2021-12-04
Periods and the Rhetoric Myths Surrounding Them
In this article, I intend to put forth my views on an issue that has unusually been surrounded with myths, social taboos, superstitions and rhetoric actions across all societies, albeit some with a lesser level of stupidity than others. “Periods !!”. I want to throw more focus on my home country India, as I have had several experiences growing up as a child that thinking back I wish I was more mature to be vocal or raise voice against. Some of these happened in my own family and some in every family that I came across. It is so common in my society that it is super hard to convince people or even to talk about it. Being exposed to a few other cultures now, I can see traces of this rhetoric exclamation of sexist impositions against women.
Common Superstitions I have personally witnessed:
- Women being asked to not take a bath until the end of their menstrual cycles is a common practice followed across most of India. It is also one of the myths that has historically been established in several cultures. Women are asked to take a bath to purify themselves after a period cycle to purify themselves. However different ways I think, although I am no doctor or a health specialist, shouldn’t this absolutely be the other way around? Isn’t taking bath a higher necessity to keep you clean during the periods? I cannot imagine how torturous it is to ask someone who bleeds and goes through severe pain during the menstrual times to not take a bath. And moreover, it paves the way to infuse infections and more health related complications.
- “Having periods? Please stay away from cooking food!!“. A common practice in the so called rich Indian culture (Indian culture is beautiful in different aspects of which this is surely not one). It is traditionally common for married couples to live with the groom’s parents after marriage. And it is also common that a married woman takes charge of cooking responsibilities for the family by default. (Thankfully, this is changing with Urban younger generation adults, but it is a very small subset in a country as big as India). When a woman goes through her periods, she loses the eligibility to cook for the family. The next eligible woman present in the house takes up the responsibility. However, if there are no other eligible women in the house, she magically regains the eligibility to cook although now there would be restrictions on what she can cook. They have to eat food to live after all, so they come up with exceptions to what in itself in a baseless logic. No friends, this is not so uncommon as you might think. It may not have happened very seriously in your homes as the target group here is not the ones who have access to social media and exposed to the outer world. It includes the ones without. That is still a huge majority in India (Over 65% of Indian population of 1.3 billion live in rural areas).
- Women are typically excluded from auspicious places such as worshipping premises, weddings, family get-togethers. They are considered a mix of impure, lacking sanity and untouchable. I have seen this continually happen all around my family growing up. My worst memory and fear in this illogical treatment is that it is insisted by other elderly women in the same family. The superstition has been stitched so deep that it is super hard to even garner the strength of women to fight against this. To take it deeper, even women practicing this advocate that they would rather prefer following this than confronting. I see my own family fall prey to this till date and honestly this is one myth that I do not see a backward compatible change is even remotely possible.
- I want to describe a disgusting practice that still exists in some villages in Maharashtra (one of the developed states in Mid-Western India). There are entire villages which have dedicated sect of rooms called gaokars in the outskirts where all the women will be forced to stay during their periods cycle. The gaokars’ do not have Kitchens and women are not allowed to cook food here. They will be dependent on their family members to provide them food once a day. They are not allowed to enter their own houses before their cycle ends. No one else is allowed to talk or communicate with them during these days. Arghhh!! Leaps Behind !!
- Lack of Educational Awareness
India’s literacy rate has constantly grown up in the last several decades – from being about 12% during the country’s independence in 1947 to over 80% in the present years. It is still a high percentage although it is slightly lesser than world average. It is a mere shame that this kind of a serious issue has never been addressed through school education. It is the best medium and age to teach both young men and women students of what menstruation really is and to make them aware of the social taboos that has prevailed surrounding this issue. I see it as a subset of a much complex problem which is lack of sex-education and awareness in schools. Even to what little is part of the curriculum gets walked over the borderline by tutors to avoid controversies and embarrassing situations. Common, addressing an issue cannot be done by avoiding it. How hard can this be to realize?
- Lack of Parental Guidance
Similar to education skipping this important issue, parents also do not educate their kids growing up and in fact most of them think it is a huge mistake for the kids to even know about these things. By kids, I do not mean primary kids. They would not understand it even if being exposed to at that age. I am talking about teens and young adults. Parents often leave it to their children to know about these things at their own sweet time and expense. I, for one is an example of someone who had to find more about periods by myself. To be honest, I knew about menstrual cycles in detail only after I completed my high school. I wonder how well parents hide such a trivial natural phenomenon that occurs every month in every home. A lot of the parents use code words to talk about it. Great Job (slow claps!!).
- Mere Acceptance and Lack of Fight
A large part of the blame also needs to go towards the society in general. Not raising enough vocal awareness to break the stigma and merely being a known or unknown participant is also one of the reasons for not being able to move away from these practices. Consider this simple example: A woman goes to a Shopping Center and buys sanitary napkins for her use. The shop-keeper at the billing counters by default picks up an opaque bag to place the napkins and places the other items which she bought in a regular transparent bag. A lot of you would have come across this scenario often and for who have not experienced this can still understand the underlying stigma behind this example. Even buying a period product is considered a taboo by default and no one makes a big fuss about it. I strongly believe the more secrecy that lies behind the curtains on this issue, the lesser victims would be given a chance to raise their voice against it.
What Little Can Each of Us Do to Address This Issue? Now what would be the use of writing or reading all this if there are no measures that are going to be taken from each of us to address this? This cannot be curtained to one basket of steps that could force a change. But, here are some that I want to follow myself to address this issue. You could ponder on these as well if they make sense to your scenarios.- Talking to parents and family about it whenever you get a chance.
- Consulting with friends more often on their experiences on the issue – Just talking sometimes changes the perspective on how we perceive issues.
- Being a guy, take a vow to treat your current or future partner with dignity regarding this issue and make them feel comfortable.
- Teach your kids in the present or future when they get to a certain age when they can understand what all this means. Do not wait too long or neglect this totally.
- If we come across a situation when we see women mistreated among a common audience be it a family get-together or a religious ceremony, raise your voice against it. Even if we cannot change the result, we can let others know that we do not support that. That is the right thing to do.
- If you occasionally hear others trying to make up valedictory reasons to argue the righteousness of these stigmas, we ought to make them understand what is right for the time and it is critical not to rest just on these superstitions forever. Times do change and for whatever reasons these were created in the past, we know these are now wrong and it is our duty to stand against it.
- I have avoided talking more about myths and practices existing in other countries and cultures as I do not have enough knowledge about them yet.
- I have strictly avoided clubbing religion in the scenarios that I talked about. Not because of avoiding controversies but I wanted readers to read the text without the picture of religion coming into it. I strongly feel this exists in all religions and it is more concentrated towards patriarchy than towards religion. I have been brought up under Hindu traditions. The experiences that I have shared include scenarios from other religions as well.