Psychosocial hazards and the weaponising of menstruation

Abstract

While occupational health and safety scholarship has expanded in recent decades to include psychosocial hazards, there remains scant consideration of menstruation-related psychosocial hazards and harms, which women workers encounter at work. This article contributes to knowledge on menstruation-related workplace psychosocial hazards through examining the experiences of women working in the Bangladesh readymade garment industry. The article's purposes are threefold: first, to identify the psychosocial hazards that women workers experience during menstruation and the impacts on their physical and psychological health; second, to explain the prevalence of these psychosocial hazards; and third, to provide realistic regulatory and policy suggestions to eliminate these hazards in the emerging economy context. Using labour process theory, we argue that menstruation-related psychosocial hazards occurring in workplaces at the bottom of fast fashion supply chains where women workers continue to predominate are the product of systematic management strategies designed to secure capital accumulation through harnessing menstrual stigma in the organisational sphere. An understanding of the impacts of price and sourcing squeezes imposed on suppliers through global supply chains is crucial to informing practical policy interventions.