Maternity Protection and Menstrual Leave
*This article has been revised, supplemented, and republished from a piece I wrote for another venue in the past.
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The fundamental human rights guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be considered genuine unless equality between the sexes is upheld in all of them.
This is because the desire to "live like a human being" and to "protect one's health and give birth to and raise the next generation in good health" is a common wish shared by all workers and citizens, regardless of gender.
And the starting point for these wishes is the right to maternity protection.
Nevertheless, the fact that women possess maternal functions and are the "sex that gives birth" has also been used as a basis for discriminating against them.
Cases such as "being forced to resign after announcing a pregnancy" still continue to occur.
However, giving birth to children is an essential social function for the survival of humanity.
Therefore, maternity must be socially protected, and this is a prerequisite for gender equality.
It is important to create workplaces where maternity leave, measures for menstruation, and maternal protection and workload reduction for pregnant and nursing women, as stipulated by the Labor Standards Act and the Equal Employment Opportunity Law, can be reliably exercised.
Among the rights for maternity protection, the menstrual leave system is said to be unique to Japan.
As shown in works such as "The Factory Girl" (Joko Aishi) by Wakizo Hosoi, female workers in pre-war Japan were forced to work under extremely poor conditions.
For female workers at the time, maternity protection became an extremely urgent demand, and they stood up with courage, such as by going on strike, and in 1931, the Senju Pharmaceutical Research Institute Labor Union finally won a three-day paid menstrual leave.
After World War II, menstrual leave came to be guaranteed as a right under the Labor Standards Act.
Due to attacks by the government and the business community aiming to eliminate menstrual leave, the "women's protection" provisions were significantly changed in the 1985 revision of the Labor Standards Act, and the term "menstrual leave" was removed from the text of the law.
Because of this, some employers have claimed that "menstrual leave no longer exists," but the right to menstrual leave itself has not changed.
Article 68 of the Labor Standards Act stipulates that "when a woman for whom work during menstrual periods would be especially difficult has requested leave, the employer shall not employ her on days of the menstrual period."
And employers who violate this are subject to a fine of up to 300,000 yen (Article 120, Item 1).
However, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare's Basic Survey on Equal Employment and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' Labour Force Survey, it is said that less than 1% of female workers take menstrual leave.
A workplace where maternity is valued, such as through menstrual leave, should also be a workplace that is easy for men to work in.
Now is the time to strengthen the struggle to enhance maternity protection.
<<References>>
*Kinue Sakurai, "History of the Maternity Protection Movement" (Domes Shuppan, 1987)
*Asa Taguchi, "The Birth of Menstrual Leave" (Seikyusha, 2003)
*Tomie Komada, "Maternity Protection for Working Women" (Gakushu no Tomosha, 2011)
*Kumiko Kemurizaki, "Menstrual Leave We Can Be Proud of to the World" ("Gakushu no Tomo," December 2012 issue)
*Midori Kawamura, "Only 0.9%... Why Don't People Take 'Menstrual Leave'? New Systems Including Paid Leave and Gender-Neutral Options Are Emerging #ToYouWhoWorks" (Jiji Dot Com, July 6, 2023)https://www.jiji.com/jc/v8?id=202307seirikyuka-team