The P word!!!
Padman certainly wasn’t the first Indian movie to show periods or menstrual blood, and neither is the cast doing something pathbreaking or revolutionary that would change the mindset of people and remove the stigma associated with menstrual hygiene in India. This is because:
A. Social change is always incremental. No social change happens overnight, due to a single factor. In that respect, while a single factor do not have the power to effect a social change, it’s always good to challenge notions and mindsets.
B. Past precedents suggest that similar drives were carried out, with little effect on curbing the shaming of menstruation.
That doesn’t entail these drives are entirely useless. They are important for starting a dialogue, or sensitize towards an issue. The movie Pad Man is not really that different from the rhetoric against shaming menstruation, and is thus adding on to the dialogue.
Some such past drives and what they achieved:
- Jamia Students' Campaign Against Sexism Gets Reaction From German Founder: “We are hoping people in India will start talking about menstruation in a way that doesn't see it as dirty," said the student. "We want to remove the stigma attached to it." The students are reaching out to medical store owners to ask them not to immediately wrap sanitary pads in black and brown bags, as is usual in India, so as to hide these in public.”
The Result?
- Jamia Milia Islamia showcauses 4 students for anti-rape messages on sanitary pads; “fellow students and faculty members termed their method as 'repugnant',”.
- Medical Store Owners still wrap the sanitary napkin packaging in black or brown paper, because apparently, it is equated with all things shameful and repulsive, with constant parallels to menstruation, being drawn with:
- sex,
- condoms,
- excrement.
However, this campaign helped inspire the next one as mentioned below.
- On March 2015, Jadavpur University Students were putting up Feminist Messages On Sanitary Pads All Over Campus: "I wish the rape culture repulsed you more than my blood," read one of the messages.’ The message is clear, period. A group of students at Kolkata's Jadavpur University are writing feminist slogans on sanitary napkins and putting them up all over the campus to protest India's patriarchy and rape culture. The messages, scribbled with black and red sharpies on sanitary pads, are also meant to break society's taboo on speaking about menstruation.
The Result?
The Jadavpur University Pro-VC said: "there is always space for freedom of expression but students should also know where to draw the line.”
- Similar protest happened in Pakistan too, in April 2016: Students are covering their university walls with sanitary pads for an important reason: “We are made to put pads in brown paper bags when we buy them, we are made to talk about periods in hushed voices as if it's a dirty secret, and all-in-all made to act as if it is something we should hide more so than other bodily functions, when it's really a natural part of our biology. Our idea was to break this taboo around the subject in our society."
- The Result:
- The response has been mixed from people thanking us for speaking out about this issue to people saying we are beghairat(shameless), behaya (brazen), sluts, etc.” Some people compared menstruation blood to excrement.[1]
- 'PadMan' is banned in Pakistan.
- Young women send messages on sanitary pads to the Prime Minister against 12% GST. The Result: Last known, no effect exists to slash the pricing of a product that’s not a luxury item but a necessity for women.
- Not to forget the “HappytoBleed” campaign: After an Indian temple chief recently said he would allow women to enter the shrine only after a machine was invented to detect if they were "pure" - meaning that they weren't menstruating - outraged women have launched a #HappyToBleed campaign on Facebook to protest against the "sexist statement", writes the BBC's Geeta Pandey in Delhi: Why are Indian women 'Happy to Bleed'?This was done to allow menstruating women onto temples.
The Result: Last known, no effect on that regard. Temples haven’t opened the doors for menstruating women.
- Not to forget the attempts of this 21 year old, who works on the cause not because of he’s getting paid for it, like the Padman actor Akshay Kumar, but because he is actually trying to effect a change, and doing more than just “raising awareness” through activism on social media or clicking selfies with a pad: After Tridhara toilets for transgenders, Kolkata man starts free sanitary pads campaign in public toilets.
“My only aim is to break the social taboo prevalent in many sections of society and encourage every woman in India to wear a sanitary napkin which is also hygienic. Filmmakers, students and working professionals have come forward to help me monetarily while my friends assist me to install the boxes in the city’s toilets,” he said.”— Kolkata's Padman: This 21-yr-old Distributes Sanitary Napkins in Public Toilets
- Rajasthan dealing with the taboo around menstruation with special campaigns: “The campaign has been designed to address the needs of adolescent girls on menstrual hygiene and 1.06 lakh girls in 1977 government primary and secondary schools in the entire district were sensitised on the issue last week and kits and booklets containing practical tips for better menstrual health management are also being issued to girls,” Alwar Collector Rajan Vishal told PTI.”
- Government to Launch Cheapest Sanitary Pads for Rural Women in Maharashtra: In view to increase awareness and remove taboo about menstrual hygiene, the Maharashtra government has decided to launch Asmita Yojana on the International Women’s Day next month. Under this scheme, girls studying in district schools will be getting a sanitary pad packet for Rs 5 and the women habiting in the rural area can avail the sanitary packs for Rs 24 or Rs 29.
All of the above are only scratching on the surface, because the terrain of stigma and shaming regarding menstruation in India consists of the following:
Image Source: The full extent of what urban India believes about menstruation is extraordinary
More dialogue needs to happen between Indian males and Indian females. A good start for Indian men would be to start with their mothers, or sisters, and be assured that when they are talking about menstruation, they are not talking “SEX!!!” It’s not something that only their girlfriends or spouse go through. Their daughters, niece, employees, students, colleagues, maid, neighbours, all go through menstruation. Clicking a selfie with a pad is just not enough.
In fact, as far as urban Indian men are concerned, their attitude towards menstruation have been changing, but there’s room for a lot of work:
Image Source: The full extent of what urban India believes about menstruation is extraordinary
- 24th February, 2018: Kerala: 15-year-old attacked over sister's poem on Facebook questioning menstruation taboos: The abusers alleged that the poem on a menstruating goddess hurt their religious sentiments. Navami told onmanorama.com that her 15-year-old sister Lekshmi was attacked by a group of bike-borne men wearing masks, who shoved her and assaulted her at Mallappally in Pathanamthitta district on February 21.
- 'I couldn't mourn my grandmother because I had my period'
- Padman aims to deal with menstruation taboo but over 50% young women in rural India use unhygienic methods of protection - Firstpost
- 31st August, 2017: Girl kills herself after 'period shaming': “I do not know why my teacher is making complaints against me. I still can't understand why they are harassing and torturing me like this," the student said in her suicide note. It began: "Amma [mother], please forgive me." ''My daughter got her periods while she was in school last Saturday," her mother told BBC Tamil. "When she informed the teacher, she was given a duster cloth to use as a pad. "The teacher made my daughter stand outside the class. How can a 12-year-old withstand such humiliation?" she asked. The girl killed herself a day later.
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