When I got my first period, my mother told me the basics of wearing a pad, and that was all. She never told me not to enter the kitchen or the temple in the house. She also did not pass down the manual called periods 101, which has instructions on what to wear, what to do, what to eat. I was neither exiled to another room nor made to sleep on the floor.
Despite the lack of restrictions and taboos, the first night of my period, I slept as stiff as a log because I did not want my father and brother to know. Despite my mom’s semi-progressive take on periods, how did the 13-year old me learn to be ashamed about her periods?
The incident in Bhuj’s hostel, where 68 students were harassed by asking them to remove their underwear as proof of ‘their purity’ shows us how entrenched the shame around periods is in our society. One student residing at the hostel said “We are punished for having periods. This happens even if we follow their religious rules. They made us remove our undergarments because they thought some of us were lying about not having periods, and mingling with the others against the rules. But the humiliation meted out to us on Thursday was the last straw.”
This is one extreme of the spectrum of period shaming. However, at the other end of the spectrum, every person who menstruates faces period shaming in silent ways. Even in urban households where things are starting to change, shame about periods perpetuates through the unspoken signals from society.
According to Dasra’s Spot On report, 80% of mothers (women who themselves menstruate) consider menstruation ‘dirty’, perpetuating a culture of shame and embarrassment around a natural act of the body. Would you imagine feeling embarrassed every time you had to pee?
Even seasoned menstruators will tell you that leaks are usual. However, one of the significant anxieties around periods is leaking. “I had just left a meeting from the office only to realise that I had blood all over my kurta. I wasn’t worried at first because I could cover it with my tote bag and my house was only 5 minutes away. It all soon changed because as I was walking down to get a rickshaw, everyone started staring at me. It made me so uncomfortable and embarrassed that by the time I got in, I couldn’t help but cry.” This is something that one of my coworkers called me to say after she reached home only to conclude how silly she felt for crying over a stain.
Even when you have unlearnt and learnt to be proud of your periods, society continues to shame you silently. When people fail to unlearn the stigmas around periods, we sometimes pay a heavy price. In 2017, a 12-year-old girl committed suicide because her teacher humiliated her over a period stain in front of the class, gave her a duster cloth to use as a pad and made her stand outside the class the whole day.
Do you remember seeing ads of sanitary pads on TV as a child and sensing the awkward silence in the house? Did you figure out what the ad was for until you reached your teens? You see women dancing in white pants, and blue liquid poured over the pad. Do you ever see the cover of a sanitary pad in the ad, the neon green colour?
The mainstream media has covered sanitary pads with an aura of silence and shame. Even though their advertisements seem like they are trying to empower women, they have subtly and consistently told us that pads should be as hidden as a country’s nuclear codes.
For the longest time, every time I had to take out a pad to change in the school or my office, I felt like I was planning a heist. The professor would be proud of my skills, though. I had to track the movement of people around me, stealthily take the pad out of my bag or cover it in a newspaper or sit uncomfortably to get an opening without people around.
Seventy-five % of women in urban India buy sanitary napkins covered in newspaper. Who are we exactly trying to save from a sight a small neon green packet? If someone feels uncomfortable, they need to unlearn rather than make you feel shameful about your periods.
Period shaming is also perpetuated when we don’t want to tell others that we are on our period. We are afraid that our pain won’t be taken seriously, or our emotions will be mocked. Women often cancel plans like swimming that would expose that they were on their periods or when they were dealing with PMS and period pain.
Think about all the times it seemed like a better idea to tell you are not feeling well rather than saying that you are on your periods or to think of reasons to reschedule your travel plans because you would be on your period at that time. Again, who are we trying to save by withholding the information?
If it is the men in our lives, it is time they become part of the dialogue around menstruation. Women alone can not end the fight against period shaming and especially not when we are trying to mollycoddle the men in our lives.
If we want to smash the stigmas around periods, the small acts of rebellion are as important as the protests out in the streets. End the silent period shaming. The next time you leak, sport it around till the washroom and take that sanitary napkin with pride. If you want to cancel plans to take care of yourself, go ahead and do it but be period proud and tell your friends and family that you are on your period. Break the silence around period shaming and have a conversation with anyone who feels uncomfortable when you say period.