Tag: period

Let’s talk about period!

What is Menstruation or A Period?

The level of estrogen and progesterone, reproductive hormones, climbs every month as the uterus prepares for pregnancy. The uterine lining becomes dense and spongy as a result of these hormones. This lining is made up of tissue and blood, much like everything else inside our bodies. It provides a variety of nutrients that help pregnancy progress. If there isn’t a pregnancy, progesterone levels drop, and the thick endometrial lining sheds and leaks out of the vaginal orifice. And Menstruation is the result.

Red Wedding . shark week . Time of the week . code red.
A slew of terms for one utterance – Menstruation. And not just human beings; Other mammals, such as Old World monkeys and apes, 3-5 kinds of bats, and the elephant shrew, have periods as well.

Only 121 million (roughly only 36% of the women) of India’s 336 million menstruating women use sanitary pads, according to the National Family Health Survey 2015-2016. Many women still refuse to use sanitary pads for a variety of reasons, including personal preference and familiarity, a lack of access to or affordability for high-quality commercial sanitary pads, and a lack of adequate knowledge regarding pads.

“More than a third of girls in South Asia miss school during their periods, as they lack access to toilets or pads, and many receive no education about menstruation before reaching puberty,”- A recent report by charity WaterAid and UNICEF revealed.

Because they cannot afford these expensive sanitary goods, many girls and women utilize a new soft cloth or some homemade product. Women may also use hay, ash sand, ash, wood shavings, newspapers, dried leaves, or plastic in extreme circumstances.

In both urban and rural India, qualitative investigations and surveys have revealed the most common reason for not using a sanitary pad is its high price. Pads from high-end commercial manufacturers can cost up to 1.5 times as much as pads from low-cost vendors. Quality sanitary pads are desirable, but the majority of girls from low-income homes cannot afford them.

TAX-FREE SANITARY PRODUCTS

“I am sure all mothers and sisters will be very happy to hear that sanitary pads are now 100 percent exempt from tax,” India’s interim finance minister, Piyush Goyal, at a news conference in New Delhi.

In 2018, India abolished its 12% tariff on all sanitary items, declaring tampons and sanitary napkins tax-free.

But is it enough?

A bundle of ten sanitary napkins, which used to cost roughly 100 rupees, will now cost around 88 rupees when the 12 percent GST is abolished. This could be a woman’s monthly outlay on menstrual products. However, given that 65.07% of India’s population lives in rural regions and relies on manual labor, with many of them subsisting on less than 120 rupees per day, the price of 88 rupees for a packet of sanitary napkins remains exorbitant.

Recently, The Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act 2021 was approved by the Scottish Government, making sanitary products free for all women and making Scotland the first country in the world to do so in the battle against “period poverty.” It is also the world’s first regulation requiring all public institutions to distribute menstrual sanitary goods, such as tampons and pads.

But why only in Scotland?
Periods are not a choice for women. They occur monthly and are a natural phenomenon. Therefore, every woman or girl who is menstruating deserves access to adequate sanitary products, regardless of her family’s income bracket.

It is high time for India and other countries to follow Scotland’s lead and make sanitary products free & accessible for their women.

silence: Menstruation Ahead

Shhhhh…… “it’s that day of the month”.

Menstruation or period has always been taboo. People don’t want to talk about it. It is a natural cycle. And that’s how a female body functions, doesn’t it?

Taboos around menstruation have always explained it to be something to be kept hidden. Religious taboos on menstruation consider women on their periods as “impure”. It is weird how a normal body function can be considered impure.

In Indian, it is not allowed to enter the temple for a woman on her period, or touch the pickle jar. This misogyny doesn’t just prevail in India, but all around the world in their unique ways. Women in Nepal are kept secluded in a menstruation hut, not allowed to enter the kitchen or touch anyone while they are on their periods. Indonesian women face similar issues in India and Nepal. The political boundaries couldn’t have succeeded to unite the nations with menstruation taboos.

Misconceptions, cultural norms and silence has led to living in the dark, letting such taboos build up. People are not enough educated about it as they find it shameful. Many girls around the world don’t know about periods till they have them for the first time. Because of this lack of knowledge and social humiliation women around the world risk their lives. As the period is not talked about, women at some places use clothes to soak up their period blood; at times use the same cloth after washing because, either they feel shameful to buy a sanitary napkin or don’t have access to it.

Even when these sanitary napkins or pads are bought, are wrapped around with newspapers and then put into a black polythene bag, just to ensure double safety so nobody sees it. It is treated as something nobody should find out. Even while asking for it women almost whisper so that nobody in the vicinity could hear about it as it has been taught to them it shouldn’t be talked about.

We have even watched advertisements of sanitary pads on television, where a blue coloured liquid is poured on the pad just to show them how much the pad can soak. But the question here is- do women bleed blue? And the answer is an absolute no. Then why do the advertisements show so? It is just so that the viewers don’t feel gross. But shouldn’t the reality be shown as it is? These aspects also contribute to misconceptions and often confuse.

Out of curiosity, boys in the class often take out sanitary napkins from female classmate’s bags. Lack of menstrual awareness often leads to period shaming, where a girl getting stained from period blood is shamed and mocked leading to humiliation. Not women but men and every human being should know about it. Schools should have awareness programs to aware the students about menstruation and menstrual hygiene. It should also be taught how a person on periods can be taken care of. Periods are a healthy and natural function of a women’s body.

Not just women but also men should know about menstruation and menstrual hygiene. Schools should have awareness programs to aware the students about it. It should also be taught how a person on periods can be taken care of. There is nothing to be embarrassed about girl blood staining her dress, or having a sanitary napkin in her bag. Periods are a healthy and natural function of a women’s body.