Have you ever noticed a female colleague who, for a few days each month, looks pale and slumped at her desk? Her bag may be full of painkillers, and she might take frequent trips to the restroom during those days…
On March 8, 2024, International Women’s Day, DingTalk, one of China’s leading office software platforms, released an advertisement titled “Period Leave Should Be a Real Leave”. The ad directly addresses the issue of menstrual leave in the workplace.
Video Content and Cultural Context
The video depicts the struggles women face during their menstrual cycles, such as enduring pain while working and the difficulty of requesting leave. It also features women from various professions across the country reading excerpts from China’s Labor Protection Law for Female Workers. The ad calls on employers to add a “period leave” option in DingTalk’s OA system, making it easier for female employees to request leave during their periods.
In China, due to the stigma surrounding menstruation, the term “period” was long avoided in direct conversations. Instead, euphemisms like “大姨妈”or “例假” were used. Interestingly, the Chinese term “例假” originally meant “regular leave,” but this ad cleverly transforms its connotation, advocating for periods to indeed become a “real leave.”
Striking a Chord—Women Are Used to “Enduring” Their Periods
“I don’t know why, but I teared up watching this. It feels like the pain we women endure every month is finally being understood.”
This was one of the top comments on DingTalk’s video platform, garnering over 5,000 likes and agreements.
As a woman who frequently suffers from severe menstrual cramps—sometimes needing painkillers and even struggling to stand—I felt deeply understood by the ad. The video starts by highlighting a common response among working women to period pain: endurance. It effectively resonates with women by portraying relatable scenarios:
Resource: ScreenShot from the video(https://www.tvcbook.com/video/1217370.html)
Balancing DingTalk’s Corporate Responsibility and Commercial Interests
According to the 2021 White Paper on Women’s Health in China, nearly 55% of Chinese women suffer from dysmenorrhea (menstrual cramps). Yet menstrual leave requests account for only 0.27% of all leave applications. Recognizing this “shame of requesting menstrual leave,” DingTalk launched the ad across platforms like TikTok, Bilibili, and WeChat, leveraging the attention spike of International Women’s Day. This strategy reflects the dynamics of the attention economy,
“An economic perspective in which things such as media content are assigned a value according to their capacity to attract the interest and engagement of people in a distracting media-saturated and information-rich environment.”
(Marwick, 2015)
The video not only raised awareness of labor laws but also positioned DingTalk as a socially responsible brand. By linking its system features with relevant laws, DingTalk embedded its commercial objectives into a broader social discussion. As of now, the video has received 86,000 likes on WeChat alone.
Within the framework of neoliberalism, today’s “popular feminism” often emphasizes self-empowerment. In DingTalk’s ad, this empowerment is achieved through media affordances, which is “what material artifacts such as media technologies allow people to do.” Specifically, the addition of the “menstrual leave” feature in DingTalk’s system empowers women to confidently and conveniently request leave. This innovation reflects DingTalk’s commitment to workplace inclusivity while assigning new social responsibilities to businesses.
Video showing how female employees can use the “period leave” function
Can Chinese Women Break Free from the Shame of Menstrual Leave?
While DingTalk’s ad successfully brings attention to menstrual health, it may primarily serve to enhance the company’s image rather than fundamentally addressing workplace gender inequality. Though the ad acknowledges the marginalization of women in workplace power dynamics, “this critique is expressed in a friendly, safe way.” As Banet-Weiser explains, popular feminism often avoids challenging deeper inequities.
The feature provides businesses with the option to include “period leave” in their systems, but as long as the company is unaware or pretends to be unaware, employers could simply ignore it. “This kind of feminism does not challenge deep structures of inequities.” Structural issues such as workplace bias and institutionalized support, such as universally applicable menstrual leave policies, remain unaddressed.
A Flap of the Wings
Let progress happen
DingTalk’s ad exemplifies the success of popular feminism in media campaigns, but its real impact will depend on deeper cultural and policy reforms in the workplace. That said, DingTalk has taken a significant first step by “flapping its wings,” initiating corporate engagement with social care. The question remains: how can we balance commercialized feminism with genuine progress toward gender equality?