Would reproductive leave advance women’s rights and gender equality at work?
Lisa Heap, a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute, examines growing calls for the establishment of new work rights, including additional leave, for employees who experience menstruation and menopause.
These biological processes are experienced by large numbers of workers, especially in education ̶ in 2020, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said 71.7 per cent of Australian teachers were female.
Yet the sometimes debilitating effects of these conditions have been ignored in the framework of workplace rights, which have historically been built around men’s experience of life and work.
Unions have begun surveying their members on the issue and a growing number of unions are seeking new rights in collective Agreements, including additional leave, for menstruation, menopause, and reproductive health concerns. The Australian Council of Trade Unions is likely to discuss a policy on reproductive leave (including leave for menopause and menstruation) at its Congress in June this year. There is also evidence that organisations are moving to include policies on these issues in their HR handbooks.
However, not everyone agrees that seeking additional leave and other workplace rights because of menstruation or menopause is the right way to go. Leading industrial relations academic Marian Baird, whilst being a strong advocate for new rights, has noted that debate on issues such as menstrual leave ‘can be polarising for organisations and for feminists’.
There are concerns that leave and other rights for menstruation and menopause may result in women being targeted as weak or unable to do their job because they are absent from work or that employers will see them as less reliable or more costly to employ, undermining women’s position at work. Some scholars argue that focusing on leave, and therefore effectively removing the problem from the workplace, means that the problem is being hidden.
There are long-standing debates between feminist theorists about whether the path to gender equality at work. Some argue that it is best served by highlighting the similarities between men and women and treating all workers the same – sometimes referred to as formal equality. Others maintain that there should be accommodation of differences, including acknowledging biological differences and the reproductive role that women play in society and ensuring that work rights reflect this.
The difficulty we have in Australia, like in many western democratic countries, is that the historical standard of the ideal worker is male - so treating everyone the same effectively means treating everyone as men.
It is difficult to ignore that some workers are struggling with the impacts of menstruation and menopause at work. Supports are needed for these workers. Not everyone’s experience is the same but for some menstruation involves severe bleeding, extreme pain, and lethargy. Shame and stigma for some workers may lead to hiding period pain and carrying on with the job. This can have both physical and psychological impacts.
Menopause can involve losses of concentration, difficulty sleeping, headache, fatigue and mood changes. Work based impacts of menstruation and menopause can include perceptions of poor work performance and a loss of confidence for affected workers, who sometimes use all their personal/carers leave trying to ‘manage’ the impact of their conditions. Some workers move to part-time work or even consider leaving paid work as a way of managing.
The evidence gathered around the work-based impacts of menstruation and menopause establish the need for further changes in work rights to accommodate the lived experience of women. To ignore this evidence would reinforce men’s experience of work as the standard around which work rights are framed.
Australian public policy and legal frameworks have developed to accommodate some biological processes experienced by women. For example, there are now universal rights around pregnancy, maternity, and breastfeeding and work. Leave and workplace flexibilities accommodating the effects of menstruation and menopause could be the next step in the evolution of these workplace rights.
Beyond HR policies there are two main ways of establishing work rights – incorporating them in workplace laws or bargaining for their inclusion in union-negotiated Agreements. Incorporating leave and other rights to flexible work arrangements in legislation would provide a universal standard and a whole of society approach.
Bargaining offers the opportunity to craft boutique solutions which consider the needs of organisations and their workforces. The process of bargaining helps workers explore the issue, helping to ‘normalise’ it in the workplace. However, bargaining for ‘equality rights’ of this kind can take time and often requires work-based champions to get and keep the issue on the bargaining agenda.
In Australia many universal workplace rights have been achieved first through unions bargaining for them at the industry or organisational level and then by unions fighting to have these included in legislation. The achievement of paid leave for workers experiencing family violence is a recent high-profile example of this. The progress to gain reproductive leave and other associated rights is likely to involve both bargaining for these rights and lobbying for legislative change.
Leave for menstruation and menopause will advance women’s rights and gender equality at work. However, even when these rights exist more action will be needed to make them a reality. Workers will need to be aware of these rights and feel comfortable and confident to use them without fear that they will be treated less favourably for doing so.
Establishing the rights either through legislation or bargaining will set the normative standard. Organisations will then have the obligation to create systems, processes and cultures that would ensure that workers can, and do, access these rights once they exist.
Lisa Heap is a labour lawyer and researcher with a research focus on gender and inequalities at work, work health and safety and the regulation of work. She holds degrees in political science/industrial relations, law and applied human rights. Her doctoral research investigates new regulatory approaches to prevent gender-based violence and harassment at work.
FURTHER READING:
For the purposes of this article, I use the terms woman or women to include those who experience menstruation or menopause but who may not identify as a woman.
Industrial lawyers Maurice Blackburn on menstrual and menopausal leave
Queensland unions have commenced a campaign title It’s For Every Body seeking reproductive leave
Existing policies: The Victorian Women’s Trust introduced a menstrual leave policy in 2017. Future Super introduced paid menstrual and menopause leave in 2020. Modibodi introduced additional leave for menstruation, menopause, and miscarriage in 2021.
University of Sydney: Why menstrual leave is a hot-button workplace issue
Sally King: ‘Why menstrual leave could be bad for women’
Gabrielle Golding and Tom Hvala, ‘Paid Period Leave for Australian Women: A Prerogative Not a Pain’ (2021) 43(3) Sydney Law Review 349
Petra Verdonk, Elena Bendien, and Yolande Appelman. ‘Menopause and Work: A Narrative Literature Review About Menopause, Work and Health’. 1 Jan. 2022 : 483 – 496.
Mike Armour, Kelly Parry, Narendar Manohar, Kathryn Holmes, Tania Ferfolja, Christina Curry, Freya MacMillan and Caroline A Smith, ‘The Prevalence and Academic Impact of Dysmenorrhea in 21,573 Young Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis’ (2019) 28(8) Journal of Women’s Health 1161;
Sydney Colussi: Workplace protections needed for menstruation and menopause
Baird, M., McFerran, L., & Wright, I. (2014). An equality bargaining breakthrough: Paid domestic violence leave. Journal of Industrial Relations, 56(2), 190-207.