The Cost of Period 'Banter' in the Workplace
Someone told me something recently that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.
We will call her Sarah.
Sarah was in a meeting of 5 and was the only woman present.
They were going around the table assigning tasks, and someone put another female colleague's name forward for one of them.
Before she was even considered, someone else in that room said, out loud, in front of everyone, including Sarah... "oh no, not her, she's been really moody lately, she's probably on her period".
The men at the table descended into laughter whilst Sarah sat in stony silence.
This (apparently) is banter.
What “Banter” Really Is
I think we need to look at this a little more carefully, because yes, it's obviously not OK, but the implications of that moment often don't get named, and I think they need to be.
Banter is just a way of insulting someone to their face, whilst calling it a joke.
You can dress it up however you like, but what's actually happening is... 'I am saying something at your expense, and if you object, the problem becomes you and your inability to take a joke'.
The joke becomes the scapegoat for unacceptable behaviour.
Jokes at other people's expense are never ok. But when we look specifically at jokes about menstruation, it's particularly insidious because it does two things at once.
It dismisses what is actually being said or felt, and attributes it to hormones.
How Hormone Jokes Silence
The moment someone says, "Oh, is it that time of the month?" the actual conversation disappears.
Whatever that person was trying to express, whether that's frustration, a valid point, or a difference of opinion, it stops mattering and gets dismissed.
Suddenly, it's not a thought or a feeling with legitimate cause. It's just a symptom of having hormones.
And it sends a clear message to every woman and person with periods in that room... your thoughts and feelings are not valid here.
It doesn't matter if someone is at peak cycle, low cycle, being direct, having a genuinely hard time, or just happens to be autistic and delivering something plainly without the social wrapping.
The moment a woman deviates from agreeable, the hormones card is on the table.
This lands particularly hard because most of us have been conditioned since we were girls to please and appease, for the benefit of others, and to... 'not rock the boat' for fear of 'making a fuss'.
We have been taught not to take up too much space.
So when we show up assertive, direct, or just... having a feeling out loud, it gets called out as bossy or moody.
The banter reinforces that conditioning and is a reminder of what happens when you deviate.
Why Banter Is a Nightmare for Neurodivergent People
For neurodivergent people, banter is its own particular kind of fresh hell.
It's loaded with sarcasm, implication, and unwritten rules. If your brain is prone to taking things literally, you can miss the subtext entirely. relives secondary school.
If there's a processing delay between someone saying something and you working out what they actually meant, you can end up laughing at the wrong moment, or not laughing at all.
Or even asking a sincere question in response to something everyone else understood as obviously not serious.
And most painful of all... sometimes you don't even realise you were the punchline until much later. If at all... meep.
Navigating hormonal fluctuations and a neurodivergent brain at the same time means your capacity for the social performance that banter requires can vary wildly.
On low-capacity days, whether that's a particular phase of your cycle or just a day where your nervous system has nothing left, the fluff, the niceties, and the reading between the lines are the first things to go.
Not because you're being difficult.
But becuase you're running on what you've got left, and that often means you can only deliver what you mean without the performance wrapped around it.
Then that gets read as moody, blunt, 'difficult.'
The cost of misreading that is great. When low executive functioning gets put down to hormones or a bad attitude, that person misses out on support that could genuinely help them do their job better.
Instead of getting what they need, they spend what little capacity they have left trying to figure out the social performance. That's an exhausting way to spend a Tuesday.
To Anyone Who’s Been the Punchline...
To anyone who has been on the receiving end of an assuming look, an eye roll, or a joke about hormones that everyone else found funny...
Your feelings are not a symptom to be managed.
Your fluctuating capacity is not a character flaw.
The fact that your internal experience changes across the month, across the day, or depending on what your nervous system is doing, is not a punchline.
And you are not obligated to laugh.
So What Can You Actually Do in the Moment?
Identifying the issue is one thing, but when the meeting is still happening, and the laughter is still in the room, it's difficult to know what to say.
So, here are a few things worth keeping in your back pocket, where you feel comfortable and safe to use them, because not every room, and not every situation, will make that possible.
1. You don't have to be dramatic or accusatory. Just a simple "I don't think that's a fair thing to say about her" is enough. You're not accusing anyone, you're just not letting it pass without remark.
2. When someone makes a joke at another person's expense, there's often a pull in the room to laugh along. You don't have to. A calm, matter-of-fact "I'm not sure that's funny, actually" is its own kind of statement, as is silence.
3. If you didn't have the bandwidth in the moment, a quiet word afterwards can matter just as much. Most people don't want to say the wrong thing (and we've all said something we later cringed at).
A private conversation often lands better than calling someone out publicly, because when someone feels embarrassed in front of others, the risk is that they double down, and that works out worse for the person on the receiving end.
Accusatory language rarely lands the way we hope. Sometimes the most effective thing is just to say... "I came across something recently that really made me think. It might be useful for you too."
And if speaking up doesn't feel possible right now, that's OK too.
That's what workplace processes and systems are there for. Taking your concerns to a trusted colleague, a manager, or HR is a completely legitimate path forward. The labour of fixing this does not have to sit with you. That's why those structures exist.
Banter only works when people join in.
When we don't laugh, when we don't condone it, it falls flat, and that silence sends its own message....
No one's identity, body, or brain should ever be the material for a joke.
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