It is one of those "stupid" things that has now started in the "west." Females have always had their periods from the time they have inherited the earth. It is a very personal and a confidential matter with them. Even when all these modern progress in handling such situations, women knew all the time how to take care of this natural issue without other males let alone females, getting to know about their physical condition they were going through. Also, it is a fact that all not women have painful periods. It is just in the "west" that working women would now be allowed to declare that they were going on "leave because of their periods." Women from the east and African countries may need possibly another 500 years to reach that mental stage of "progress" when the word "shame" is no longer present in their language, vocabularies or dictionaries.