ABSTRACT
Menstruation is a fundamental aspect of each menstruator's life that affects their social, labour and relational life. Menstruation is a normal biological process, but menstrual nature and stigmatized self-image are constructed socially, and the menstrual experiences vastly differ from individual to individual. The menstrual discourse has attained prime importance again in the contemporary global context as a few Asian countries and many corporations have initiated granting leaves on the basis of menstrual status. The chapter contextualizes the debate on the efficacy of introducing menstrual leave and integrates the menstrual discourse with various social theories propounded by sociologists (Herbert Spencer, Berger and Luckmann, Goffman, Emile Durkheim, Parsons, Weber, Habermas, Foucault, Dworkin and the other feminist scholars) with an effort to develop the postulates that could provide sufficient rationale for the introduction of menstrual leaves as a need-based policy, which should neither be uniform nor could be included in sick leave category and in larger context aims at achieving gender equity and justifying the rationale of ‘state accountability to secure human conditions of work at the workplaces’. Thus, such inter-connection of social theories with menstrual discourse postulates the rationale for the introduction of such leaves.
