As part of our series of comment pieces from World Class GB Top 10 bartenders, Carrie Smith issues a stirring statement on a much neglected conversation. 

---

But there’s one conversation we’re still uncomfortable having - women’s health.

For an industry built on caring for people, we’re remarkably reluctant to talk about the realities affecting half our workforce. Periods. Endometriosis. Adenomyosis. PCOS. Fertility treatment. Pregnancy. Miscarriage. Perimenopause. Menopause.

These aren’t niche issues. They’re everyday realities. Yet they’re still too often treated as personal problems rather than workplace ones.

I’ll admit this is personal. Across every hospitality company I’ve worked for, I’ve never truly felt women’s health was understood. I’ve worked with incredible managers and leaders, but I’ve also realised many simply haven’t had the lived experience - or the education- to understand what severe period pain or reproductive health conditions can actually look like.

Too often, it’s dismissed as “just a bad period.” For many people, it’s debilitating.

The issue isn’t always a lack of compassion. It’s a lack of understanding.

Hospitality is still an industry where many senior leadership positions are held by men. This isn’t about blaming men - great leadership isn’t defined by gender. You don’t have to experience endometriosis, miscarriage or menopause to support someone going through it. But you do have to understand it.

Because if the people writing absence policies, making promotion decisions and shaping workplace culture don’t understand women’s health, how can they build systems that genuinely support it?

Who is impacted?

According to research service, the House of Commons Library, one in ten women in the UK are estimated to have endometriosis, yet diagnosis can still take years. That means thousands of people are working through severe pain, often without a diagnosis, while trying to maintain the same attendance and performance expected of everyone else.

This is where I think hospitality gets it wrong. Most attendance policies are built around unexpected illness. You catch the flu. You recover. You return to work.

Women’s health often doesn’t work like that. Many reproductive health conditions are cyclical. They return month after month. Yet repeated absences can still count towards attendance triggers, disciplinary meetings or influence perceptions of reliability.

That leaves people facing an impossible choice: work through pain that would send many others home, or protect their health and worry about the consequences later.

Equality isn’t treating people the same

On paper, that policy treats everyone equally. In practice, it doesn’t. Equality isn’t treating everybody exactly the same. It’s recognising that different people face different barriers.

Whenever this conversation comes up, another argument usually follows. “If employers have to accommodate women’s health, won’t they just become less likely to hire women?”

To me, that response perfectly demonstrates why this conversation is needed. Imagine hearing that millions of people need better workplace support and your first instinct is to question whether they’re worth employing.

We don’t ask whether people with migraines, diabetes or other long-term health conditions should be hired less often because they may occasionally need support.

Yet somehow women’s health is still framed as a business risk rather than a human reality. That isn’t equality. It’s bias disguised as practicality.

Can your business change?

History tells us that progress has always required workplaces to adapt. Protection from pregnancy discrimination, expanded maternity rights and flexible working didn’t simply appear - they were introduced because society recognised that treating everyone identically wasn’t always treating everyone fairly. Today, conversations around menopause and reproductive health are following the same path

Other countries have already started asking these questions. Spain introduced paid menstrual leave in 2023 for those experiencing severe menstrual pain. Japan has recognised menstrual leave in law since 1947, while countries including South Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia have their own forms of workplace protection (House of Commons Library⁠). No system is perfect, and not every policy has been widely adopted, but each one acknowledges something fundamental: women’s health is a workplace issue, not simply a private one.

Hospitality doesn’t need to wait for legislation. We can lead. We can educate managers about endometriosis, adenomyosis, PCOS, PMDD and menopause instead of expecting employees to explain them every time they need support.

We can rethink attendance policies so recurring health conditions aren’t treated the same as occasional illness. We can provide pregnancy-loss support, menopause guidance and basic menstrual products as standard in staff facilities.

Most importantly, we can build workplaces where people don’t feel they have to apologise for biology.

We spend every shift anticipating the needs of our guests before they’ve even asked. Perhaps it’s time we showed the same care to the people standing behind the bar.

Because hospitality cannot keep calling itself inclusive while ignoring the health of so many people who make this industry what it is.