The stigma around menstruation doesn’t exist in isolation. It is nurtured in a patriarchal society, much like gender roles, toxic masculinity, and rape culture. In such a society, children grow up surrounded by the stigma around menstruation. When a young menstruator gets their period, their first few experiences often shape their initial understanding of it.
They are highly impressionable and learn how to behave from their environment. Thus, the hush-hush around menstruation leave young menstruators under the impression that they should not speak about periods in public, that it’s a ‘secret’ only ‘women’ should know about.
Youth Ki Awaaz’s survey revealed that 11% of the total respondents did not know about menstruation, and 18.8% were confused until menarche. A whopping 80% of the respondents said they felt negative emotions when they first got their period.
Therefore it is essential that a young menstruator is made comfortable with the subject and provided a safe space to talk about it. But when a silencing culture is nurtured and fostered in society, dismantling it becomes essential.
So What Is The Silencing Culture?
Patriarchy suppresses women’s freedom to express themselves. This suppression also extends to their bodies. Just like a woman’s pleasure is rarely talked about, neither is their pain. Menstruators have to call in sick or tell people that they are feeling unwell when they have period cramps.
Jaya, a high school student, says that earlier her period cramps used to be very bad and she had to take days often off. Her mother would give an excuse for a regular check-up to the school every month. Even asking for a pad in spaces like a classroom or workplace is done in whispers. But where do people learn to do that?
It starts early. Young menstruators are often asked to stay silent about being on their period around the men in the house. They are reprimanded for staining their clothes or bed sheets. Some are told that a woman is impure or dirty during her periods. Harshita, who is in her third year of college, says that growing up her mother wasn’t allowed to leave her room and she wasn’t allowed to touch her. “After pestering my mother one day she told me it was a ‘monthly fever’ and if I touched her I would get the fever too.”
Advertisements
“My sister and I would watch advertisements for sanitary napkins and wonder what they were for. No one would answer our constant questions about them. Frustrated, we once asked our family members in front of a gathering,” says Saumya, a law student.
The most common response on how menstruators first got to know about periods was advertisements. Many responded saying they thought the napkins were adult diapers because of the blue liquid shown in the advertisements.
Advertisements of sanitary pads don’t provide answers to young menstruators. When their questions go unanswered, they learn that it is probably something they are not allowed to talk about.
Keeping A Secret
Menstruation is talked about in whispers as if it’s a secret shared only by menstruators. Harshita says that the girls in her school who got their period first would exclude her from their conversations. “From the hush-hush talks, I just learned that it was a ‘girl thing’; you bleed from your private parts; it was supposed to be a secret.”
Schools should teach young menstruators about the menstrual cycle and help them prepare by providing them with the necessary information and not just as a topic in the syllabus. However, these ‘outside syllabus’ conversations in schools include only women teachers and young girls, behind closed doors.
“We had sessions where we were told about periods. We would be taken to separate rooms and told not to tell the boys what we talked about,” says Prerna, a second-year college student.
This segregation of genders when talking about menstruation teaches young menstruators that only women are supposed to know about periods. “We were even told how to hide a pad and take it to the washroom so that the boys in the class did not get to know,” adds Prerna.
The Mystery Of Black Bags And Newspaper Wrappings
“I remember when I went with my mother to buy pads for the very first time, the shopkeeper wrapped it in a newspaper and gave it to her. That made me feel that it was to be hidden from others, especially men,” says Adhishree, student and co-founder of GirlUp Mukti.
A pack of pads being wrapped in a blag bag or newspaper by the shopkeeper is a common practice in India. This only adds to the understanding of young menstruators that holding a pad in plain sight is a big no.
Feeling Dirty Or ‘Impure’
Many menstruators expressed that they couldn’t practise any religious rituals during their periods. This excluded them from activities in the house, adding to the feeling of exclusion and impurity experienced by a menstruator.
“I thought period blood was dirty and it disgusted me,” says Anamica who co-founded GirlUp Mukti and is currently in her third year of college. She says that her mother would make her wash the clothes she wore on her menstrual days even if they weren’t stained and she had only worn them for two hours.
All these practices come together to form the silencing culture. Harshita and Jaya said that they understood a lot about menstruation from the internet. They realized that it was a thing that happened not just to them but a lot of people. The internet and information from peers help a lot of menstruators to understand their bodies and menstrual cycles better. But this comes later. In the initial experiences of getting their period, they are left confused or part of a ‘girly secret’.
The silencing culture around periods thus leaves young menstruators to fend for themselves. Educational institutions and family support can make this experience better, but as we see, it often makes it one filled with mystery and something to feel shameful about.
The author is a part of the current batch of the #PeriodParGyan Writer’s Training Program