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Put a period to taboos

The colour is red. Not blue. Not the one shown in the ads of sanitary pads. The discomfort is real; as real as the cramps and a mood swing — far more distressing than just the odd sleeping positions, often the selling point of sanitary products.

Put a period to taboos


Ashima Sehajpal Batish 

The colour is red. Not blue. Not the one shown in the ads of sanitary pads. The discomfort is real; as real as the cramps and a mood swing — far more distressing than just the odd sleeping positions, often the selling point of sanitary products. But no woman must talk about it, not mention the word — menstruation. Why? Because it is a natural, but ‘secret’ process. Because all women get it and if you suffer pain, it is a given. But if you suffer a stain, it can’t be forgiven. Women around will be quick to give you a lesson in period management and question your years of experience in dealing with it.

So when a natural process, processed like a taboo in our subconsciousness, has a Bill on it tabled in Parliament, suggesting two-day period leave, you don’t know what to make of it.  You don’t know if it will become a reality, or if at all it should. Or should it be preceded by creating awareness so nobody questions its relevance? Or if it is a part of the larger narrative of menstrual activism? 

Menstrual activism — from a one-off instance of women taking the bull by its horns — a la Rupi Kaur (her ‘stained’ pictures on Instagram) and Kiran Gandhi (She ran the London Marathon without a tampon) — it has travelled a long way, gaining momentum during the course. It is not an organised, planned activism, but fragments of it in India and abroad are cementing together to it a sound foundation. The campaigns, one by one — Happy to Bleed, Come and See Blood on my Skirt, Sanitary Pad Message, Break the Silence — have added decibels to the once hush-hush subject. 

The activism is also widening its domain, taking into its ambit menstruation-related concerns. “It should be considered a natural biological process, with no taboos attached to it. At the same time, we need to promote biodegradable disposable sanitary products,” says Arjun Unnikrishnan, co-founder of Aarthava Yaanam, a menstruation marathon that covered 14 districts, reached out to 20,000 people in 21 days in Kerala, promoting ‘sustainable menstruation’. The campaign also highlights an irony. The state that boasts of the highest literacy rate, needs an Aarthava Yaanam to spread awareness. In that case, other states require a lot more to justify a Bill on period leave! Arjun emphasises, “How a society deals with menstruation doesn’t depend on its economic status, demography (i.e. a metropolitan city or a village), or even the literacy statistics. It solely depends on cultural background, and unfortunately, all cultures have brushed the subject under the carpet.”

If you are counting ironies, here are more that bite even harder:

n The name of maximum-selling sanitary napkin brand in India is an antonym of ‘being aloud’.

n Girls are hitting puberty as early as 10 or 11 years, but our education system introduces a chapter on the reproductive system only in Class IX or X, usually at the age of 14 or 15.

n For a country that celebrates a woman’s fertility, even has a festival dedicated to it, menstruation is strictly off limits. 

Believe in the written word

Aditi Gupta became aware of these facts while pursuing her postgraduation from NID, Ahmedabad. Her then boyfriend (now husband) hardly knew anything about menstruation and the more he read and researched about it, more disconcerting data emerged. “It’s only when girls hit puberty that mothers would educate them, but the lesson’s ‘periphery’ would end at keeping it a secret,” says Aditi. Even in schools, she claims the chapter on the reproductive system would be conveniently skipped, or if taught, words like menstruation or vagina would be ‘muted’. That made the couple create Menstrupedia in 2014, a graphic magazine on periods and related physiological changes. 

Certainly a part of menstrual activism, the magazine is a part of curriculum in over 100 schools in India. It must be read by boys and girls to sensitise them, to ensure that if women take period leave, it must be understood as a physiological need. The men at Culture Machine, the first corporate firm in India to introduce the concept of first day of period leave, understand it. Devleena S Majumder, chief of staff at Culture Machine, who empathised with young women employees, felt the need for it for two reasons. First, women would make excuses of fever instead of telling the truth about their periods. Second, to challenge menstrual taboo and make men comfortable with real-time issues that women face. 

It wasn’t all smooth sailing. Initiated last year, the decision did face some opposition, with both men and women arguing that menstruation was a “perfectly normal biological condition and shouldn’t be treated like a health condition.”  Devleena had her defence ready: “How you feel during periods is very subjective. Quite like the difference between a good and bad pregnancy.” Respecting everyone’s unique physiology, she asserts that period leave would make equal sense at the school-level too. 

A basic right

At school, if education on the subject is important, so is the provision of the basic hygiene product, to take lessons beyond theory to its practical application. In a first, Kerala made sanitary napkin-vending machines mandatory in all higher secondary schools in May 2017. Part of the She Pad government scheme, the campaign stands by, “Every woman has the right to menstrual hygiene.”

Such vending machines were also installed at government girls’ schools in Amritsar and Ludhiana. Ravi Bhagat, the then Deputy Commissioner of the two cities in 2015 and 2016, respectively, took the initiative after realising that the situation is even grimmer in rural areas. While providing free-of-cost pads to girl students was the means, the end was to get people talking. “Activism must have far-reaching consequences. The girls’ dropout rate declined, attendance increased. Even women would visit the school for the pads, indicating a rise in the overall hygiene conditions,” says Ravi, now Chief Administrator, GMADA.

 The activism has also found a reliable partner in technology. There are a dozen apps on period trackers. The latest partaker is ‘femojis’, [menstruation emojis] that are surfacing on social media. Plan International, a humanitarian organisation, conducted a competition for the menstruation-themed emoji in November 2017. In times of mobile and internet revolution, it is a handy tool to educate people on the subject. Then, for the first time, in the advertisement of a sanitary napkin, Bodyform, the colour red was used instead of the traditional blue. 

Blue, which is not the colour of blood. And it wasn’t blue that stained the uniform of a 12-year-old girl who committed suicide after she was period-shamed by her teacher in Tamil Nadu last year. It was red. It was blood. The need of the hour is menstrual activism, one that reaches all women, and more specifically men. 


The 12% hoax 

Quote the statistics of mere 12 per cent women in India have access to menstrual hygiene products, and you garnish your argument with substance. The study conducted in 2011 by Neilson Company and NGO Plan India finds easy mention in almost all news stories done to highlight Indian women’s grim hygiene conditions. Even actor Akshay Kumar cited the figures while promoting his film Padman. Who has the story benefitted the maximum from the study? Sinu Joseph, a menstrual hygiene educator, counsellor and founder of Mythri Speaks Trust, questions the study and analyses the harm it has done. 

How authentic is this study or research?

Over the past three years, I have tried hard to find the actual published paper. When I could not, I reached out to Prof. Christina Bobel, who was the then president of the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research (SMCR), based in Boston. She took up the subject and managed to get in touch with Plan India (which is the NGO that was part of the study). However, all she got was a copy of the so-called study in pptx format! Since then, SMCR has communicated that this study is unreliable. Even WASH India maintains that the study is “problematic”. In all likelihood, this is not even a research.

What are the contradictory evidences that rebutt the findings of the claim?

The latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 2015-16 report shows that the use of sanitary napkins among Indian women is 57.6 per cent in total. Even in 2011 (the year when the AC Neilsen report was published), the usage of sanitary napkins among rural Indian women ranges between 35 per cent and 57 per cent. 

Which parties do you think stand to benefit from such exaggerated claims?

Obviously, corporate pad manufacturers. Even if they promote 

the small-time NGOs and other decentralised pad makers, they know very well that they are just small fish who will help establish them market in rural areas. Small-time manufacturers cannot compete with large corporates when it comes to quality and pricing, and will eventually be wiped out. But by then, the market would be well established in rural India. If you look at the NGOs working on menstruation, most of them are sponsored by one or the other sanitary pad companies.

How have women gained or suffered on account of this study?

It is painful to see rumours spread about Indian women, when the fact is that women in India have much lesser menstrual disorders. For example, around 18 to 20 per cent Indian women have been found to have heavy menstrual bleeding, whereas the numbers are 52 per cent in England. Just about everything spoken about the status of menstrual health in India is false, and the sad part is that nobody is even trying to find out the truth. 

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