Menstruation: Let’s Talk About It! (c’mon girl, don’t be ashamed!)
Menstruation: While most of the people are talking about their New Year’s Resolution list for 2017, I am sitting here with a subject that has been disturbing me almost all my life. If you are a woman, I am sure you can relate with what I am about to tell you now –
The other day, I went to a medical store and asked for a packet of sanitary napkins. Firstly, when I told the store worker what I was looking for, three men standing next to me gave me a wide-eyed look. Ignoring their reaction for something I needed for the sake of my hygiene, I waited for the worker to get me what I had asked for. He made me wait for more than five minutes.
Well, I am quite popular for the patience I have. Thus, waiting did not annoy me; what annoyed me was that he wrapped the packet of my sanitary napkin with a bunch of newspapers and tied a thread around it. For a few seconds, I thought he was handing over a bomb to me. There I was, standing with a packet of just another product for women wrapped like just another product to spread terror!
Sarcastically, the packet of sanitary napkins did spread terror in the eyes of all those standing next to me.
As I was paying for it, even a few women were embarrassed to stand next to me like I was some untouchable woman with no dignity of my own. I couldn’t help smiling to myself at the mentality of people, who still find ways to put women down just because they periodically bleed.
Period – what is it?
Menstruation is the process in which a woman discharges blood as well as mucosal tissue from the uterus. No doubt it is painful and the lady has to go through PMS (Pre-Menstrual Symptoms), but it is something that has made a woman… womanly! She creates because she bleeds; it is the gift of nature and something she should be proud of.
We are entering 2017 now; yet, there are women, who are treated like scum when they are in their period. They are not allowed to enter into the kitchen, they are told to eat what they are served, they are told to sleep on the ground, they are told to wash the bathroom after they use it, no matter in how much pain they are and they are looked down upon. In simple words, they turn untouchable for all the days during which they bleed. Even a few men refuse touching their wives when they are in their period. The worst is that even women do this injustice towards their gender. I have personally seen mothers shunning their daughters away when they are in their period.
My question is – WHY?
Why do you have to abandon your daughter when she is bleeding? You can’t sit next to her and give her a hug because when she is bleeding, she is impure, right? Why can’t she enter into a temple, sit and relax her mind when she needs the Creator the most? She can’t touch the bottle of her favorite pickle, can she? Why can’t she wash her hair? She can’t leave the doorstep of her house when this is the time when she needs her friends, and a break, the most, right?
A woman needs rest when she is in her period, but that doesn’t mean you have to make her sleep on the hard floor; let her rest on the couch or where she usually rests in her ‘clean’ days; let her cook for herself if she wishes to eat something made by her own hands.
Educate your daughter about menstruation the day she turns 9; educate your son about menstruation the day he turns 9, too, so that he knows it is not yucky, but something very natural.
If you don’t take the initiative today, those men and women will keep embarrassing you and your daughter when you guys buy sanitary napkins from the medical store.
“Let them know it is natural; it is beautiful; let them know it is a part of your womanhood.”