Mumbai-based company offers 'first day of period’ leave to women employees, starts online petition

Do women deserve to get a day off on their first day of period? A Mumbai-based digital media company has given this query enough thought to announce a ‘First Day of Period Leave’ policy for all its women employees. They can now opt to stay at home on the first day of their menstrual cycle without the stress of going to work. Culture Machine, which has over 75 female employees and runs the YouTube channel Blush, introduced this policy. [caption id=“attachment_3798461” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  The digital media company gathered reaction of their female employees after telling them about their new policy on menstrual leave. Image courtesy: Blush[/caption] In a Facebook video, the company said the leave policy is an attempt to fight taboos surrounding menstruation in India. “First day is obviously a not-so-comfortable day for most. It’s time we face the reality. This is not an embarrassment. This is part of life,” Devleena S Majumder, president of the company’s human resources says in the video. Along with coming up with this policy, the company plans to send a petition to the Minister of Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi and the Minister of Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar, to appeal for a similar leave policy in companies across the country. The petition so far has garnered 22,409 supporters, according to change.org. If implemented, this leave will comes as a relief to scores of working women across the country who have to overcome their period pains every month to go to work. ‘First day of period’ will serve as a valid reason to not come to office.