It’s 2024 — Why Isn’t Every Workplace A Period-Positive One?

Debbie Herrera has been working on the influencer marketing team at Manifest Group, a brand communications company, for the past three and a half years. She loves her job, but one of her favorite employee perks? The free tampons. “We always have products available for people,” she tells Refinery29.

Like toilet paper, menstrual products are a necessity — not a luxury. And yet they’re not readily available in the places they’re needed most, and especially at work. In the US, one in four teens and one in three adults struggle to afford period products, with period poverty affecting Black and Latine people in the US more. Ending period poverty starts by removing the stigma and shame attached to menstruation.

Beyond providing free menstrual products, Manifest Group also has a flexible sick time policy that Herrera feels comfortable using on the days her period is at its worst. She describes it as a very period-positive place. “[We] actually have a menopause policy as well,” she says, adding that her company provides monetary support to employees experiencing that stage of life. “It makes me feel so seen and heard, and makes me feel like they actually care about me as a person,” she adds. “It’s one thing to say that you care about these things and it’s another to show that you care and actually walk the walk.”

Prioritizing a period-positive workplace can be a significant step forward in achieving period equity, and providing an inclusive environment, free products and flexible time off is just one way of moving the conversation from taboo to totally normal. It’s slowly starting to happen around the world: Japan introduced a national menstrual leave policy (up to three days a month) back in 1947, and countries including Taiwan, parts of China, South Korea, Indonesia, Zambia, and Mexico currently have menstrual leave policies in place. In 2022, Scotland passed legislation that made period products reasonably convenient to access for its citizens. 

Although these are important actions, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily period-positive; menstruators who use these perks aren’t protected from any negative consequences, including discrimination and harassment, and there aren’t any indications that this care is offered to trans and gender nonconforming menstruators. And while Japan’s menstrual policy is legally mandated, there’s no requirement for the time off to be paid. Still, starting the conversation is far more valuable than ignoring it altogether.

Although more than half of the population menstruates, the US is lagging behind other nations with its menstrual leave policies. Recently, though, Representative Grace Meng introduced the Menstrual Equity For All Act of 2023, a piece of legislation that would provide, among other things, free period products to students, incarcerated individuals, and employees of companies with more than 100 workers.

The Menstrual Equity For All Act is still in its early stages (it has to be released by the committee before it can be voted on, which can take years). But there are other organizations out there working to provide period products to companies — not only for employees’ benefit but for the company’s, too. 

“One of the things we mention when we’re talking with offices is that [offering menstrual products] is a great benefit to show your employees that they matter by helping cover this essential need,” says Sarah Howard, vice president of marketing at Aunt Flow, a nonprofit organization that works with schools, companies, arenas and other spaces to provide free period products. “It’s a low-cost way to make a big impact.”

She’s right. Seven organizations in the period equity space have come together to run Period Positive Workplace. Launched in 2023, it came out of the need to expand the support for menstruators at work, according to Diana Nelson, global advocacy director of Days For Girls, one of the organizations involved. It already has 194 companies signed up in 42 different countries, and the types of companies range from finance to tech, like Morgan Stanley and Zocdoc. To be a certified Period Positive Workplace, a company needs to do only three things: provide employees with access to free menstrual products, have a private bathroom facility with running water and a waste bin, then announce all this to its employees.

If it seems like what they’re asking for is fairly simple and something that every workplace should already have, that’s the point. “We do intentionally keep a very low barrier to entry,” says Jess Strait, advocacy manager at Days For Girls. “It’s really meant to be step one for a business in exploring what it means to be involved in menstrual health and to think about what menstruation means in their workplace.”

Period Positive Workplace surveyed employees from its certified workplaces and found that 87% of workplace leaders noticed the initiative had improved employee satisfaction, while 73% of employees agreed that their or their colleagues’ experience managing menstruation at work had improved. “It absolutely impacts the employees,” says Nelson, adding that it also found that employees are “more productive, there’s less absenteeism, they’re more loyal, and they view their employer positively.”

Getting workplaces involved in the fight for menstrual equity is just one component in achieving period equity worldwide. “If we could get the private sector to do that, we know that it could advance the menstrual health field,” Nelson says.

Sonya Passi is the founder and CEO of FreeFrom, an organization for survivors of gender-based violence, and CHANI, an astrology app. Both companies offer a period-positive environment for their workers — but they also offer much more than that when it comes to their wellbeing. CHANI has a salary floor of $80,000; fully covered health, dental and vision insurance, unlimited menstrual leave, paid and protected leave for employees experiencing gender-based violence, unlimited PTO with a vacation stipend, a wealth-building stipend and a four-day workweek. Passi tells Refinery29 that period-specific policies like menstrual leave and free products can’t exist in a silo and have “to be part of a broader culture around wellness and employee wellbeing, otherwise it doesn’t make sense and folks don’t trust it.” 

Passi doesn’t want employees to work through their period pain or ignore it, but rather normalize it. “People don’t feel like they have to ignore their bodies, which ultimately is good for our company. It’s good for our company if people are well,” she says.

There’s no one way for a company to perfect their period positivity. For example, some companies choose to have more lenient sick time for their employees, instead of outright calling it menstrual leave. “[Calling it ‘menstrual leave’] can be a double-edged sword… It perpetuates the idea that you’re less capable of fully showing up to work when you’re on your period,” says Nadya Okamoto, author of Period Power: A Manifesto for the Menstrual Movement and founder of August, an inclusive period care brand. “For some people, they might not experience any cramps at all, and for other people they might feel extreme cramps and not be able to get out of bed or focus on work. We trust you as an employee to make your own decisions. We don't want you to force yourself to do work when you’re not in the right headspace to do it.”

Of course, not everyone has the luxury of working in a field with a steady paycheck and benefits, menstrual or not. It’s especially precarious for undocumented workers and people working in the growing gig economy, who don't have these kinds of protections available to them. While having a period-positive workplace is important, there are systemic issues that still need to be addressed and deconstructed to address period poverty meaningfully.

We have a long way to go when it comes to period equality but laws are slowly changing to reflect the needs of over half the workforce. At the end of 2023, Canada passed legislation mandating that all federal employees receive free period products at work. Around the same time, members of The Left in the European Parliament established a menstrual leave policy for their staff. And here in the US, representatives continue to push forward the Menstrual Equity For All Act.

If a period-positive workplace is important for you, the first step is to speak up. Thanks to her employer, Herrera feels inspired to do just that. 

“If anything, Manifest Group has made me feel more comfortable talking about menstruation in a professional environment,” she says.