Blood Work: Managing Menstruation, Menopause and Gynaecological Health Conditions in the Workplace.

Katherine Sang,Katriona Myhill,Jen Remnant,Thomas Calvard

doi:10.3390/ijerph18041951

Abstract

The menstrual cycle remains neglected in explorations of public health, and entirely remiss in occupational health literature, despite being a problematic source of gendered inequalities at work. This paper proposes the new concept of blood work to explain the relationship between menstruation (and associated gynaecological health conditions) and employment for women and trans/non-binary people. We build on and extend health and organisational literature on managing bodies at work by arguing that those who experience menstruation face additional work or labour in the management of their own bodies through the menstrual cycle. We discuss how this additional labour replicates problematic elements that are identifiable in public health initiatives, in that it is individualised, requiring individual women and trans/non-binary people to navigate unsupportive workplaces. We present findings from an analysis of qualitative survey data that were completed by 627 participants working in higher education, revealing that employees’ blood work comprises distinct difficulties that are related to the management of painful, leaking bodies, access to facilities, stigma, and balancing workload. We suggest developing supportive workplaces and public health policies, which refocus the responsibility for accessible, equal workplaces that accommodate menstruating employees, and those with gynaecological health conditions.

Highlights

In 2016, a company in Bristol became the first organisation in the UK to launch “period leave” for its women employees [1], unusually situating menstruation as apart from sickness absence more generally
We suggest a move from the current individualised responsibility of blood work, and conclude with recommendations for supportive workplace practices and policies to better accommodate the needs of employees managing their menstrual health and wellbeing
We propose the concept of blood work, which we define here as the individualised labour that is undertaken by those who experience menstruation and gynaecological health conditions to ‘manage’ their bodies to fit professional norms that were established by those who do not experience menstruation

Summary

Introduction

In 2016, a company in Bristol became the first organisation in the UK to launch “period leave” for its women employees [1], unusually situating menstruation as apart from sickness absence more generally Such examples of changes in policy point to what is otherwise a strikingly absent topic in studies of occupational health and organisation studies on menstruation, conceptualised as one of the three Ms of gendered working lives (with the other two being maternity and menopause [2]). We present qualitative survey data that were collected from employees working in higher education settings (n = 627) and highlight key themes emerging from the data We suggest that those who menstruate have an additional, distinctive form of physical and emotional labour to carry out, that of blood work. Health studies from across the world show that menstruation and menstrual health problems can be associated with reduced quality of life, negative employment outcomes, and symptoms, such as fatigue, which pose challenges to workplace engagement [9,10].

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