“The red amidst her legs,
Taints the sheets with chaste,
For them to revel.
Yet the same red amidst her legs,
Is the red that daunts them,
Each lunar moon.”
Despite decades of scientific advancement, a culture of disgrace and humiliation has been woven around the issue of menstruation that seems to supersede biology, and endorse bigotry. The current state of awareness around menstruation, MHM and menstrual health is deplorable.
The fact that many institutions organise menstrual awareness workshops but send the male students out is a manifestation of the same. Female students are encouraged not to talk about menstruation with their male counterparts. They’re taught to be discreet around boys while taking out sanitary pads or similar products.
In many parts of the country, young girls are shamed for bleeding. And after years of being isolated in small sheds, secluded rooms or Gaokors they themselves start believing in the fiction of impurity.
This vicious cycle transforms the victims into enablers of the same archaic customs. If young individuals are subjected to regressive traditions and coerced to follow them, it isn’t surprising that many moulds their thinking to incorporate such beliefs.
Mothers pass it on to their daughters and they to theirs. This is a sequence that finds its match in education. A deeper understanding of the menstrual process and comprehensive awareness assist in challenging age-old notions.
The Need For Integrating Menstrual Education
A study shows that 37.52% of girls were aware of menstruation before menarche, of which 123 (44.72%) were urban and 80 (30.07%) were rural. In the study conducted by Deo, it was reported that 40 (42.5%) rural and 41 (55.4%) urban girls were aware of menstruation prior to attainment of menarche.
As can be seen from numerous studies, menstrual awareness is a critical concern. Provisions concerning sex education in the country are either futile or incredibly ill-informed. These are the breeding grounds for birthing misinformation, and among the youth.
The need of the hour is to empower the youth with education upon the same. Creating menstrual awareness among the entire young population will facilitate a better comprehension of the process for menstruators.
Further, it sensitises young individuals to become better allies and fight against the dominance of cultural taboos. The social or religious influence on people has led to the regular practice of degrading rituals, during menstrual cycles.
Within the education system itself, it is common to find biology courses, comprising bare minimum knowledge regarding menstruation, being overlooked, or hastily spoken words directed at the female half of the class to wrap it up speedily.
Owing to the lack of knowledge, many individuals have no idea of what to expect at menarche or how to deal with the usage of menstrual products. This ambiguity has to be eliminated by including menstrual awareness programs at lower levels of education. Today, comprehensive menstrual awareness has to be taught as a key component of the educational curriculum.
Why Is Menstrual Education Necessary?
Besides shattering misconceptions about a purely biological process, it is necessary for the well-being of numerous adolescents. Due to the prevalence of high illiteracy rates, and the stronghold of value systems, people, are undermining the importance of health, by adopting unsafe menstrual practices that find assertion in culture rather than in science, vulnerability to infections rises.
This is a primary reason for the need of menstrual awareness. The youth has to be informed about hygiene precautions and the threat posed by using cloth, or grass and the likes. Awareness is not just for those who menstruate but for others as well, to understand how to support and care for their menstruating equivalents.
When we start normalising periods from a young age, the notions of menstrual purity and impurity are contradicted by factual information. Just as cultural taboos are reinforced, education aids in the reinforcement of period positivity.