Menstruation is a phenomenon that is unique to women. It starts with the onset of puberty and ends when she is 45-50.
Let’s first see, what is menstruation? Menstruation is a biological phenomenon that results in shedding of blood and vessels from the vagina. This is often called ‘periods’.They typically last for 2-5 days and varies for the individual.
Commonly called ‘periods’, it arrives at the age of 10-16 for girls and brings hundreds of taboos and myths to her life and excludes her from being free to make and live her life.
The first restriction to that little girl is to hide her menses from her family and the external world. From the same day she starts menstruating, she is made to keep it a big secret to everyone, especially males, that she is bleeding,’ don’t know why’.
At many houses, menstruating girls are restricted from various activities, such as visiting religious places, entering kitchens, touching something or someone. Just think of her self esteem when her menses are welcomed in such a manner every month. That period would definitely be no less than a nightmare, where she is disrespected so brutally.
At many interior areas, girls have to survive just on water and no food is given to her. At many interior places in the world, women are not even allowed to stay in houses. They have to stay with cattle in the shed every month for 4-5 days. She is considered impure and is prohibited from touching holy and religious books. Also, the food she prepares is considered contaminated and impure.
At many places, she has to wash all her clothes, bedsheet and other products she used during her menstrual times even if they are not bloodstained. The biggest of all taboos is, menstruation is a woman’s personal issue, that should not be discussed publicly. However, it should be known to all that menstruation is a human issue that each and every person living on this land should be aware of.
Menstruating women and her products are considered impure, and she is just made to sit in a single room for full 4-5 days, isolated from the whole world. It is considered that menstruation limits the physical and mental abilities of a woman. In short, she is considered to be weaker after she starts menstruating. This stupid idea of society and disregarding comments about menses badly affects the physical and emotional state of a woman, excluding her from certain roles and positions of leadership.
Many places lack sanitation facilities, and women use old rags to manage their blood flow. The women are even not allowed to dry that bloodstained rags in the sunshine. Hence they hide it wet after washing. After multiple washes, the rags get coarse and often cause rashes and infection in the uterus lining of women.
Many rural girls have to leave their schooling just because they start menstruating and lack sanitary infrastructure in schools. This means, something as natural as breathing impacts the whole life of a girl so brutally.
A girl in a community in ‘Pune’ was asked, in which school does she go? She replied, “I don’t go to a school as I am cursed by the god.” When her father was asked the same question, he replied, “In our community, girls are not sent to the school after they start menstruating, because they are cursed.” This is such a sick idea and needs to be changed.
In Rajasthan, 15 years old Priyanka Meena sleeps outside her home, covered by a saree, when she has her periods. She wears the same clothes and uses the same utensils when she menstruates; her clothes and utensils are considered unclean and are not accepted inside the house even if her periods are over. This is the biggest misfortune of our world that most people involved in following such taboos are older women. The older women make the young girls follow such stupid rules, that make no sense in today’s world.
Menstruation is still considered impure. Something as simple as breathing is termed as impure, but why? If menstruation, out of which the whole human race is born, is considered impure, then the whole human race impure. Menstruation is healthy and not at all impure. It is also the process of purification of toxins from a female body. Hence, it is absolutely good to menstruate, without following stupid myths and taboos of society.
As the young people of the nation, we have the responsibility and ability to remove such myths from our society. We all know the scientific reason for menstruation is related to the biological changes occurring during puberty. As literate youngsters can change such stupid myths, taboos, and beliefs about menstruation. No matter if you are a boy or a girl, you should be aware of a female’s menstrual cycle. We are the only one who can transform this society full of taboos and myths to a logical and female respecting community.
We have to build up a society where every woman feels free and comfortable to talk about menstruation publicly to anyone. Even today we hesitate to talk about menstruation in public, but this is not our fault, we learned this from our society to keep the menses a big secret. So, everything that is a myth and taboo in our society need to be removed today!