Menstruation, none of a man’s business: They said

By Avash Karmacharya

I was always a curious child, and I guess most children are supposed to be curious. It is however sad that not all curiosities find their answers. As a 90s kid, I grew up in an era where television and advertisements were still very new forms of media and communication. When I was around 13, I for the first time saw an advertisement on television on a piece of cloth that looked like a small wing where a person poured in a beaker full of blue ink. I asked my parents what the advertisement was about, and they replied, “None of your business, go study in your room.”

Oblivious to any information on menstruation and sanitary pads, I started to think that the wing shown in the advertisement was a newly invented material that would be helpful to students using ink pens. I thought it was a cloth that would help you not litter ink when it spills.

Born as a younger child to just an elder brother as a sibling, any discussion around menstruation at home was out of the dictionary. Meanwhile, the ads with the wing kept coming on television and I always failed to understand why a woman was always running freely at the end of every ad. I wanted the wing for myself for my pen would spill ink now and then, but nobody was ready to buy it for me.

Two years later, a health teacher at school for the first time taught the class on menstruation. I was in grade nine then and it was only a tiny paragraph. The male teacher who taught the paragraph spoke in hyper-lapse mode, meaning he just read out the paragraph at like speed of light and I did not understand a word. Back in my head, I still wanted to buy that wing from the advertisement.

Finally, one day at school, it was like God wanted to fulfill my wish to hold the wing in my hand. One day in school in a boy’s toilet, I saw the same wing thrown at the corner of the restroom. However, this time the wing had red ink in it instead of the blue. This is the first time, I am ever writing it publicly, I held the used sanitary napkin disposed unhygienically in my hand, not knowing it was, yet was so happy to finally see it and hold it. My new understanding of this wing then was it would soak all sorts of ink, any color.

Fast forward, two years later, I was in eleventh grade and a senior ran to my class asking if anyone had a scarf she could borrow as she needed it urgently. I lent her a scarf not understanding the urgency. Five days later, she came back to the class, thanked me, gave me back my scarf, and said she had washed it well. I asked her what the urgency was, and she just smiled and replied, none of your business. I went back home and narrated the whole story to my mother and showed her the scarf. She was so furious at me, and her hand flung to my cheeks leaving me stunned and clueless, she threw the scarf to the bin. In tears, I asked her what I had done wrong, what was this all about? She replied, none of your business, go study in your room.

It was only a few days later from the incident, that a female friend from my class finally broke the much-anticipated information on menstruation to me. I was shocked to know a woman bleeds every month, and I wanted to know more. But because there was no formal education around it, my friend could not tell me more about it either, and just replied, “We go through this every month, and we are untouchables for at least five days a month.” The sound of “untouchability of women” sounded familiar, as I used to hear the same terminology among family and relatives at times. Every time, I wanted to know more, I knew they would tell me “none of my business”.

Between all of this, while I was happy to learn basic information on menstruation, I was meanwhile heartbroken to realise that my understanding of the wing I saw in the ad was no more a material used for my pen, and I was too na?ve to think so for years. I was told by my family and friends that men should never talk about menstruation and if a man touches a sanitary pad, an unfortunate event will happen to him.

By the beginning of my undergrad, I was already working, making my own money, and wanted to validate dos and don’ts through my own experiences. I went to the pharmacy and bought a sanitary pad, placed it on the undergarment I was wearing, and went off to sleep. I promise you I did not disappear the next morning, I was just fine, and no, my God did not hate me like many had threatened me would. The only thing I realized that morning was, that misinformation is more dangerous than no information.

Fast forward, I decided to study gender and anthropology in my post-grad, I shifted my career to the development field in 2015. From then to now, I look back at my childhood, and my adolescence, and I laugh at my innocence and the ignorance of a lot of people who tried to educate me, but only culturally through their stigmas.

Having worked in development for quite a while field now, I can more than confidently say that menstrual health and hygiene needs more advocacy than ever by everyone, irrespective of gender. Especially, in a country like Nepal, advocacy on menstrual health and hygiene is even more paramount for there are many cultural stigmas around it to this day.

Despite the Nepal government criminalizing Chhaupadi practice, a cultural practice of subjecting women to live in unsafe huts and cowsheds in 2017, the communities living in far-western, mid-wester, and western regions of Nepal are still found practicing this tabooed ritual, endangering lives of adolescent girls and women. While the hygiene risks are at large, girls and women living in these sheds are exposed to venomous snakebites and wildlife attacks, which are common every year in these regions. The notion of ‘untouchability’ towards women during their menstrual cycle, disregarding them and banning them from performing household activities, is still present in many other parts of Nepal with different names other than Chhaupadi.

Poor menstrual hygiene is directly linked to the reproductive health of women, including Urinary tract infections. Right and supportive information is key for adolescent girls at menarche because the first menstruation is met often with anxiety, fear, and confusion. While menstruation is a normal biological and health process for every woman and is regulated by complex interactions of hormones (luteinizing hormone, follicle-stimulating hormone, and the female sex hormones?estrogen?and?progesterone). Due to these, menstruators have to go through several emotional and psychological strides ever since their menarche, to dealing with monthly PMS and menopause. Therefore, an open space to talk about menstrual health and hygiene, with access to safe WASH facilities, and advocacy to break any stigmas around it is imperative.

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I am currently working in an organization that leaves no stone unturned to advocate for the need for menstrual health and hygiene (MHH) and menstrual health management (MHM). At WaterAid Nepal, we work closely with the local government, local partners, and other stakeholders across several provinces to ensure that we spread more awareness among the adolescent girls we work for, along with strengthening WASH facilities in community schools and households and improving knowledge on good hygiene behaviour.

While we still have a long way to go in terms of breaking all stigmas and taboos, my values aligned with the values of the organization I work for will keep us on track irrespective of socio-cultural challenges.

It took me three years to argue, and debate with my mother to end all forms of taboos around menstruation in my home in the heart of the capital city. I understand it is still an ardent job to ensure menstrual health and hygiene is understood all across the country. I do not blame my family and friends for shutting me up, because irrespective of school education, their society always shut them up too, and they were instilled with the idea that asking too many questions would make them culturally inappropriate. But know by now, when you quench the curiosity of a child through the right information and kindness, you pave a path of confidence and empowerment in a child.

Lastly, anyone who would now want to come to me to ask why a man needs to talk so much about menstrual health and hygiene, I can simply smile and answer, “Because, it is very much my business.”