By Shruti Sunderraman
If human beings were made by God, ovaries were most definitely designed by Satan. Most women would attest to the first day of the menstrual cycle being literal hell. The pain, dear Lord, the pain. Having to go to work under these circumstances is some times akin to going to war with an injury. But as with most things in life, we do it and do it some more, till managing it becomes habitual. But the ordeal remains unchanged every month. To top it off, we have to put up with numerous dismissals of stop-making-a-big-deal-about-this, if we express so much as an ouch.
Which is why it comes as a massive breath of fresh air that Mumbai-based Culture Machine Media Pvt. Ltd, that runs the popular YouTube channel Blush, has declared a first day of period (FOP) policy for all its female employees. According to this policy, every female employee in the organisation can avail a leave on the first day of her menstrual cycle. *slow clap* In a recently released video on Blush outlining the same, Devleena S Majumder, President of Human Resources, says, “The idea was to organise the core organisational values to the content that we create. First day is obviously a not so comfortable day for most [women]. It’s time we face the reality. This is not an embarrassment. This is part of life.”
Culture Machine has 75 female employees who will benefit from this policy move. While we applaud the initiative, we don’t know yet if it applies to all levels of employment within the organisation. We will update when we do.
The video also elaborates how this will play out with male employees, some of whom might find the move to be titled unfairly away from them. Ruchir Joshi, Head of Content, says in the video, “A lot of times I find men complaining about the fact that “oh but she gets her period and she gets a day off or gets to sit idle and not do any work” But the realisation we need to have is that we don’t understand their pain and we don’t go through it and if we were to probably have that kind of discomfort, we would possibly not be coming to office or not doing any work at that point of time.”
We’re all smiles. But what widens our grin is the fact the Culture Machine is now on a mission to legitimise the FOP leave policy across the country. They’ve started a petition to appeal to the Ministry of Women and Child Development and also to the Ministry of Human Resource Development to introduce this clause in every organisation.
As Majumder aptly puts it, “I don’t think the pain can be taken away but you can make the work environment more conducive.”
You can watch the full video here: