THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ATTITUDES TOWARDS MENSTRUAL LEAVE, AMBIVALENT SEXISM, ATTITUDES TOWARDS MENSTRUATION, AND GENDER

Date

2024-9-23

Author

Altay, Minel

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Menstrual leave is a workplace policy that allows women to take leave to recover from menstrual-related symptoms when menstruating. While this policy could positively impact women's psychological and physical health, attitudes towards it are mixed. This thesis was the first to explore attitudes towards menstrual leave in Turkey. It developed a scale to measure these attitudes and examined their relationships with menstrual attitudes, ambivalent sexism, and gender. A total of 734 participants (645 women, 86 men; Mage = 29.60; SD = 8.57) completed the Attitudes towards Menstrual Leave Scale, Modified Menstrual Attitudes Scale, Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, and a Socio-demographic Information Form. Factor analysis of the newly developed Attitudes Towards Menstrual Leave Scale revealed five subfactors: “Supporting women and gender equality,” “Privacy,” “Backfire,” “Misuse,” and “Negative impact on workplaces.” According to the results of regression analyses, being men, endorsing hostile sexist attitudes, denying menstrual symptoms, and endorsing secrecy of menstruation were negatively predicted to support menstrual leave. Hostile sexism and denial of menstrual symptoms positively predicted people’s concerns regarding the misuse of this policy and the possibility of backfiring to women with negative results. Denying the reality of menstrual symptoms and thinking that menstruation should be kept secret were found to be related to concerns that this policy would expose women’s menstruation days to everyone at work. Lastly, secrecy, hostile sexism, and denial of symptoms were found to predict beliefs that menstrual leave would adversely affect workplaces. Findings were discussed, and limitations, possible contributions, and future suggestions were addressed.

Subject Keywords

Menstrual Leave, Menstruation, Ambivalent Sexism, Attitudes, Gender

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/111271

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis