Indian brands that are breaking an age old taboo & empower women

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For decades, menstruation has been a barrier to women parity. In India, menstruation is still a taboo but this needs to be taken into account to look after the wellbeing of the female employees.

With workplaces having women workforce in India, this issue generally stays unaddressed among females in the society. To support the women workforce & promote gender equality, Indian brands are now changing the mindset of people with a progressive thought of giving menstrual leaves to their women employees. Leaving behind all the stigmas and taboos stacked to menstruation.

From Food delivery brands to auto companies, here are a few companies leading the progressive mindset to break the period taboo and announced annual period leaves for their women workforce:

Spinny - Spinny, the full-stack online platform for sales and purchase of used cars, has gone ahead with a progressive approach and introduced period leaves for all their female employees. With having ‘everyone is one’ mindset and to give equal importance to women spinny is giving 12 annual menstrual leaves over and above the existing leave policy. Around 20% of the workforce consists of women for whom these leaves will be beneficial.

Zomato – India’s largest food delivery firm Zomato has announced 10 days period leave policy for its women workforce along with the transgender employees.  Company’s leave policy speaks a lot about women empowerment and gender equality. To provide a supportive and healthy work environment this policy is initiated to break the shame & stigma by making menstrual leaves normal as any other leave.

Horses Stable – Bengaluru based startup Horses Stable has set an example by announcing menstrual leaves for both men and women. Going one step ahead further with their policy allows two paid leaves to women to help cope with the pains and cramps during their periods. Adding to this commendable thought, their policy also extends to male employees so that they can support their spouses during that time of the month.

Culture Machine – A digital media startup, Culture Machine in Mumbai, initiated menstrual leave policy with a thought to overcome this taboo and make this a part of daily parlance. Company believes in women empowerment and they regularly speak about women's issues. To make this more meaningful, the brand decided to let their women staff take a leave on their first day of period which in return received an overwhelming response from the staff.