Several provinces in China now have laws in place to ensure women can take a day or two a month off work if they suffer from period pain. Events organiser Churan Zheng regularly takes menstrual leave, and says it is an essential option for every woman.
I always get a heavy feeling and stomach cramps the night before my period starts. And when I wake up, the pain that accompanies the menstruation is so unbearable that I always imagine myself grabbing my intestines and tearing them out of my body, or cutting them out with a pair of scissors. I feel like vomiting.
t's often difficult during these times for me to concentrate on my work, which makes me curse my gender.
Some people think allowing women to take menstrual leave costs the business money, so there is a debate about whether it could discourage companies from hiring women.
However, so far as I know, my company - where female employees are in the majority - doesn't suffer significant financial loss despite the fact that almost every woman takes menstrual leave every month, or every other month.
Nature cannot free women from period pain, but isn't there something our society can do for women? I cannot stop thinking that if men had periods then menstrual leave might have been written into national constitutions from the very beginning.
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