Today, I learnt something new at school.
Periods. Mom says I'm a big girl now. I should be careful and should not talk
about it in front of papa and bhai!
I should also sit with my legs closed
together and behave properly.
Don't enter the kitchen. Don't touch the
pickles. Don't bake cakes. Don't come in contact with men. Don't swim. Don't
wash your hair.
Don't don't don't!
I find it very problematic that most
mothers don't discuss menstruation with their daughters before they begin to
menstruate the discussion always takes
place after the shock and for a girl between the age of 10-14 years or even
younger, it really does come as a shock
to see their favourite dress stained with blood one fine day all of a sudden.
Some might even think that they are sick or
have hurt themselves 'in the place where they pee from!' Yes that's what it is
called.
When ads for sanitary napkins appear on
television, mothers bat away their
questions by saying, they would understand when they get older.
Then there is school, which plays its part in further hushing up
the topic and creating more confusion in the minds of young girls and majorly
in boys as well.
I remember when we once had a seminar on
menses. Mine hadn't started yet, but I had a vague idea about them . While the
boys were sent out to play, the girls were made to gather around in a room,
where they were introduced to menstruation and sanitary napkins for the first
time. As expected later, the girls were all giggly and the boys were
seen strutting around hinting that they knew what it was all about and shouting
out names of popular sanitary napkin companies in order to embarrass the
girls. Schools really do a great job in
messing up young girls and boys in this regard because, instead of having a co-ed seminar and
focusing on sensitising the topic, they
go for the most convenient route they can find, which is by segregation!
In India,
most of the taboos stem from the time before sanitary napkins, when women were made to stay in a hut outside
their village during their periods . From not being allowed in the kitchen to
being prohibited from going to temples,
the women were seen as impure and
were further bewildered with instructions to stay away from every possible
chore!
This kind of attitude just reinforces the
fact that menstruation is something to be embarrassed about and should be kept
a secret. Or the time, when you go to buy a packet of sanitary napkins , the
discomfort you feel when you tell the man standing there that you need a
Whisper Ultra which is then put into a black polythene bag so that nobody gets
to know what a girl is carrying because it is considered to be a shameful act!
There are women who have spent their
teenage years, too embarrassed to buy
sanitary pads, even though their families could afford them and used discarded
clothes instead.
Sadly , there are still a lot of women and
not just middle aged mothers and elderly grandmothers but also educated ones
who contribute to the tabooing of menstruation even today!
We still don't take pride in our ability to
menstruate and give birth to a new life!!
(P.S- This blog article is submitted by another guest writer with signature PC. She is young, talented painter who wanted to write on a very complex issue that is very difficult for any guy to understand and write. I am thankful to her for expressing this feeling with all of us)
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