCOS diagnosis after a biopsy for an unrelated issue, because the tech was kind and made a note for my chart. Suddenly there were treatment options. The migraines, vomiting, excessive bleeding and cramps that prevented me from driving when I had my period are no longer an issue. I don’t have to spend a week recovering from my week menstruating, I just take a few ibuprofen in real time and live normally.

Similarly, my roommate has endometriosis and faced similar struggles, but once someone took her seriously, they found an autoimmune issue that, when treated, minimises nearly all of her symptoms. Women shouldn’t stay home when they have their period; they should feel well enough to live normal lives, and that means getting medical treatment for debilitating discomfort. It’s easy to get Viagra and hard to get a doctor to take women’s symptoms seriously – and that is the problem. Not employers.

Leithersayswhat

Offer everyone four-day weeks with flexibility

The Equality Act would make this difficult, but saying that, Acts can be changed, and discrimination against periods should be included (if not already). I suggest that we offer everyone four-day weeks with flexibility on how it is taken, so people can flex and take up to two days a week off. My ex-wife had terrible periods, but the really terrible part was around two days – if she could rest those two days, carrying on made it worse.

Slightly Tipsy Max

Let’s not exaggerate

Some days off would be great, but let’s not exaggerate it. Many women suffer no or very mild symptoms and would rather just get on with it. It’s not like we get time off from looking after our children – I’d prefer time off from that than sitting at my desk. For those who suffer heavy symptoms, they should be able to get signed off for a couple of days if it’s affecting their ability to work, just as you would if you were ill.

Whynot22

Try working a 12-hour shift on your period

This has to be tongue-in-cheek!? If taking time off for menstruation were commonplace, many industries would suffer, not least our NHS, where care/nursing roles are still female-heavy. I’m sure modelling can be difficult, but try working a 12-hour shift with a 30-minute unpaid break on your period, often without access to decent toilet facilities or the opportunity to sit down and have a cuppa, lifting heavy people and equipment and making complex life-saving decisions whilst being in pain… It’s hard, but most of us just have to get on with it if we want to have a roof over our heads! If you have a diagnosed medical condition, then reasonable adjustments can be made.

EPalser

75 per cent of an employee

I see no problem with using things like flexible working hours to take time off strategically to avoid the worst days of a period, or things like that. Or, for that matter, taking sick leave if you are too unwell to work. The demand here is a little ridiculous, though. Businesses are often already quite begrudging about having to deal with maternity leave. What do you think will happen if women demand a week off every four weeks? Businesses won’t hire women – that’s what.

From the cold corporate perspective, hiring a woman would become hiring 75 per cent of an employee. Or every fourth woman hired is a pure loss. This would make hiring women at a roughly 1:1 ratio a significantly unattractive cost. Potentially undoing years of progress in ensuring equal work opportunities.

Would women accept a 25 per cent pay cut to take a week off each month? Could it really be said to be fair if men are working 25 per cent more and being paid the same? Would women expect to climb their career ladder at the same rate as men? 13 weeks a year is far more than most people get as paid leave. Would we be creating a nightmare scenario where women are pressured to use the pill to avoid periods and lose income? Would women even feel comfortable having to discuss their cycles with managers etc.? “Oh sorry boss I can’t work on the project that week because I’ll be on my period” – this would mortify some women.

None of this is, of course, anyone’s fault, and it’s fine to discuss it, but there needs to be some pragmatism too. When millions of working women are currently managing to work through their periods – perhaps not always very comfortably, but even so – it’s a bit of a hard sell.

Leesheep

Having your period is not a medical condition

I’m a working mum of three young kids and simply cannot understand this. Unless a female has a long-term medical condition, e.g. endometriosis, or some other unusual gynaecological condition that results in difficult menstruation, I don’t see any reason why women need to take a week off. Our female ancestors got on with it, and in this modern worl,d there are endless menstrual products that enable women to work, live, get on with life while on their periods and be barely aware of it or affected by it.

We’re just as capable as men (unless there is an underlying medical condition), and those who seem to expect weeks off like this need to pull up their big girl pants and grow up.

drstrangelove

A very dangerous proposition

A very dangerous proposition. This would help to discriminate against women once again, and women would be back to square one. As to equal pay, they could say goodbye to that. Having your period is not a medical condition. It is absurd to suggest otherwise. If someone suffers badly at that time, then she could get a sick note from a doctor, but to have a blanket regulation to allow women to skip one week of work every month would be so damaging that I can only imagine it is conceived by someone who wants women back in the home producing children.

morganedebroceliande

Periods are a medical condition

Surely, periods are a medical condition? Like any medical condition, the severity may vary. So surely one can take self-certified sick leave? If it requires longer, get a doctor’s sick note. People take sick leave for migraines, depression, etc. Why not periods? I am really surprised it is not already so. So backwards. So 20th century.

AsICIt

How would blokes cope?

I wonder how blokes would cope with bleeding every month, for a few days, with pain, abdominal cramps and all the other stuff that the womenfolk have to put up with. We’d be ‘bigging it up’ as ‘dying moments’ every month, ‘near-death experiences’. I know we’d openly lament its ‘bane in our lives’.

They just ‘get on with it’.

JohnnyCash

Retrograde

Women already earn less than men because they work fewer hours full-time, and are more likely to work part-time, which also pays less per hour. If women take time off when they have their periods, this will exacerbate the earnings gap. Seems retrograde. We need to close the earnings gap by having women work more hours of paid employment, not fewer.

FinnSmith

Not all women have normal menstruation

Amazing that a significant number of men are ‘expertly’ commenting with absolutely no understanding of menstruation whatsoever. As a father with two daughters who have had problems in the past with menstruation, I know they are patently wrong – but as a man myself, i.e. not an expert, I googled it. Not all women have normal menstruation. There are some women that do have abnormal menstruation that are recognised as medical conditions, such as severe uterine bleeding, dysmenorrhoea (cramps) and pain.

Remember, not everyone is the same. I once heard a manager in my workplace cringingly describe his wife’s childbirth as normal too – ‘ like shelling peas from a pod’ — except I’m pretty certain that if he were a woman, then he (she) would probably have remained childless.

Nigel Fromage

Move everyone to a three-week month

The only realistic way is to move everyone to a three-week month. Otherwise, they’d be uncompetitive. Personally, I’d prefer to load hours into the first three weeks and have a solid week off at the end. Much better than the proposed four-day week.

Ajames

Some of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity.

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