Like most other things in human existence, menstruation too has always been a predominantly male discourse. Did the irony just hit the roof? Yep!
In a country where over 350 million of the population menstruates, the bulk of the people, both male and female, remains thoroughly ignorant of the woman’s reproductive health and menstrual hygiene. Like almost everything else, patriarchy and male social control have created and driven the discourse on women’s health since time immemorial.
A woman isn’t sick until the man says so. She still has to wake up at the stroke of dawn and get on with her household chores. And if/when she menstruates (which is not a sickness), either it is to be ignored altogether so that she doesn’t start giving excuses to get out of her chores, or she suddenly becomes impure and maybe even a witch and should be shunned and shamed and made to self-isolate. (Self-isolation. Ring a bell? The coronavirus is a virus that is highly contagious and having it means one should self-isolate. But periods are not a disease! It doesn’t make one a menace to others. Why, oh why, should you still isolate the woman on her periods then?)
In our society, a woman’s periods are what a man says it is. And the worst part is that majority of women themselves perpetuate this phallocentric discourse of menstruation, either because they know no better or because they are simply too steeped in the mindless beliefs and traditions surrounding this ‘taboo’ to even entertain other ideas. It’s no wonder then that less than 36% women in India have access to safe sanitary hygiene and most of them don’t even know they need it.
In India, it was not until the 21st century that the government woke up to the fact that good sanitation and menstrual health are crucial to the nation’s women. Over the past decade or so, the government has launched a few targeted programs for women’s menstrual health and sanitation. Schemes such as the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare or the ‘Menstrual Hygiene Management Guideline’ issued by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) as part of the Swachh Bharat Mission have been initiated among others to educate adolescent girls and women on menstrual hygiene.
However, even then, the conversation on menstrual health doesn’t revolve around women as such. For instance, it required a man, Arunachalam Muruganantham, who came to be known as the Padman of India to manufacture cheaper sanitary pads, and a male superstar, Akshay Kumar, who played Padman in 2018’s hit Hindi movie, to bring his story to the people. While the male involvement in creating awareness is a social necessity (since men need to be educated on menstrual health as much as, or perhaps even more than women), the irony remains that the popular narrative on menstruation and clean sanitation got almost monopolized by men.
Moreover, menstrual hygiene is not isolated from clean water requirements and sanitation.
According to data recorded in 2016-17, over 21,000 government schools in the country did not have a separate toilet for girls. Of those that did, about 10.5% were locked and another 11.7% unusable. This means that girls studying in these schools would not use the toilets even during their periods, often leading to massive health complications to the extent of permanent reproductive damage, or they miss classes during every month, eventually dropping out of school altogether. Now, how many women are actually involved in the decision-making when it comes to water and sanitation, two things that are pivotal to a woman’s health?
What India needs is a full scale participation of informed women (men can participate too but will rural girls be comfortable listening to men lecturing them about periods? I believe they simply won’t turn up which means they will remain uninformed) to educate girls and women in rural areas, making them conscious of their own bodies and their right to clean water and sanitary hygiene. While a lot of NGOs are slowly taking up this enormous task, it has all started too late and there is too much to be done.
A woman does not need a man’s or society’s justification for something that is pure biology. There can be endless debates on how society’s ignorance about the woman’s sexual and reproductive health took on such mammoth proportions, and how social control of the woman’s body and health became normalised in time. One would probably have to look back at primitive times to find answers.
The fact remains, however, that even though menstruating is physically draining, it is an integral part of the woman’s existence, making her vulnerable and stronger at the same time. It’s time the woman declared herself free of parochial definitions and ensured that the conversation around menstrual health became something both men and women could contribute towards, instead of being tucked away in the corner with the stamp of societal (read: male) ignorance or disapproval