5 ms·

Stuff like this, while done with good intentions, can threaten to entrench discrimination by having different sets of rules and expectations for people based on

Stuff like this, while done with good intentions, can threaten to entrench discrimination by having different sets of rules and expectations for people based on their gender. A better solution would be to give 12 extra holiday days per year to everyone, but make it known that it's acceptable to take them under those circumstances.

colanderman 9y ago
Or allow flexible scheduling around periods.
philipov 9y ago
But doing that doesn't get the same PR credit for fighting sexism, and it costs a whole lot more money, so "what's the point?"
- chii 9y ago
  More people needs to understand that fighting sexism isn't to give females a "better"deal or consideration. It's to ensure there's no discernable difference in treatment. It could be taken to far with unisex toilets, but i don't affirmative action is going to help fight sexism at all.
bigmanwalter 9y ago
Men don't get a day of pain and cramps each month so I don't see why we should get the day off. Periods aren't fun, and I don't think men deserve a day at the golf course in exchange.
- rtx 9y ago
  Neither do all woman.
  - bigmanwalter 9y ago
    They don't have to take the day off then.
    - heythere124 9y ago
      The point is that they can still. Whatever the standard for taking time off work for illness it should apply equally to both genders so there should never be any need for a separate rule/law.
- fredley 9y ago
  It's a tricky one, but on the whole I'm against 'positive' discrimination. It's still discrimination, it can still create contempt and undermine hard work (they're only in that job because they're [a], a smarter [b] probably didn't get the job, etc.) It applies to maternity/paternity leave too. Until maternity and paternity leave are required to be equal by law, there will be a bias against hiring women, due to the simple mathematics. If the 'risk' is equal for a man or a woman, the bias is eliminated.
  - BearGoesChirp 9y ago
    Even if men and women are given the same amount of leave, there are still two problems. First, social norms lead to men and women not using it equally. Second, single individuals don't have equal access given that society has a significant gender disparity in single parents, that men can't get pregnant, and that even if the leave is equal for adoption, there is still discrimination in adoption.
- leroy_masochist 9y ago
  Neither do women who are done menstruating. So employers should hand out a questionnaire to all the women asking who still gets their period? I mean, that's a pretty normal question to ask your coworkers, I'm sure HR would be cool with it. This is way, way easier to just implement as one extra sick day per person per month.
- BearGoesChirp 9y ago
  But there are number of health conditions that either gender can get that are rare and lead to many days of significant pain. Some even can result in bleeding similar to periods. Do we given these issues their own days off for those unlucky enough to have them? Or is it only counted in sick leave?
  - bigmanwalter 9y ago
    I feel that the workplace should attempt to accommodate any and all medical conditions.
    - BearGoesChirp 9y ago
      Which tends to be accounted for in either general leave or more specialized sick leave. The idea of giving people more beyond this because of biological processes they cannot control raises the question of how we decide which biological processes deserve extra leave.
- amyjess 9y ago
  Because if you don't, it gives companies a reason to not hire women. Employer: "Hmm... we have two candidates for the job, both equally qualified, but we'll have to give 12 extra days off a year to one of them but not the other. Which one do we hire?"
buro9 9y ago
> based on their gender Based on their sex. http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html > Sex refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs. > Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine. May as well link some script from the Life of Brian to demonstrate that you can identify (gender) as a woman if you are a male but where's the foetus going to gestate (sex). http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/8.htm http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/8.htm
- adrianN 9y ago
  https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender
stult 9y ago
13 would be closer to the average ;) But you're right. A number of people I've spoken to about parental leave (not all of whom have been men) are skeptical of paternity leave because they largely see maternity leave as an opportunity to recover from the physical and medical hardships of child birth, with emotional bonding merely an ancillary benefit. Even if that's true, creating gender independent norms avoids giving ammunition to the quietly sexist eye-rollers who use maternity leave to devalue female coworkers. While it would be better to just make a quantum leap to the ideal world where no one holds those opinions in the first place, existing cultural norms and beliefs naturally constrain policy on a pragmatic level and we have to work within those constraints as best we can. It's funny to see these fumbling efforts toward those goals by companies from a different culture than my own, though. I can't imagine even the most politically naive and insensitive American manager suggesting this idea, outside of a Michael Scott from the Office type parody. Is it because we tackled basic issues with women in the workplace earlier than India because we modernized faster? Like is this the sort of idea bumbling Dilbert-esque middle managers in corporate America proposed during the mid-70s? Or is there some underlying difference in cultural taboos about discussing periods? I have to confess that India is one country where I am not very well informed about the culture on the ground as I haven't spent any time there.
dontflamemebro 9y ago
Throwaway because no one wants to hear about periods. I am a woman and one time my body decided to have an extremely heavy and painful flow for about a week straight. I had been sick with a cold immediately before that, so I had already let my employer know that I was not feeling well and would be taking some days off, and I did not feel the need to tell my employer every little detail about what was going on. Every morning I would text something along the lines of, "I'm still not feeling well." After about the third day of being out my boss texted me with a suggestion that I go see a doctor. When I finally got back to the office he wanted to see a doctor's note. I did not go to the doctor, because more extreme bleeding is something that is expected after having an IUD inserted. I was at home in extreme pain, changing out adult diapers about 3 times a day that were completely soaked with blood. I think this 100% is a good enough reason to not come into work, and it's sort of bull that my boss was asking about my personal business when we are already a company that combines sick days with vacation days as PTO. I actually did fill my boss in on all the gory details since he wouldn't let up on the doctor's note, but this is absolutely something that I should NEVER have to disclose to someone to be able to keep my job. I don't really have a good solution here. I want the 12 extra holiday days for everyone solution to work, but there will always be people abusing their limited amount of power to unnecessarily investigate what we are using our PTO for.
- pc86 9y ago
  It's perfectly reasonable for a manager to request a doctor's note if you say "I have a cold and will not be in for a few days" and then you are out for 6+.
  - athenot 9y ago
    Yet it's counter-productive. According to [1], people are contagious for about one week, starting from one day before they feel any symptoms. It is actually more productive to send the sick people home (or let them work at least part-time from home) to prevent others from getting sick and also having to take time off. I've been fortunate enough to work in environments where this was acknowledged and practiced, but I'm always dismayed when hearing from friends/relatives who are required to put in their "time of presence" and get half of their coworkers sick. [Edit] Last point: for the common cold (virus), there's no need for a doctor visit, yet you still need rest and symptom control with OTC meds. [1] http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/how-long-flu-contagious http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/how-long-flu-contagious
DropbearRob 9y ago
I totally get your point, and from a capitalist perspective the solution of the media company in the article dis-incentivises hiring women as a dollar per hour of work metric instantly makes hiring a woman less cost effective. I've seen comments like men don't have the day of pain, so don't "need the holiday" but these people obviously don't own a business or pay other peoples wages. When you are a small business you ensure that you hire people based on the maximum return on investment based on skillset and deliverables. If you have 2 identically skilled and equally hard working employees but one works 12 days less per year and gets the same money, you would hire the one who delivers 12 extra days. If you ignore the sex of the applicants and it was down to a purely financial decision (as it always should be in business, especially publicly traded businesses) then you would be neglecting your responsibilities if you hire someone who costs more and delivers less. The solution may be simply allow flexi-time. Each member of staff must fulfil X number of hours per week, month, year or whatever slice you decide, and when its performed is up to them. This wouldn't work with List-X or restricted sites, where work must be performed on site, but for something like a media company I'm sure you could work from many suitable locations.
- falcolas 9y ago
  The problem with this logic is that you would never hire a woman, for fear that they could get pregnant and become "unreliable" for 9 months, and completely unavailable for the duration of their maternity leave (while having to keep their job position unfilled). It's far better to apply some humanity to the equation and just give everyone those extra 12 days off (and (mat|pat)ernity leave), so you're not tempted to discriminate off the "productivity loss".
  - DropbearRob 9y ago
    Im not saying its humane, or just, or right. Its business. The reason you point out is exactly what has happened in the past. In fact my mum used to work for a company that straight up fired any female staff in the secretary pool which got married to protect themselves from exactly the losses you speak of. Luckily we don't live in that world anymore (40 years ago). And we are working to reduce the dis-incentives of hiring women over men. Im living in the UK where recently paternity and maternity leave are inter-changable and can be split between parents. entitling men to equal leave to women to reduce the incentives of hiring men over women. There are all kinds of times when people become less productive. Im never advocating never hiring a woman, only that whatever benefits you apply to one act as a hiring dis-incentive unless applied by law to both. Its economics, not ethics.
DropbearRob 9y ago
Oh, sorry to double reply, but I just thought of something devious. What if any of the following apply to the female employee: Is on birth control to supress having a period. Has an IUD and is one of the 1 in 5 for whom this stops Having periods for a year. Has had a hysterectomy. Has gone through menopause. Has another condition which causes them to not have periods. do they have their 12 days ripped from them unceremoniously? It seems like there are a lot of edge cases here which may provide additional areas to cry "sexism" because for the cases listed above they wont require the 12 extra days, yet without having intimate medical knowledge of your staff, you cannot differentite between one type of non-period having staff member and another (in the "other" case a male). in any case I'm glad they've done it as a case study on what happens next.
kingofpandora 9y ago
Reminds me of a company in a country I won't name that celebrated International Women's Day by giving each female employee a bouquet of flowers. There may have been good intentions ...

colanderman 9y ago

Or allow flexible scheduling around periods.

philipov 9y ago

But doing that doesn't get the same PR credit for fighting sexism, and it costs a whole lot more money, so "what's the point?"

chii 9y ago
More people needs to understand that fighting sexism isn't to give females a "better"deal or consideration. It's to ensure there's no discernable difference in treatment. It could be taken to far with unisex toilets, but i don't affirmative action is going to help fight sexism at all.

bigmanwalter 9y ago

Men don't get a day of pain and cramps each month so I don't see why we should get the day off. Periods aren't fun, and I don't think men deserve a day at the golf course in exchange.

rtx 9y ago
Neither do all woman.
- bigmanwalter 9y ago
  They don't have to take the day off then.
  - heythere124 9y ago
    The point is that they can still. Whatever the standard for taking time off work for illness it should apply equally to both genders so there should never be any need for a separate rule/law.
fredley 9y ago
It's a tricky one, but on the whole I'm against 'positive' discrimination. It's still discrimination, it can still create contempt and undermine hard work (they're only in that job because they're [a], a smarter [b] probably didn't get the job, etc.) It applies to maternity/paternity leave too. Until maternity and paternity leave are required to be equal by law, there will be a bias against hiring women, due to the simple mathematics. If the 'risk' is equal for a man or a woman, the bias is eliminated.
- BearGoesChirp 9y ago
  Even if men and women are given the same amount of leave, there are still two problems. First, social norms lead to men and women not using it equally. Second, single individuals don't have equal access given that society has a significant gender disparity in single parents, that men can't get pregnant, and that even if the leave is equal for adoption, there is still discrimination in adoption.
leroy_masochist 9y ago
Neither do women who are done menstruating. So employers should hand out a questionnaire to all the women asking who still gets their period? I mean, that's a pretty normal question to ask your coworkers, I'm sure HR would be cool with it. This is way, way easier to just implement as one extra sick day per person per month.
BearGoesChirp 9y ago
But there are number of health conditions that either gender can get that are rare and lead to many days of significant pain. Some even can result in bleeding similar to periods. Do we given these issues their own days off for those unlucky enough to have them? Or is it only counted in sick leave?
- bigmanwalter 9y ago
  I feel that the workplace should attempt to accommodate any and all medical conditions.
  - BearGoesChirp 9y ago
    Which tends to be accounted for in either general leave or more specialized sick leave. The idea of giving people more beyond this because of biological processes they cannot control raises the question of how we decide which biological processes deserve extra leave.
amyjess 9y ago
Because if you don't, it gives companies a reason to not hire women. Employer: "Hmm... we have two candidates for the job, both equally qualified, but we'll have to give 12 extra days off a year to one of them but not the other. Which one do we hire?"

buro9 9y ago

> based on their gender Based on their sex. http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html http://www.med.monash.edu.au/gendermed/sexandgender.html > Sex refers to biological differences; chromosomes, hormonal profiles, internal and external sex organs. > Gender describes the characteristics that a society or culture delineates as masculine or feminine. May as well link some script from the Life of Brian to demonstrate that you can identify (gender) as a woman if you are a male but where's the foetus going to gestate (sex). http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/8.htm http://montypython.50webs.com/scripts/Life_of_Brian/8.htm

adrianN 9y ago
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gender

stult 9y ago

13 would be closer to the average ;) But you're right. A number of people I've spoken to about parental leave (not all of whom have been men) are skeptical of paternity leave because they largely see maternity leave as an opportunity to recover from the physical and medical hardships of child birth, with emotional bonding merely an ancillary benefit. Even if that's true, creating gender independent norms avoids giving ammunition to the quietly sexist eye-rollers who use maternity leave to devalue female coworkers. While it would be better to just make a quantum leap to the ideal world where no one holds those opinions in the first place, existing cultural norms and beliefs naturally constrain policy on a pragmatic level and we have to work within those constraints as best we can. It's funny to see these fumbling efforts toward those goals by companies from a different culture than my own, though. I can't imagine even the most politically naive and insensitive American manager suggesting this idea, outside of a Michael Scott from the Office type parody. Is it because we tackled basic issues with women in the workplace earlier than India because we modernized faster? Like is this the sort of idea bumbling Dilbert-esque middle managers in corporate America proposed during the mid-70s? Or is there some underlying difference in cultural taboos about discussing periods? I have to confess that India is one country where I am not very well informed about the culture on the ground as I haven't spent any time there.

dontflamemebro 9y ago

Throwaway because no one wants to hear about periods. I am a woman and one time my body decided to have an extremely heavy and painful flow for about a week straight. I had been sick with a cold immediately before that, so I had already let my employer know that I was not feeling well and would be taking some days off, and I did not feel the need to tell my employer every little detail about what was going on. Every morning I would text something along the lines of, "I'm still not feeling well." After about the third day of being out my boss texted me with a suggestion that I go see a doctor. When I finally got back to the office he wanted to see a doctor's note. I did not go to the doctor, because more extreme bleeding is something that is expected after having an IUD inserted. I was at home in extreme pain, changing out adult diapers about 3 times a day that were completely soaked with blood. I think this 100% is a good enough reason to not come into work, and it's sort of bull that my boss was asking about my personal business when we are already a company that combines sick days with vacation days as PTO. I actually did fill my boss in on all the gory details since he wouldn't let up on the doctor's note, but this is absolutely something that I should NEVER have to disclose to someone to be able to keep my job. I don't really have a good solution here. I want the 12 extra holiday days for everyone solution to work, but there will always be people abusing their limited amount of power to unnecessarily investigate what we are using our PTO for.

pc86 9y ago
It's perfectly reasonable for a manager to request a doctor's note if you say "I have a cold and will not be in for a few days" and then you are out for 6+.
- athenot 9y ago
  Yet it's counter-productive. According to [1], people are contagious for about one week, starting from one day before they feel any symptoms. It is actually more productive to send the sick people home (or let them work at least part-time from home) to prevent others from getting sick and also having to take time off. I've been fortunate enough to work in environments where this was acknowledged and practiced, but I'm always dismayed when hearing from friends/relatives who are required to put in their "time of presence" and get half of their coworkers sick. [Edit] Last point: for the common cold (virus), there's no need for a doctor visit, yet you still need rest and symptom control with OTC meds. [1] http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/how-long-flu-contagious http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/how-long-flu-contagious

DropbearRob 9y ago

I totally get your point, and from a capitalist perspective the solution of the media company in the article dis-incentivises hiring women as a dollar per hour of work metric instantly makes hiring a woman less cost effective. I've seen comments like men don't have the day of pain, so don't "need the holiday" but these people obviously don't own a business or pay other peoples wages. When you are a small business you ensure that you hire people based on the maximum return on investment based on skillset and deliverables. If you have 2 identically skilled and equally hard working employees but one works 12 days less per year and gets the same money, you would hire the one who delivers 12 extra days. If you ignore the sex of the applicants and it was down to a purely financial decision (as it always should be in business, especially publicly traded businesses) then you would be neglecting your responsibilities if you hire someone who costs more and delivers less. The solution may be simply allow flexi-time. Each member of staff must fulfil X number of hours per week, month, year or whatever slice you decide, and when its performed is up to them. This wouldn't work with List-X or restricted sites, where work must be performed on site, but for something like a media company I'm sure you could work from many suitable locations.

falcolas 9y ago
The problem with this logic is that you would never hire a woman, for fear that they could get pregnant and become "unreliable" for 9 months, and completely unavailable for the duration of their maternity leave (while having to keep their job position unfilled). It's far better to apply some humanity to the equation and just give everyone those extra 12 days off (and (mat|pat)ernity leave), so you're not tempted to discriminate off the "productivity loss".
- DropbearRob 9y ago
  Im not saying its humane, or just, or right. Its business. The reason you point out is exactly what has happened in the past. In fact my mum used to work for a company that straight up fired any female staff in the secretary pool which got married to protect themselves from exactly the losses you speak of. Luckily we don't live in that world anymore (40 years ago). And we are working to reduce the dis-incentives of hiring women over men. Im living in the UK where recently paternity and maternity leave are inter-changable and can be split between parents. entitling men to equal leave to women to reduce the incentives of hiring men over women. There are all kinds of times when people become less productive. Im never advocating never hiring a woman, only that whatever benefits you apply to one act as a hiring dis-incentive unless applied by law to both. Its economics, not ethics.

DropbearRob 9y ago

Oh, sorry to double reply, but I just thought of something devious. What if any of the following apply to the female employee: Is on birth control to supress having a period. Has an IUD and is one of the 1 in 5 for whom this stops Having periods for a year. Has had a hysterectomy. Has gone through menopause. Has another condition which causes them to not have periods. do they have their 12 days ripped from them unceremoniously? It seems like there are a lot of edge cases here which may provide additional areas to cry "sexism" because for the cases listed above they wont require the 12 extra days, yet without having intimate medical knowledge of your staff, you cannot differentite between one type of non-period having staff member and another (in the "other" case a male). in any case I'm glad they've done it as a case study on what happens next.

kingofpandora 9y ago

Reminds me of a company in a country I won't name that celebrated International Women's Day by giving each female employee a bouquet of flowers. There may have been good intentions ...