A few days back, a girl on Twitter shared her experience about how she got her periods in the PVR and she wasn’t carrying an extra pad with her. While talking about it she also highlighted the need of having pad machines or emergency pads in washrooms in public spaces.
This tweet created quite an uproar among men and their responses looked something like, ‘not everything we want can be in public places’ and ‘if a woman can carry lipstick in her purse she can also carry a pad’. The response by a few men who do not even menstruate was quite upsetting as not only shows the ignorance of an issue that is very critical to us women but also shows how menstrual health awareness in schools was only limited to women as if women are the only one who bears the burden of knowledge of menstruation.
Most girls in India are told about periods in their schools in Grade 6 where their age is around 11 and then boys and girls were segregated during this information-sharing process in itself feels like a clandestine affair and girls are made to feel ashamed if they get their periods during school hours so much so that they have to leave the school immediately if they have some blood stains on their clothes. As a result, girls and women cannot express their needs and affect change within their homes, community, or in society in general. A study by Linda Mason ‘A Qualitative Study Exploring Boys’ Perception In India’ suggests that male attitudes are one of the main factors driving the stigmatisation and myths surrounding menstruation. In today’s time, there is a strong need for sex education and menstrual health management so that when a menstruating woman put forwards her concerns it is not considered trivial or useless.