Prestigious Korean College Caught Demanding Urine Tests From Female Students (2024)

Seoul Institute of the Arts—an alma mater for many Korean celebrities, including Yoo Jae Suk andLABOUM‘sSolbin—is under fire for demanding female students prove their menstruation-related absences with urine tests.

On the Seoul Institute of the Arts website, a recent announcement states that female students looking to excuse an absence due to menstrual sickness must submit a doctor’s note (or a medical record), including a statement verifying that the student has undergone a urinalysis for their symptoms.

Menstrual Leave
(Strengthened Documentation Requirements from the 2024-2nd Semester)

※ Limited to three times per semester; re-application is possible only after three weeks have passed from the initial request.
※ Not accepted during midterm and final exam periods.
※ Not accepted after the 12th week of the semester.

A doctor’s note or medical verification stating the diagnosis of menstrual pain or dysmenorrhea is needed. (Absence will be excused only with documentation from the hospital indicating that a ‘urinalysis was conducted’ and is recorded as such. For more details, refer to the Menstrual Leave FAQ).

— Seoul Institute of the Arts

The announcement explained that the protocol change had been implemented after the school saw a 53.5% spike in the number of absences excused due to menstrual sickness.

Why are the rules for menstrual leave changing?

At the request of the Student Council in the 2022-1st semester, documentation for menstrual leave was expanded to include not only a doctor’s note but also medical verification. However, since the use of menstrual leave increased rapidly, by the 2024-1st semester, 53.5% of all excused absences were for menstrual leave. To prevent misuse by some students who were using it to cover absences unrelated to menstrual pain, measures are being sought to address and prevent such issues.

— Seoul Institute of the Arts

When the announcement was shared via online communities, Koreans lambasted the institution for the absolute lack of understanding of how menstruation works and how it affects female students each month.

• “So what if the number of excused menstrual absences increase? What’s the problem with that?”
• “You know what? I’ll just submit my menstrual pad for proof.”
• “People who do not menstruate must have come up with this. This is insanely uncivilized.”
• “What the f*ck… I was not expecting such nonsense from my alma mater.”
• “So… I went to a school that funded a lot of scholarships, so GPA mattered. Some students did abuse the menstrual leave, haha. Some of them would skip class and used their menstrual leave to excuse it, no problem.”
• “Might as well follow me into the bathroom so I could show you that I’m on my period. Like, we’ll end up going to class if we’re being asked to put in the effort of having to go to a hospital and get a doctor’s note. Who even comes up with these ideas?”
• “Some women can’t even walk straight when they’re having menstrual pain. And yet, the school wants them to go to a hospital and get a urinalysis? Then they might as well just go to class… This whole idea must have come from someone who doesn’t have a uterus, you can tell.”
• “I’m telling y’all… We should’ve evolved to menstruate out of our mouths. Only then, it would’ve been taken seriously. Because look how they’re treating us.”

Note for actual testing purposes, urinalysis during menstruation is discouraged as the blood contaminates the urine and yields unreliable results. That said, the institute’s demand for a statement of urinalysis being performed (vs. the actual results of the urinalysis) as a means to prove menstruation is thought to be just for the sake of “making things more difficult” for the students.

In the case of sampling during menstruation, the urine is often contaminated with a large amount of red blood cells and epithelia which makes it impossible to obtain reliable results. The doctor may interpret this result as a hematuria or hematuria and suspect, for example, kidney stones or nephritic syndrome.

— Synappse Health

While some accepted the institution’s explanation and pointed out that, perhaps, rampant misuse of the excused absences caused the change, most were mind-blown with the institution’s decision to make it more difficult for the female students to take care of their bodies.

• “Just call it a sick leave. What is the reason to single out menstrual leave? I bet you no other country in the world calls it a menstrual leave.”
• “A urinalysis mid-menstruation…? Ugh. Everything about this sounds insane.”
• [Irrelevant Comment]
• “Oh, I would’ve guessed they were providing some sort of a kit to run the urine test at home with the way they worded this whole thing… The students who are missing class because of menstruation are in pain. They can’t get to a hospital.”
• “Do they realize that we’re missing class because we’re in pain? And yet they want us to drag ourselves to the hospital to get a urine test done?”
• “Misuse my a*s. Women bleed for a week. Of course, they’re going to miss some days of class.”
• “So… why do they need a urinalysis again?”
• “I’m sorry, they keep talking about misuse. What misuse? It’s just missing a few classes, so I’m genuinely curious.”

Seoul Institute of the Arts has not responded to the growing backlash online.

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