Union Minister for Women and Child Development Smriti Irani on Thursday clarified why she opposed menstrual hygiene policy and her menstruation not handicap comment. Explaining her stance, the Union Minister questioned why a woman\u2019s period leave be known to her employer, as that would be the case if the government adopts a policy of mandatory period leave for women employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking to ANI, the Union Minister addressed the controversy that her statement in Parliament triggered after she said menstruation is not a handicap and the government is not coming up with any policy for mandatory paid period leaves. She explained that the proposed leaves might be a harassment for a single woman who chooses not to take those leaves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Smriti Irani added that implementing such leaves would mean that women have to report her periods to HRs and the accounts. She remarked that with these leaves they are creating more barriers for discrimination at the time when they are saying that more and more women need to come and join the workforce, especially in factory floors and corporate houses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Responding to a question of RJD MP Manoj Jha, Smriti Irani said menstruation is a natural part of women’s life journey. She said that as a menstruating woman, menstruation and the menstruation cycle is not a handicap, it\u2019s a natural part of women\u2019s life journey and that they should not propose issues where women are denied equal opportunities just because somebody who does not menstruate has a particular viewpoint towards menstruation. RJD MP Manoj Jha posed the question to Smriti Irani on December 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Union Minister\u2019s comment drew flak as Telangana leader K Kavitha said Smriti Irani’s ignorance is appalling. Taking to social media platform X, the Telangana leader said that menstruation isn’t a choice and it is a biological reality. She added that denying paid leave ignores the genuine pain countless women endure. She continued that as a woman, it’s disconcerting to see a lack of empathy for the genuine challenges women face and the fight they have to put up for everything. It’s high time to indeed bridge the gap between policy-making and reality with empathy and reason, she concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
She explained that the proposed leaves might be a harassment for a single woman who chooses not to take those leaves.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":496878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1497],"tags":[161451,161450,22],"yst_prominent_words":[],"ppma_author":[140543],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/d2r2ijn7njrktv.cloudfront.net\/apnlive\/uploads\/2023\/12\/22200002\/Capture-2023-12-22T195716.244.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":140543,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"apnnewsdesk","display_name":"APN Live","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/478eacb893eda88aa6ed8d99b005bf58?s=96&r=g"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496876\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496876"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=496876"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apnlive.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=496876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}