Over half the world menstruates once in every month, but we never know that because society has made menstruation a taboo, to exercise control and authority over women. Being male, society has always given me various privilege to express my self, we can even brag about sex in public with no one getting offended. On the other side, women are not even allowed to speak about their bodies. This issue is much bigger than one sees, as it affects everyone in society.
I stay in a nuclear family, where my mom is the only female, so it was unlikely that I would know about mensuration. My curiosity raised when I used to observe that one time in every month mom used to fall sick and confined herself in a room. Keeping herself away from puja which she never misses, she refuses to touch pickles and tamarind. But every time I asked her what happened? An awkwardness I saw on her face, simply answering “just feeling sick”. This answer used to put me in a dilemma. It became more puzzling when I saw my female friend experiencing the same thing that my mom used to face. Later in the lunch break, I ask my male friends why every month she falls sick. First, they laughed and some of them replied firmly as they have done Ph.D. on women:-
· The first guy said it’s top-secret, that women every month carve for sex if they won’t get satisfied, they bleed and they fall ill.
· The second guy said it’s all about magic, you will find a similar smell from those who are bleeding. How come it’s same, (later I realized it’s due to their sanitary napkin)
· The third guy said that women who ooze out blood are impure, dirty and cursed. Every woman does not bleed, that’s why society keeps it secret to save us from them. He convinced us to think if our mom bleeds to which everyone said no. This made me think that my mom cursed and later changed my behavior.
We collectively came to a conclusion where we named menstruation as Voldemort (a character from Harry Potter, who must not be named) we thought these women are like him only an evil character. From that day we used to tease girls as Voldemort and crack jokes about menstruation. No one from us ever doubted what our friend said, like others; we accepted the norms of society.
One day I asked my elder brother about mensuration, he gave me godly reason from Puranas about Indira’s ‘brahmahatya,’(an act of killing brahmin demon Vritra) and mitigation of the sin. So whenever I hear something like oh, she must be on her period? I react, that’s her fate, as she chose it. My beliefs were not challenged until I joined ANUBHUTI. The organization aims towards creating awareness of menstruation. It provided me the much-needed training to understand the science behind it. Through discussion, they made it clear that menstruation is a natural process that occurs to every girl. It’s just all about the reproductive mechanism getting rid of its infertile eggs. There is nothing to feel ashamed about. What I learned is that women face discrimination daily and the myths exclude them from much socio-cultural life. Which in turn affect their mental, emotional & physical well-being. This discrimination occurs due to the ignorance toward half of the world population (male) who are not trained to accept it, another half (female) have low knowledge of their reproductive health. Which in the end, changed my perception towards this sensitive issue