Ourselves at Work: Creating positive menstrual culture in your workplace

This week on The Leak, we feature an excerpt from Ourselves at Work, published by the Victorian Women’s Trust (VWT) and co-authored by Mary Crooks AO, Director of the VWT, and Jane Bennett and Casimira Melican from the Chalice Foundation. Ourselves at Work: Creating positive menstrual culture in your workplace is a comprehensive guide for how to dismantle the menstrual taboo in workplaces, and replace it with a culture that embraces menstrual wellbeing.

In 2019, we published our groundbreaking work About Bloody Time: The Menstrual Revolution We Have to Have, which highlighted the menstrual taboo that oppresses so many women and others who menstruate, affecting their sense of self, their confidence, awareness of their physical bodies and emotional realms, their sexual decision making, and the management of their relationships at home and in workplaces. 

Despite the best efforts of individuals (both private and professional), menarche, menstruation and menopause still tend to be difficult and traumatic for many girls and women and carry a great deal of negative association.

Not only do menstruators feel negatively about their menstrual cycle but they feel that others do too. Women and girls described an experience of menarche (first period) and menstruation as often shot through with a kind of collective anxiety. 

The findings from our discussions in researching the book suggested that many women operate from a position of ignorance and disconnection from their bodies. Clearly, we have a massive problem with our collective menstrual culture, and how the majority of women experience their menstrual and menopausal lives. 

Inevitably this impacts all arenas of life, including paid work. Our workplaces are sites of major anxiety and disconnection for women as they balance the demands of their jobs with their own needs and the needs of their body and themselves, around menstruation and menopause. 

It shouldn’t be this way. Menstruation and menopause are not illnesses. It is not about women being sick or having to take sick leave. It is about busting and dismantling the menstrual taboo at work, and developing instead a positive, menstrual culture across our workplaces. In About Bloody Time we made a powerful argument and urgent call for a definition of menstrual health in positive terms, in contrast to the long festering and unexamined assumptions of malaise and vexation. 

The critical need for a positive definition of menstrual health has been most ably answered by the Terminology Action Group of the Global Menstrual Collective who declare: ‘Menstrual health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in relation to the menstrual cycle’.

Developing a positive menstrual culture in workplaces is a logical step for promoting consistency, clarity and a safe, constructive working environment for employees and employers alike. As we researched and published About Bloody Time, we felt compelled to put our new learning and experience into our own organisational practice. 

We began by developing a menstrual leave policy, making us one of the first organisations in Australia to do so. We published it as a template on our website. We put menstrual products in our bathroom and wondered why we hadn’t been doing this all along. We talked about our research and actions to anyone who would listen. And many did, in huge numbers in fact, from around the country and the world. 

As the weeks and months went on, we received inquiries about our work and we actively supported businesses and organisations considering menstrual and menopausal workplace policies. Happily, we have witnessed a substantial uptake of policies such as menstrual leave. It is clear that there is a hunger for improving workplaces, a desire to be rid of the negativity associated with the menstrual taboo and to put in place policies and actions to make life easier, more productive and healthier for many people. 

The vision of menstrual wellbeing presented above will require purposeful change, intelligent action, good will, some resources, money, bravery and, most important of all, collaborative effort. 

This is why we have now taken the next step to put our experience into a practical guide to assist those seeking to create positive menstrual change in their workplace. 

It will be worth the effort. What is certain is that employers who are proactive about the needs of their employees will ensure healthier, happier workplaces, as well as attract and retain valuable employees. 

Developing a positive menstrual culture at work is one more piece of the equality jigsaw.

To keep reading you can download and read Ourselves at Work here. Ourselves at Work can also be purchased as a hard copy here.