Period : A Woman's Pride

“Aree beti Kya kar rahe ho,periods chal raha hai na tumhara?Iss samay mandir ke aandar nahi jaate. Apshagun hota hai,paap lag jayega.”

This dialogue is quite famous in India. Every women had heard it since she had started her period. Some of them have been forced to pass on this ‘necessary’ dialogue to the next generation without even considering the logic behind it. How can they? How can they question something related to ‘God’. Where is it written? Nobody knows. Nobody wants to know. It's just that when a woman is on her period she is ‘impure’ to visit the house of God.

Recently a short documentary film was made by Rayka Zehtabchi. The film was named “Period : End of the Sentence”.The film won the Oscars in 2018. It featured about some women in India, facing the various taboos regarding menstruation and ultimately overcoming them all. They then start manufacturing their own sanitary pads naming their company ‘Fly’ as they want women ‘to soar’. The film shows that menstruation is necessary and absolutely natural.

What is Menstruation or Periods in a simpler way?

A woman's body has ovaries inside her abdomen. The ovaries produce egg cells within a span of time. After the end of the time span the egg cells need to be fertilize with the help of a sperm. If it isnt done the life span will come to end and the egg cell will rupture. Due to rupturing blood comes out. This blood if it stays inside the body will do harm so it drained out of a woman's vagina. This process is called Menstruation. Since it occurs every month so it is called period. The girl generally gets her period from the age of 12-13 or maybe earlier in some cases like 10-11 and it is continued till 40-45. Thus this process is completely natural.

But inspite of the Natural reasons regarding periods a woman had to face taboos. So let us look at some of the illogical taboos that a menstruating woman had to face in India :-

1) A woman during her periods cannot enter the temple or perform any other religious duty because her blood is stated to be‘impure’ and may anger the Gods.

(Perhaps that same blood from her vagina after an intercourse after marriage make hypocrites decide whether she is a virgin or not and decide her 'purity' )

2) A menstruating woman cannot go
into the kitchen because anything she touches may rot or go bad.

(So according to them a mother must let her children starve but never defy the rules)

3)A menstruating woman can condemn evil spirits during her periods. And anyone can harm her with performing black magic on her.

( I bet the only evil thing over here is the illogical superstition)

4) A woman can use her menstruating blood to impose will on her man.

(So what is this? Some Kind of children's fairytale? )

Various such taboos make menstruation as a fact for which a woman is made to feel guilty about herself. In a survey conducted in 2011 that about 30% of girls in North India dropped out of school as they started their periods. Reproductive Track Infections (RTI)is common in 70% woman in rural areas as they are unable to maintain hygiene. Women are unable to use Sanitary napkins since they are expensive in nature and women in villages cannot afford them due to poverty as well as social taboos attached to them. According to a study about 200 million women in India lack knowledge about menstrual hygiene and 39% girls does have access to proper sanitation.

Due to lack of proper biological education it becomes difficult to spread about Menstrual Awareness among men and women in different sectors. Ignorance is also another factor among people. The dominance of superstitionson minds of people is also another factor.

Menstruation is a complete natural process which enables a woman to bear a child in her womb afterwards. If a woman do not bleed she can't give birth either. Not only men but women themselves need to aware of the fact that their bodies are not ‘impure’ instead it's the creation of the Almighty. Menstruation must be dealt as an absolute occurring of a woman's body. It is not her shame. It is a part of her. It is her pride.