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Menstrual products in a bathroom
Photo: Annette Riedl / picture alliance / dpa
Hardly anyone in this country talks openly about a common ailment that affects almost half of the population: menstrual pain.
I, too, would never think of combining a "How are you?" with a "Don't ask!
I have my periods” to answer.
Monthly recurring abdominal cramps, headache attacks, nausea or mood swings are private matters.
No one would ask the State for justice for something Mother Nature screwed up.
Quite different in Spain.
So that no Spaniard is forced to go to work pumped full of painkillers, women should in future be allowed to take sick leave for three days a month with a doctor's certificate - at the expense of the state.
If the law comes into force, it would be a novelty in Europe.
And could also lead to a less shameful handling of menstrual pain in other countries.
Employees can already ask their doctor to write them off sick on the critical days in the event of acute pain.
But be it from a typical German sense of duty, from fear of stupid comments or from the experience that many painkillers also help a lot, only a few do it.
Most of the women of child-bearing age suffer from pain throughout the day at times every month.
Clenching your teeth may be socially ingrained.
A law like the one in Spain cannot eliminate violent convulsions, but it can help break taboos and make consideration the rule.
Why should the state have an interest in this?
Perhaps because menstruation is a biological prerequisite for the regular regrowth of new taxpayers.
It's a shame that the Berlin traffic lights aren't planning anything comparable to Spain.
In any case, one looks in vain for measures to break the taboo on the female cycle in the coalition agreement.
The word »period« occurs 17 times in it, but mostly as part of »legislature period«.
The last period of legislation was in 2019 under Angela Merkel, when her finance minister, Olaf Scholz, reduced VAT on menstrual hygiene items from 19 to 7 percent.
Which some manufacturers immediately answered with a price increase.
It may be cold consolation, but Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wants to present a bill legalizing cannabis later this year.
The THC contained in hemp often makes pain more bearable.
If the traffic light does not introduce any measures to break the taboo on menstrual pain during this legislative period, it could at least consider inserting the following passage into the cannabis legalization law: Employees who appear high at work for up to three days a month must not be prosecuted with consequences under labor law will.