By Rishita Banik
Menstruation is an experience that encompasses gender, sexuality, ethnicity and era. Although a lot of our history remains undocumented, unexplored or lost in translation; research has gained momentum in the fields of gender studies and cultural histories of civilizations.
The Situation In Ancient Greece
Male surgeons have documented the accounts of menstruation in the era before the birth of Christ. Therefore they do not represent the voices of menstruating women during, nor do they mention non-binary menstruators. The Greek society was flourishing, patriarchal society with booming trade and commerce.
Amidst the wars, bloodshed and annexations, ancient Greece was also home to some of the greatest philosophers and architects. Among the educated and royal, few had regard for scientific temperament, and the peasantry included mostly of farmers, masons, soldiers and sailors, and they worshipped the elements of nature. Their lives were most affected by natural calamities, and yet they had little idea as to how these events occurred, so they prayed to the deities to be saved from the wrath of nature.
Women during this era had no access to formal education. They wore belts and girdles around the waist fitted with intricately embroidered fabric with an amulet of herbs around the neck to alleviate menstrual pains.
Jumping To Egypt
The Egyptians used wool fused with herbs as a pessary, or vaginal insertion to control menstrual flow. The nobility educated their women at home in practical subjects of cooking, sewing and housekeeping. Women of lesser fortune were married off at an early age, they became maids or nurses, and or worse, they were sold into slavery by their families. To say that a common woman had no voice in courts, palaces, streets, or even their household would be an understatement.
The Middle-Ages Around The World
The subject of menstruation remained a problematic topic in the middle ages under the powerful influence and growing power of the Church. Even Hinduism, Islam and Judaism had taboos circling menstruation and women were labelled unclean, impure and were bound by cultural rituals.
Different cultures wore different items of clothing, but during the middle ages, many women used cloth rags, from where the colloquial term- ‘on the rag‘ emerges. In medieval Europe, women tied sweet-smelling herbs around their necks and waists, hoping it would mask the odour of blood, in parts of the world people relied on home-remedies and roots to relieve cramps.
In the middle ages, devotion to God and family were deemed to be a woman’s real purpose, women who broke free from the confines of society to study science and philosophy were shunned by their community. Men feared people straying from the path of religion and the women who did were prosecuted and publicly burnt as witches. People feared the Church and any principles other than the words of the Gospel would get a person imprisoned. So, the God-fearing people lived their lives following religious scriptures and not scientific truth till the days of the Renaissance.
Perceptions In India
Since the Vedic Ages, society in India has confined women within their quarters, especially during menstruation, and it was believed that their touch poisoned objects around them. Throughout generations, women followed the doctrines and meekly hid behind their chambers during the menstrual period until the colonization of India that brought about radical changes in our country.
Invention Of Sanitary Pad
The British rule over India not only saw changes in trade, commerce and law; it also saw a transformation in social ethics. With the abolition of Sati, women were given more political rights like widow-remarriage and inheritance of property. Schools opened their doors for women, and women from noble families could now receive a formal education.
Have You Heard About Menotoxin?
Around this time, a serious medical debate arose among intellectuals who proposed the conjecture that menstrual blood contained ‘menotoxin‘ a deadly substance that had the potential to pollute everything it came in contact with. Milk would turn sour; crops would wilt. The wild and speculative hypothesis felt to most of us a return to the dark ages of ignorance where truth had no place.
The shift in trend from sanitary aprons and cloth rags to tampons and sanitary napkins gives us a glimpse of the changing values in society. Imperialism brought Western culture and ideas to the doorstep of colonized nations like India, and in the 20th-century women found their place in fields of science, medicine, education, sports, defence and law. The Constitution replaced religious scriptures as doctrine, with access to education and political rights women realized that they could not afford to confine themselves at home even during menstruation. Hence, working women opted for pads and tampons as they were easier to travel in and work efficiently.
Capitalism And Menstruation
By 1980, sanitary napkins emerged as the more affordable menstrual product all over the global market. Globalization brought mass-produced menstrual products to India; menstruators found these hygiene products available in their nearest stores at reasonable prices. Amid availability and affordability, the environmental impact of these plastic products took a backseat.
This brings us to our present scenario; India produces 12.3 million disposable pads each year without any proper menstrual waste management procedures in place. Sanitary products are disposed of in open landfills without incineration or recycling. Used sanitary products pose a threat to not only flora and fauna, but also the health of the healthcare workers.
Blood Safai considers menstruation as a public health issue, irrespective of gender. We offer the platform to raise awareness on the impact of improper menstrual waste management and campaign to bring about a sustainable change in society.
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