Two companies let women take leave on the first day of periods, get thumbs up on social media

Periods are the most uncomfortable days that women face every month of the year. For some, the pain is unbearable and along with headache, nausea, and extreme mood swings during menstruation make their life all the more difficult.

Working women find it hard to ask for a day-off on the first day of their periods as they are expected to “man up” to the pain and also because talking about menstruation is still an embarrassing topic in India.

No matter how small, the change has finally come. Two Indian companies Culture Machine and Gozoop have brought a new women-friendly policy into their companies.

Women employees at these companies can now take leave on the first day of their periods. It was first initiated by Culture Machine, a Mumbai-based digital entertainment company, and then followed by Gozoop.

Culture Machine even made a video to capture the reaction of its women employees after they are told about the First Day of Period (FOP) leave policy for the first time. Culture Machine employs 75 women.

The female employees of the company were taken by surprise when told about the new policy. Their reactions were mostly “That’s great... That’s amazing”. They even explain how difficult it is for their male co-workers to understand what they go through.

“Yeah this happens, what is the big deal?” one woman says elaborating on the reactions. “PMS is something that is in your head,” the other adds.

Devleena Majumder, president HR, says in the video that the idea was to “align the core organisational values to the content that we create”.

“First day is obviously a not so a comfortable day for the most. It is time we face the reality. This is not an embarrassment, this is part of life,” Majumder adds.

Content head Ruchir Joshi says men need to understand what women go through and not crib about the new leave policy.

“A lot of time, I find men complaining about the fact that ‘oh.. but she gets her periods and gets a day off or gets to sit idle and not do any work’. But the realisation that we have to have is that we don’t understand the pain and we don’t go through it. If we were to have probably that kind of discomfort, we would possibly not be coming to office or not be doing work at that point of time,” Joshi says.

When the news broke, many women shared their excitement on social media about the FOP leave.

Here are some of the reactions on Twitter: