Menstruation – A natural biological cycle process which millions go through. Then why is it that people just cannot speak up about it? Why does it make them feel gross? Why are girls always told to keep it as a secret? Why is everyone forbidden from talking about periods?
Isn’t this term, so-called ‘periods’ a medium of survival that is vital for the continuation and survival of species? Then why is it that people are stopped from talking about it openly? It is considered a taboo, one feels ashamed and awkward talking or mentioning it.
Mostly when girls get their first period they are told to keep it as a secret even from their fathers and brothers. Even in schools, when the concerning chapter shows up in the biology subject, teachers choose to skip it out of shame. Just because of this, a girl loses her self-esteem and starts feeling ashamed and different about her own body. She learns and chooses to stay unknown about the word in order to show ‘decency’. Also, research in various parts of the country sadly concludes that every 3 out of 10 girls are unaware of periods during their first cycle.
The functioning of our reproductive organs relies on menstrual hygiene. Unfortunately, very few in the country know enough to save themselves from infections and diseases. Only 12% girls in India are actually able to maintain menstrual hygiene, which may be a reason for reproductive tract infections for others.
For many girls in rural India, using sanitary napkins is a matter of shame, which is why these girls end up using rags. After every use, while they wash them, they must hide the rags in dark and damp places to make sure that no one gets to see them. This leads to severe infections for many.
Next thing that creates more issues are the social restrictions imposed even now on every menstruating girl. Girls on periods are considered impure and are forbidden from worshipping anything of religious importance. Not just this, but many temples still hold a board restricting menstruating girls from stepping inside.
The worst part is that older women in the family restrict girls the most because they’ve been brought up with the same restrictions as the norm. There are stories of girls who even had to go through a lot including eating alone and washing their dishes separately, not allowed to take bath while going through periods and not even allowed to be the part of the family.
But indeed they’ve chosen to make it a norm and a high growing taboo which actually leads to psychological trauma and even breaks her self-confidence, affects viciously on her personality and also on academics during her growing years when she’s aiming to build a positive future.
There are men out there who are less informed about the periods. One of the biggest astonishment to them is that girls undergo menstruation bleeding every month followed by menstrual cramps and a bad PMS.
There are millions of girls, even being well educated are ill-informed and are unknown about periods. What they see and grow through is just known fact but there’s a lot more to it.
But during research, it was not only found that this lack of information about menstrual hygiene and periods is not only a rural phenomenon but also an urban phenomenon including the educated urban community as well.
Girls now a days who get their periods in 6th and 7th grade are lately taught about all of this only in 8th and 9th grade and being an inhibition or a taboo altogether most of the teachers choose to skip the chapter.
It is the question to ponder that neither schools take initiative to teach girls nor the parents. Then where do the girls go? Sadly the generation stands at it’s same place as it was 2 decades ago. Nothing seems to be changed.
Hence a lot of help done to girls, parents and schools were seeked by creating more curiosity to make the girls aware about periods through stories in comics designed especially for informing these young adolescent girls and even boys were interested sometimes. These comics has cartoon characters who inact these stories to educate in a fun and engaging way covering all ways and aspects of menstruation having all illustrations being cultural sensitive. Now the parents and teachers feel easy to teach girls about periods through these books. This had been a prototype to distribute these comics to educate people and youngsters.
ence, it is enhancing and invoking to know that there still are those who joined hands in hands to inhibit breaking this taboo where the dream relies in the future where periods are not assumed as a curse but a welcoming change during her life. Thereby, all the parents have to be known about it that if they are ashamed of talking about periods to girls then girls too would be embarassed hence one should be period positive.