What Opinions Equates Our Society?

I came across an article a few days back about Zomato - an Indian restaurant aggregator and food delivery startup - introducing 'Period Leaves' for its female employees (including Transgender people) and making it a part of their HR policies. I was happy to see the company acknowledging the existence and problems faced by one half of the society - the women - who are mostly either neglected, taken for granted or considered unequal to the other half - the men - by the general society. I congratulate Zomato for taking this progressive step. I can only wish that more companies make Period Leaves a part of their work culture. But what caught my attention and intrigue more, was the blow up about this initiative on LinkedIn, when a user posted and appreciated it. The reason for the eruption were some questions a friend of mine asked on the post, looking for some undeniable answers. He questioned (paraphrased):

• How honestly will these leaves be used? On other days will the same female employees make sure to revive the team production which was hampered because of their absence in the first place?
• How will the team productivity be managed if half of the workforce is on leave because of Period Leaves?
• If male employees will be considered for promotions and hikes over female employees, based on their extra efforts every month, covering for the absent female team members to recover production?

My friend drew the last straw when he asked if married men should also be given more leaves since they have more responsibilities compared to bachelors. This last question felt totally out of depth. What my friend failed to understand is that not all female employees will be on leave at the same time, every month, for all 5 days. Also, the extra 10 leaves allowed annually to female employees are not meant to be taken all at once. It rather is for consumption throughout the year and especially for those few difficult days.

As expected, both genders argued for and against these questions based on their perspectives. The point everyone missed is that Zomato empathised with its female employees and allowed them the additional leaves. Where most women and a small group of men favored and appreciated Zomato’s initiative, there was yet a small group of women along with many men who sided with my friend’s questions. Being directly linked to the conversation, it would be wrong for me to say that I didn't feel offended or that I was not immediately angry. I was!. I was both offended and furious, at my friend's inconsideration and how his questions minimized the purpose of the initiative. I mean, just think about it. My friend is asking for more leaves for male employees in a Company, just because female employees were being given Period Leaves? The humorous epiphany is that men don't even have the biological system responsible for the menstrual cycle and all the terrible bodily experience that comes with it! Otherwise, all organisations allocate annual leaves equally to all its employees irrespective of their gender. I’m pretty sure he can avail paternity leaves when his wife requests for her maternity leaves! Nevertheless. Having had to face similar discussions all my life, I agree that it would have been easy for me to launch myself head-on in the fire, calling out some of the hypocrisy irrespective of the gender posting the comments. But since I’ve known my friend for a long time now, it made me think. At first I questioned my choice of friends. Then I questioned my choice of having him as my friend. Then I asked myself what he must have been thinking, while posting his questions on a fiercely active platform like LinkedIn. Then remembering that he is now married to his college sweetheart, I read his questions again. I contemplated that being married, he definitely cannot be unaware about menstruations (periods or chums). So probably, he was just looking for some real answers to his ‘hard-hitting’ questions. Maybe, he genuinely wants to know! So I made an effort to see the ongoing discussion objectively. I concluded that it’s better to educate him rather than getting sucked into the conundrum. I looked for some concrete information, data, facts and science to clarify my friend's inconsiderate and ignorant questions. While watching various videos related to the subject, that I thought I could show him, I realised that most men - irrespective of the country they belong to in the world society - are ignorant of such a phenomenon occurring in the lives of the co-existing gender. The male population, from what I observed, could clearly be divided into 3 categories:

• The men who neither know about it nor do they want to know (it had obviously nothing to do with them so they were not interested).
• The men who know about it but don’t want to talk about it lest being uncomfortable when acknowledging it publicly (most men being interviewed in the videos requested the interviewer to direct the question ‘What do you know about Periods?’ to the women instead).
• And, the men who know about it and are empathetic.

The shocking conclusion of this fact-check was that the majority of men in the society fell in the 'Nay' category - either 'not' knowing or 'not' acknowledging. More importantly, I was the one doing all the research to prove a point to my friend, while all he saw was the men being left behind in the battle of ‘Equality for Leaves’. Speaking specifically about today’s Indian society, there are colossal layers of social norms and traditions existing within layers - each layer, deeper and more rigid than the layer enveloping it - the molecules of years of thought process planted together and solidified. I am aware of the social norms differentiating the men from the women. I mean c’mon! Except for the physically appearing differences created by nature and identified by science, aren’t the rest of the aspects setting these 2 genders apart (including Transgenders) based on social opinions? Like how both genders should dress, what responsibilities we should have, what duties we must perform, what we can do, what we shouldn’t do, etc. - to maintain the ‘normality’ within the society? But if you come to think of it, what is it that truly and genuinely sets us apart or equates us in the society? Men and women, (except for the biological aspect) have been created equally. Both genders have bones and muscles in their body, blood of the same colour and an equal allocation of eyes, nose, ears, arms and legs. These attributes only make women as 'Human' as the men. Then by what opinion are women any less to men? Women have been created to look delicate, but is it not only a social opinion to consider us to be physically weak as well? I still fail to see why some men, like my friend, felt victimised just because women were allowed to take Period Leaves? Why is there a conflict about ‘Equality’? Just because men don’t feel the pain we endure throughout the menstrual week, does that make our pain less important or the experience less painful? If men could feel our period pain, will only then the initiative of Period Leaves be justified? Even Akshay Kumar and Diljit Dosanjh, as part of their movie promotion, went through machine induced labor pains to understand what women experience. Some brave men opted to endure machine induced period pains for the same reasons. Will it take more men to experience similar painful conditions to empathise with us? I would like to believe that my friend’s questions have now been answered from the responses from everyone. But there's no guarantee to what he has accepted and acknowledged, primarily because he didn't add or respond to the bombarding suggestions coming from every direction. In today’s society it is important that we understand that not everything is about equality. Rather, some things are about empathy. Then again, empathy and equality are both only a matter of perspective. Someone can accept and acknowledge what I shared, whereas some others can deny it, decline it and brush it aside with a wave of their hand. In the end, we all are unconsciously accepting and living with what has been fed to us. It is easy to sit back and judge someone else’s opinion. But it is difficult to seek out the complete truth by ourselves and base our perspectives on it. Because ultimately it is about our Unconscious Perspective!