By Neha Yadav
Source: Menstrupedia Facebook
Menstruation is a natural biological cycle process that millions of teenage girls go through. And yet the subject remains unvoiced in schools. While it is grossed by some, girls are always told to keep it a secret. The revolving lack of unawareness forbids girls from talking about periods in schools and even at homes, especially in rural areas.
The term, ‘periods’ is a medium of survival that is vital for the continuation and survival of species. Mostly when girls get their first period they are told to keep it a secret even from their fathers and brothers. Even in schools, when the concerning chapter shows up in the biology subject, teachers choose to skip it out of shame.
The continuing hush around the subject of menstruation causes school girls to lose their self esteem. They start feeling ashamed and different about their own body. They learn and choose to stay unknown about the word in order to show ‘decency’. Also, research in various parts of the country concludes that every 3 out of 10 girls are unaware of periods during their first cycle. The functioning of women’s and teenage girls’ reproductive organs relies on menstrual hygiene.
Unfortunately, very few girls in the country know enough to save themselves from infections and diseases. Only 12% of girls in India are actually able to maintain menstrual hygiene, which may be a reason for reproductive tract infections for others.
For many girls in rural India, using sanitary napkins is a matter of shame, which is why these girls end up using rags. After every use, while they wash them, they must hide the rags in dark and damp places to make sure that no one gets to see them. This leads to severe infections for many.
A major concerning issue is the social restrictions imposed on every menstruating girl even in modern times. Girls during their periods are considered impure and are forbidden from worshipping anything of religious importance. Many temples still hold a board restricting menstruating girls from stepping inside.
It has been observed that the beginning of the whole myth comes from an uneducated part of society where women in the family contribute to such restrictions upon the girls because they’ve been brought up with the same restrictions as a norm. A number of anecdotes from girls in rural India emphasize that they even eat alone and wash their dishes separately. They are not allowed to bathe during their periods and are secluded from the family.
They’ve chosen to make it a norm and a high growing taboo which further leads to psychological trauma and could even break their self-confidence. Such rampant growing stigmas around menstruation adversely affect their personality and academics especially during their growing years when most of them are aiming to build a positive future.
While a major chunk of women in society adds to the menstrual myths, there are men who are less informed about the periods. One of the biggest astonishment to them is that girls undergo menstruation bleeding every month followed by menstrual cramps, let alone PMS.
Even well-educated women and girls are ill-informed and are unaware of periods. What they see and grow through is just a known fact but there’s a lot more to it. It was then only found that this lack of information about menstrual hygiene and periods is not only a rural phenomenon but also an urban phenomenon with a high contribution from the educated urban class as well.
Many parents and teachers somehow support the urge to educate girls on menstruation before they get married, but they themselves are least known about it. Since it is considered a social taboo, they simply couldn’t talk directly about it to the girls.
Girls who get their periods in 6th and 7th grade are lately taught about all of this only in 8th and 9th grade. Being an inhibition or a taboo altogether, most of the teachers choose to skip the chapter. It is a question to ponder that schools take initiative to teach neither girls nor the parents. Then where do the girls go? Sadly the generation stands at the same place as it was 2 decades ago.
With many such stigmas consuming the truth and myths taking a toll on society, these unaware girls, parents, and schools are also approached by organizations that educate and make girls aware of periods through stories in comics like ‘Menstrupedia’. While this comic is designed especially for informing young adolescent girls through comics and stories at an early age, even boys are interested to read this comic sometimes. Hence, Menstrupedia comes with special comics for boys as well.
These comics have cartoon characters that enact these stories to educate in a fun and engaging way covering all ways and aspects of menstruation with illustrations that are culturally sensitive. With the introduction of such approaches from the educated class of the society, even parents and teachers in rural areas feel easy to teach girls about periods using these books. This had been a prototype to distributing these comics to educate people and youngsters.
It is therefore invoking to know that there are still people who have joined hands and come together to break such myths and taboos. Together, education can craft a world where the future is secured for every girl in our nation, where periods are not assumed as a curse but a welcoming change during her life. Every parent should strive to learn and educate about menstruation. People should comprehend that if they are ashamed of talking about periods to girls at their most crucial phase of life, then girls too would be embarrassed to share their problems comfortably.
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