The glass ceiling for women in the workplace held strong for decades primarily due to specious arguments about their biological needs and what were consequently, seen as their “limitations.”
Now the Nervi-Severini Artistic High School of Ravenna has instituted menstrual leave for female students suffering from dysmenorrhea (medical term used to indicate pain associated with the menstrual cycle) and who request it. While this may at first glance seem like a victory for women, when examined more closely the question is more complex.
At the Ravenna school, going forward, those female students who claim this leave will be “excused’ without penalty for a maximum of two days a month. The resolution with which the school council of the Ravenna high school launched the initiative – started by a group of female students from the same institute – was published in the school’s online bulletin board in recent days. The principal, Gianluca Dradi, explained, “Probably for a school it is the first initiative of this kind in Italy”. And in fact, there is no information on other educational institutions that have implemented similar measures.
The novelty, as expected, has divided public opinion between those who are in favor of the initiative and those who, on the other hand, consider it “exaggerated” and fear that female students may take advantage of it. The school is already among many in Italy that allows students to identify with a gender different from their birth to use a trans alias, and thus considered among the most liberal.
Those who are against the Ravenna high school measure underline the fact that, in the transition from school to the world of work, female students would find themselves in difficulty, as there is no menstrual leave in the world of work.
Legally, “The working woman who suffers from dysmenorrhea, in a form such as to prevent the performance of ordinary daily work duties, has the right to abstain from work for a maximum of three days a month”. However, the text of this bill, started by four MPs from the Democratic Party, has never been transformed into an actual law; it has been stalled since 2016. In Italy, the proposal reads, from 60 to 90% of women suffer during the menstrual cycle, and this causes absenteeism rates of 13 to 51% at school and 5 to 15% at work.
However, another objection to the measure introduced at the Nervi School goes beyond the immediate issue; 27.9% of the interviewees believe that menstrual leave would reinforce the stereotypes that “a woman’s working capacity varies according to hormonal changes” and the law would “demean women,” and that it would be used as a pretext for limiting a woman’s opportunities in the workforce. Just when the glass ceiling was beginning to shatter, we could be setting the women’s cause back decades by embracing such essentialist measures.
