A new report finds that 59% of Millennial women want to move into leadership roles. But the news isn’t all good: of the survey respondents with these career ambitions, 90% menstruate. In fact, two-thirds of those who experience “that time of the month” do so practically every single month.
“I was responsible for one of our most successful advertising campaigns,” said Katie Aarons, a senior marketing associate at a creative agency. “Thanks to my efforts alone, revenue increased 20% in the last quarter compared with Q3 in 2020. But I also forgot to change my tampon for 13 hours once, and I spent approximately eight minutes and 13 seconds of company time deep-diving TSS symptoms.”
Lilly Smith agrees. “I’ve dreamed of founding my own startup for years, and I’ve been working on a really solid pitch deck,” she said. “At the same time, I eat, like, ten thousand bags of Smartfood a day when the flow is super heavy.” Smith added that she has tried to switch to Skinny Pop, but “it’s just not the same level of greasy.”
Concerns about women who are sometimes in heat moving into leadership roles are not concentrated to the employee level. Managers, too, worry about the implications of promoting employees who experience Code Red once a month.
“Take Carrie Shield,” said Richard Finn, CEO of a major software development firm. “She’s one of our brightest, most hardworking developers on staff. Recently, she came to me, asking to throw her hat in the ring for the new manager opening. Normally, someone like her would be a shoo-in. But you’ve got to look at the big picture. What if, say, we had an executive retreat at a beach, and the sharks got a whiff of her?”
“This is a twofold issue,” Finn elaborated. “First, Carrie used three out of 10 allotted sick days last year. Were they because of PMS? I don’t know. We’re not allowed to ask. But I can hazard a strong ‘maybe.’ Second, we recently invested in white chairs for our main boardroom, and I’d hate to see them ruined.”
