The day I used menstrual leave for the first time. An application submitted by a woman in her 30s in her 8th year of working life

Our company's attendance system has a dropdown menu for selecting the type of leave. It includes options for paid leave, half-day leave, bereavement leave, and switching to remote work. Among those options, the four characters for "menstrual leave" have been there, probably since I joined the company.

I'm in my 8th year of working. I had never selected it once.

I knew it existed. I remember it being read out quickly during the new employee training when the work regulations were explained. But I had never seen anyone actually select it. At least within my field of vision, that item was a "button that exists but is never pressed."

In my case, there is a big difference between months when my period is heavy and months when it isn't. To be honest, in light months, almost nothing changes. But on the second day of a heavy month, I take painkillers first thing in the morning, wait an hour for them to kick in, and then work with a normal face. On days when it coincides with low atmospheric pressure, even if the painkillers work, it feels like there's a film over my head.

Even so, I had never taken a day off. If it was an office day, I would switch to remote work and work while curled up in front of the screen. On days when it was absolutely impossible, I would take paid leave. In the reason for application field, I would write "for personal reasons."

It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't accurate either. I had never properly put into words the reason why I didn't write the truth in that field.

There is a scene I remember. When I was about 24 and working as a sales assistant, I came to the office on a heavy day, and a senior colleague sitting next to me asked, "You look pale, are you okay?" I reflexively answered, "I'm just a little sleep-deprived." I offered a different reason to someone who was worried about me. I didn't have any ill intentions toward myself at that time; I just thought, "That's how it is." I believed there were things you could say and things you shouldn't say, depending on the type of physical condition. Even though no one taught me, I was able to categorize them properly. That skill in categorization was probably the most deep-seated thing of all.

・

At the end of June this year, I made a one-digit mistake in a report's figures.

In the monthly summary, one of the figures I provided was off by one. I noticed it immediately and fixed it, so there was no actual harm, but when I looked back, that day was a "day I took painkillers and switched to remote work." Actually, I had made a similar small mistake in May, and that was also on a day with the same conditions.

I have a habit of recording numbers and events in a notebook. Since I've also been keeping simple work logs since last year, I tried looking back over a year's worth. When I marked the "days when my performance was probably down due to my period," there were 12 days.

12 days. It means that for almost two weeks out of the year, I was doing the work of "hiding that I wasn't feeling well" on top of my actual work.

Working while hiding it sometimes leads to gaps in my work as a result. Once I saw it in numbers, I had no choice but to admit it.

・

On the Wednesday of the second week of July, I woke up at 6:00 AM and knew that today was impossible.

That day was an office day. Usually, it would be a day where I would apply to switch to remote work and manage somehow while going back and forth between my bed and my desk. But I remembered the "12 days" in my notebook, opened the attendance system on my smartphone, and scrolled through the dropdown menu.

My finger stopped for a moment over "menstrual leave." It felt like it had been stopped for 8 years.

I pressed it.

The reply from my boss was just, "Understood. Take care." A little over 10 characters. It was read in about 20 seconds, and that was it.

I felt let down. I wondered if this 10-character message was the true identity of what I had been hesitating over for 8 years.

That day, I slept until noon, woke up around 3 PM, drank some hot water, ate some jelly drink, and went back to sleep for a while. I wouldn't say my guilt had completely vanished. In the evening, while staring at the ceiling, I briefly wondered, "I wonder how the meeting is going right now." I thought about it, but I didn't open Slack.

That night, after I had recovered a little, I searched for "menstrual leave utilization rate." According to a survey by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, it seems that less than 1% of people have ever taken it. That means if there are 100 people, 99 of them are somehow managing using one of the same methods I have been using. Seeing the numbers, I realized clearly that my hesitation wasn't just a matter of my individual personality.

The next day, I went to work as usual. My work was just one day behind, but it hadn't fallen apart. No one asked me anything, and I didn't offer any particular explanation either. I think that was fine.

・

From here on, these are things I organized later.

At my company, menstrual leave is unpaid. If you have paid leave remaining, it is financially "better" to take paid leave. So, for me until now, there was a "rational reason not to choose it."

But this time, I dared to submit it under the menstrual leave category because it would remain on record.

A system that is not used becomes a "system that is not needed" in terms of numbers. If no one uses it, it becomes a situation where "no one at our company is having trouble." The time I spent for eight years covering it up with paid leave and "for personal reasons" does not exist in any of the company's statistics.

My one instance probably became a "1" in some HR data somewhere. That's about all there is to it, but zero and one are completely different.

Also, I am now in a position to check the attendance of my juniors. When I thought about what if a junior was stopping their finger in front of the same pull-down menu on the other side of the screen I approve, I felt a bit uncomfortable. It's easy to say "you can use it" with your mouth, but it's difficult for someone in a lower position to be the first to use a system that no one in a higher position uses. It would mean making people younger than me do the same calculations every month that I hesitated over for eight years. So, I thought it should be me who uses it first.

I told this story to a friend from my university days last week. Then, it seems that at her company, they changed the name of the menstrual leave itself to something else. They made it so the word "menstrual" doesn't appear on the application screen, and the number of people taking it increased from there. While I think that's a good improvement, we also talked about what kind of system it is that can't be used unless you hide its name. We didn't reach a conclusion. It's true that some people are saved by being able to hide it, and it's also true that the atmosphere that forces you to hide it is the core of the problem; both are probably correct.

I also asked my mother about it while we were on the phone. In my mother's generation, she said, "It existed, but it wasn't something you could speak up about." Thirty years later, I finally used it once. I feel like it's a speed that I don't really understand whether it's progressing or not.

Another thing I realized was that "working while hiding it" had become my default setting. No one told me to hide it. But in a place where I had never seen anyone use it, I calculated the cost of being the first person to do so every time, and every time I chose "let's skip it today." I was the one paying that cost, and the faces of the people who made me pay it are not clearly visible.

In times like these, I prefer to leave a record rather than raise a loud voice. Even in situations where emotions aren't conveyed, numbers remain.

・

The changes since then are subtle.

On light months, I work as usual. That hasn't changed. What has changed is that I have one more card I can choose on heavy months. "Resting" has been officially added to the hand I only had "enduring while hiding it" in.

Also, if a junior asks me, "Is it okay to use that?", I have become someone who can say, "I used it." Whether or not you have seen someone be the first person to do something is probably much bigger than you imagine. Because for eight years, I was on the side that hadn't seen that.

Honestly, I don't know if I will use it every time. It's unpaid, there are deadlines, and I have no obligation to go out of my way to carry something on days when my physical condition is tough. I think I should just decide how to take time off based on how I feel at that time.

However, "being able to choose but not choosing" and "not choosing" were completely different things. I feel that being able to distinguish between the two was the biggest thing this time.

I don't think my finger will hesitate the next time I open that pull-down menu.