The year is 2026, AI has evolved to spectacular levels, highlighting technology’s developments, we have a multitude of streaming services available at our disposal, and more importantly, social media has progressed into a phenomenon that connects us with people across the globe. However, we are still in a society where women’s health is being ignored. Coincidentally, women remain silent through oppression.
Misogyny continually infiltrates environments, forcing women to face the challenges of gender inequality in almost every aspect of their lives. Therefore, it is unfortunately not a shock when the ingrained, systematic biases that plague our society harm women.
With 1 in 3 women experiencing severe pain that hinders daily tasks, this feels like a huge slap in the face!
If you are on any form of social media, you will have probably seen the advertisement that has been plastered over the underground featuring lines such as, ‘It’s not him, it’s his hormones’ and ‘Men get hormonal too’. These advertisements, unfortunately, register more as a sarcastic appropriation of stereotypes in women’s health advertising, leaving women angry at the prospect of men’s health continually being prioritised. With 1 in 3 women experiencing severe pain that hinders daily tasks, this feels like a huge slap in the face!
Earlier this month, the BBC ran an article on Sanju Pal, a successful managing consultant, who was wrongfully fired from her job for her endometriosis. As a woman of excellence, Sanju Pal won the Asian Woman of Achievement Award, met the late Queen Elizabeth II and was invited into 10 Downing Street. To then be fired from her job after confiding in HR about the excruciating pain she was experiencing was not only a shock but a disgrace.
After being diagnosed in 2018 with severe stage 3 endometrioma, Sanju required immediate surgery. She returned to work a month later but was in horrendous pain.
“I was bleeding, I could barely walk, because I’d been pushing myself too much, pushing myself through the fatigue, wanting to make senior manager” – Sanju Pal
According to the NHS, endometriosis is a condition where cells similar to those in the lining of the womb (uterus) grow in other parts of the body. […] Often found in areas around the womb, such as the ovaries, fallopian tubes and lining of the pelvis. It also sometimes affects organs, such as the bladder and bowel.’ The cells can grow larger and change in response to hormones in the menstrual cycle, causing pain, inflammation and scar tissue. It affects 1 in 10 women in the UK, and currently, there is no cure, with the only available treatment being limited to pain relief and, in rare cases, surgery.
After a six-month review with HR, Sanju was fired and told to leave the building with immediate effect, with the reason for the termination of her contract being that she was no longer in the ideal condition to reach her performance target in 2019. It’s clear that the company discriminated against Sanju due to her endometriosis, and in her words, she felt she “wasn’t a high performer anymore, according to them, because [she] had a disability”.
Seven years and two employment tribunals later, Sanju Pal is fighting for endometriosis to be recognised as a disability in the UK. Furthermore, after winning a significant employment appeal tribunal that could affect how employers are allowed to treat employees with endometriosis, there is hope.
Currently, several countries across the world have already implemented statutory menstrual leave policies allowing employees to take time off during menstruation. In 2023, Spain released a policy which offered up to five days of paid leave per month for ‘incapacitating periods’ with a doctor’s note. Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan and Zambia are the remaining countries with a menstrual policy in place, each varying in the conditions. By looking at different countries and their progressive policies, we see that women’s health is being taken more seriously, and governments are responding to the cries of those experiencing misogyny in the twenty-first century.
Instead, women would feel supported, and their health would be prioritised.
By implementing menstrual leave policies, companies would benefit astronomically, and women like Sanju would be protected from discrimination. Companies would have higher levels of productivity and improved talent retention as women would no longer have to work under pressure and uncomfortable circumstances. Instead, women would feel supported, and their health would be prioritised. Furthermore, the company would be addressing significant gender equality in the workplace, aligning themselves with modern, inclusive workplace standards and potentially even showing efforts to remove the stigma and taboo surrounding women’s health and menstruation.
Women like Sanju represent the trials women are forced to endure. Simultaneously, they highlight the hope for a future where women’s health is prioritised as much as men’s. Women with endometriosis and similar conditions shouldn’t be forced to work in pain. So, if the UK made efforts to implement menstrual policies, women like Sanju Pal would experience the undeniable benefits of being a man.