Every time I buy sanitary napkins, the shopkeepers wrap them in newspapers and then put them in black plastic bags. When I wave away the newspaper, they are very reluctant to hand them over. Everyone – men and women – looks uneasy that I am carrying the bright-coloured packets of Stayfree in my hands, as any other medicines or toiletries.
Many countries are currently discussing legal provisions for menstruation leave. Earlier this year, Spain became the first country in Europe to implement a national menstruation leave. Asia is ahead: Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and Taiwan offer menstruation leave in disparate formats. In India, Bihar introduced a menstrual leave of two days in the 1990s. Now, with the issue raised in the Indian parliament, before we discuss the implementation of such a leave, we should first establish the need to do so.
Let us begin with the deep-seated taboo and silence about menstruation. What is it about menstruation that makes us so uncomfortable?
Worried about stains we wear black, speak of it in hushed tones, and stay behind closed doors. Our gods don’t allow visits from menstruating women and some gods prohibit any women within the menstruating age. Our pickles might go bad, and kitchens get polluted. Nobody dares to test these theories, so deep-seated is our prejudice.
It was not always like this. Mother cults existed across the globe. Men did not know that they had any part in procreation. Children were born to women and mothers were revered. Menstrual blood, the vagina and the womb were worshipped since the survival and growth of tribes depended upon them. However, the development of agriculture settled the wandering tribes on patches of land and inheritance became vital. From hunters of animals, men became owners of land. They needed progeny to pass their property to. That was a problem, since motherhood is a matter of fact but fatherhood is a matter of opinion. The need for men to have biological children and to be certain of their parentage made marriage imperative. How to make sure that women will stay married, that they would covet marriage? By making them objects or ornaments, branding them as unproductive and an economic burden. They are to be passed from clan to clan as a tool of perpetuating lineage, the ancestry that is not their own. Their bodies must be covered and hidden. Their bodily fluids branded as dirty and polluting. All religions agree upon the fear and disgust of the female body.
Maybe change occurred at the turn of the century. Some of my students now ask for sanitary pads openly and their male classmates do not bat an eyelid. Are they rebels, I wonder, or just pragmatic? Are they able to raise their parents along with themselves? My eight-year-old daughter, a hopeless bookworm, gives me lectures on fertilisation, eggs, sperm and foetuses. When I asked, “Shall I explain menstruation to you?”, she replied, “I will tell you, Ma. The wall of the uterus is thrown out through the vagina (which is another hole, Ma) and then you use cloth pads to soak it up.” All of this is regaled with the usual enthusiasm and sparkle at new knowledge. She is aware and ready. I live in awe of the next generation.
I compare this to the experiences of my generation: horror at finding the first spots of blood, the panic that you have some rare illness, the shame of stains in school, the worry that the boys who are watching your backside will find out. How much easier life would have been if we could have treated this as a natural process of growing up!
Now, let us come to the question of why menstrual leave is needed. A survey of Indian female students in the Global Journal of Health Sciences in 2015 reported that a staggering 70.2% had dysmenorrhea. This means period cramps and pain in the lower abdomen or pelvis. Women who experienced mild pain on average absented for one-and-a-half days a month while the average was 2.1±1.2 and 2.5±1.3 days for those who experienced moderate and severe forms of dysmenorrhea respectively. About 23% of dysmenorrheic women experienced pain for 2-3 days and the rest for 1-1.5 days.
Period pain can be excruciating – almost like a knife inserted into you is being twisted. You may not be able to get out of bed or eat a meal, and may suffer diarrhoea and nausea throughout. Even non-dysmenorrheic women tend to face tiredness, back pain, lethargy, headaches (menstrual migraine) and muscle aches.
Hence, emotionally you wish to burrow down and stay with yourself. Facing people and making conversation feels like an unnecessary effort, let alone going to work and facing office politics! Many women heroically prod through the discomfort. They do not want to “seem less”. The impact of discourses such as, ‘If you want equality, then why ask for special treatment?” looms large.
But we know the difference between formal and substantive equality. Further the wise amongst us realise that men are, in fact, trying to come to our level – our efficiency, multi-tasking, emotional labour and care – and failing miserably. Men, historically, have tried to control women so that they can compensate for their inability to bear children.
Popular discourse tells us that women become irritable and irrational before, during or after their periods. The term PMS is used callously by men to berate women. “Why are you reacting like this? Are you PMSing?”
Ironically, it is only PMS that makes women attain the ‘rationality’ of modern capitalism where everyone is supposed to look out for themselves first. Women become self-centred for two days; they may eat before others in the family, go to sleep rather than putting the kids to bed, say no to extra work in office. Maybe cuddle in bed and read a book or watch TV. They become men!
It is during menstruation, delivery, and breastfeeding that women feel closest to nature, to Mother Earth. It is a state of heightened sensitivity. You sense the hunger in the eyes of the beggar woman with a tiny baby, you weep over the killing of a Palestinian child. That sensitivity that would save mankind from itself is mostly missing from our ‘rational’ political dealings.
Ecofeminism tells us that women and nature are associated not in passivity but in creativity and the maintenance of life. Investing in women, engaging and empowering women, will lead to sustainable agriculture, food production and a long-lasting ecosystem in the world. Maybe it is time some serious investment is made into women’s bodies and lives.
Sameena Dalwai is a feminist writer and a professor of law.
