I appreciate the thoughtful response, that sounds like an excellent solution as well. I'm glad that the conversation around this is starting, as so many of us have been gaslit or flat out not believed when asking for help with menstrual pain accommodations - when I was a kid, it took me throwing up all over the floor in high school from pain for them to even consider letting me go home to rest. I hope the culture around forcing folks to work at normal capacity during intense periods can start to be dismantled.

For the method that Spain will be trying out, I trust (for now) their solid anti-descrimination laws around the workplace to prevent hiring descrimination. The US doesn't have as good protections in the same sense so I think a government based program like you suggested would work better here - anecdotally, employers here have been awful to my peers who have debilitating periods.

Then what is an alternative solution you propose to accommodate those who are debilitated by menstrual pain and cannot work during those days?

That's why I said it was a similar mechanism of access, not the same. I do know that, for some folks, the pain they experience from periods is so debilitating that they have had to get disability accommodations for it, so it's not an entirely irrelevant comparison for everyone. Generally periods are manageable, but folks who experience debilitating pain during theirs should have access to adequate accommodations such as this policy.

No, folks who don't menstruate don't need access to policies meant to help folks who do. It's similar to how non-disabled people don't get access to services like disability and accomodations that help people who are disabled.