SC’s Menstrual Leave Remarks Expose a Deeper Workplace Discomfort

Even while declining to mandate menstrual leave, the SC could have acknowledged the lived realities women navigate.

When institutions formally recognise that menstruation may occasionally require rest or flexibility, they normalise a biological reality that has long been pushed into silence.

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Every month, without fail and with the timing of an uninvited calendar alert, the menstrual cycle announces itself. There is no polite warning, no “schedule meeting” notification, but a sudden hormonal coup inside the body. It is the only time the body resembles a plumbing emergency while professionalism requires you to behave like a Swiss watch.

And yet, from our earliest school days, many of us learned the art of concealment. Pads were smuggled like contraband in crinkly black polythene packets, sweaters were strategically tied around suspiciously stained uniforms, and entire corridor walks were executed with the stealth and composure of undercover agents, all in the hope that no one would notice the perfectly ordinary biological process we had already been trained to treat like a national secret.

The stigma begins early and follows women quietly into adulthood. By the time they enter workplaces, menstruation has already been internalised as something to be hidden, endured, and never allowed to disrupt the expectation of composure and productivity.

When we speak of breaking the glass ceiling, we often celebrate professional victories without acknowledging the far more private battles fought long before those moments arrive. The refusal of law and policy to recognise that lived reality does not create neutrality; it simply demands that women carry the burden of parity alone.

Paid Menstrual Leave in India

The demand for five days of paid menstrual leave every month understandably raises concerns about feasibility within already strained workplace leave structures.

But the debate need not be framed as an all-or-nothing proposition. A more pragmatic balance lies in acknowledging menstruation within the existing leave architecture, rather than treating it as a separate and exceptional entitlement. Factoring one or two days of monthly menstrual leave within the annual leave calendar would neither destabilise productivity nor impose an unreasonable burden on employers.

What it would do, however, is signal a basic institutional recognition that the menstruating body is part of the workforce the law claims to protect. The question, therefore, is not whether five days is too much; it is whether even one day of accommodation is still too uncomfortable a reality for workplaces and policymakers to formally acknowledge.

Such a calibrated approach would also align with the way labour protections have historically evolved in India incrementally, through modest accommodations that gradually reshape workplace norms.

Menstrual leave need not be treated as an extraordinary entitlement requiring elaborate administrative mechanisms. In many ways, it could function much like other short term health accommodations that workplaces already recognise, whether for minor illness, medical appointments, or personal contingencies.

What matters is the principle of acknowledgment. When institutions formally recognise that menstruation may occasionally require rest or flexibility, they do more than adjust a leave ledger; they normalise a biological reality that has long been pushed into silence.

Court’s Opportunity to Speak Beyond the Verdict

At a moment when the Supreme Court of India is preparing to revisit the very contours of labour protection by examining whether social welfare activities undertaken by government departments can fall within the definition of “industrial activities” under Section 2(j) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the hesitation around menstrual leave appears even more striking.

The question before the Court in that reference is fundamentally about expanding the reach of labour jurisprudence, whether workers engaged in welfare schemes and public programmes deserve the same protections traditionally available in industrial establishments. Seen against that backdrop, the argument that recognising paid menstrual leave might discourage employers from hiring women seems curiously regressive.

Labour law has historically evolved by bringing more categories of work and workers within its protective framework, not by withholding rights because employers might find them inconvenient. If social welfare programmes run by the State can legitimately be examined through the lens of industrial protection, then acknowledging the biological realities affecting half the workforce should hardly be treated as an extraordinary or destabilising demand.

From that high constitutional chair, the words of Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, carry a significance that extends far beyond the immediate disposition of a petition. They shape the moral vocabulary through which society understands rights, dignity, and equality. Even while declining to mandate menstrual leave as a matter of judicial policy, the Court could have used the occasion to acknowledge the lived realities women navigate every month, the pain, the stigma, the quiet discipline required to carry on as if the body were unaffected.

A simple recognition from the bench that menstruation is a legitimate workplace reality deserving empathy and institutional sensitivity would have sent a powerful message across the country. Courts have often done this before: signalling social progress even while leaving the mechanics of policy to the legislature.

In a society where menstruation is still cloaked in silence and discomfort, such words from the apex court could have affirmed that acknowledging women’s bodies is not a concession but a step toward genuine equality.

Even within the policy debate, the demands themselves remain strikingly modest. Access to clean, functional toilets and the possibility of taking a day of paid leave during menstruation do not require any dramatic restructuring of workplaces.

Yet, the moment the conversation turns to menstruation, the system suddenly develops an acute anxiety about feasibility. The difficulty has rarely been administrative; it has been the willingness to acknowledge that a significant portion of the workforce experiences a predictable cycle of hormonal upheaval that can affect physical comfort and productivity.

Beneath the policy hesitation lies a deeper reluctance to recognise the menstruating body within the architecture of work. Until that recognition takes place, the message remains quietly consistent: workplaces can adapt to almost every disruption imaginable, except the entirely predictable biological cycle that half the workforce experiences every month.

Equality Must Eventually Confront Biology

The experience of several Indian states quietly undercuts the apprehension that menstrual leave is some untested or destabilising experiment.

Bihar has permitted two days of menstrual leave for women government employees for over three decades, while Odisha, Kerala, and Karnataka have introduced more recent, calibrated versions of the policy within their own institutional frameworks. None of these jurisdictions has reported any measurable collapse in women’s employment because a day or two of menstrual leave exists.

If anything, the striking feature of these policies is how restrained they are typically limited to one or two days and often integrated within existing leave structures rather than created as a sweeping new entitlement. Seen in this light, the dismissal of the menstrual leave PIL by the Supreme Court of India may well have been institutionally sound in treating the issue as a matter for policy rather than judicial mandate.

But the debate it leaves behind is far broader. If several states have already demonstrated that modest accommodation of menstrual realities is administratively workable, the national hesitation begins to appear less about feasibility and more about discomfort.

The question that now lingers is therefore a simple one: whether recognising menstruation as part of working life is genuinely radical or merely long overdue.

(The author is partner at Tatvika Legal, A full-service law firm based in Delhi NCR. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)