Wednesday, 12 July 2017

Menstruial Options and Rhetoric

"BJP leader @MALAVIKAAVINASH says Sanitary Napkins aren't needed & that they are a foreign conspiracy. Asks Indian woman to shift to cloth!"

She is being trolled very uncouthly. I wish the trollers had a level head on their shoulders. And some decency in discourse.

I agree with the BJP leader here.

- My village is poor. People here need to use their money carefully.

- Women have traditionally used cloth peices cut from old sarees, and washed, sun dried, and reused them. One old saree will do for the reproductive life of a women.

- I shifted to the same completely when I was 25. I have travelled a lot, and lived through droughts in my village. The choice has been very comfortable

- A corporate media, and an upper class sold to disposables, have turned the argument into one of 'hygiene' and 'comfort' of sanitary napkins. Both these are very available in cloth.

- The village school girls are now all shifting to sanitary napkins as they are being wooed in government schools with free pads. One nore consumer item they will be buying all their lives. And creating landfills in the villages.

I would like sanitary napkins (as also all other new fangled non degradable disposanbles like diapers) banned or made unaffordable. My vote is for local no cost alternatives.


Aparna Krishnan
Aparna Krishnan local, no-cost is local, no-cost ! Nothing to beat that. And nothing should interfere with that. Cloth from old cotton sarees wins hands down anytime.
 
Suraj Kumar
Suraj Kumar Agreed! Also, to make cloth needs only cotton, a charkha and hand loom. Whereas the one I've linked above needs an entire machine, electricity, wage slavery, chopping off pine trees, packaging, transportation, etc., The village way of life is distilled elegance.
 



I am alive and kicking. The village women are alive and kicking. We should be extinct the way simple cloth is demonized.
Also I see far greater prevelence of menstrual disorders in urban women who use disposables.
We use cloth from clean old sarees. We wash and dry and reuse them. No synthetics, no carcinogens. Just simple cotton.
But then this is no cost. We don't fill coffers of corporates. We don't make for fancy NGO projects out to civilize us.
So why will this wisdom, of the people, by the people, for the best people, be recognised !





  • Malini Parmar
    My elder daughter has been using reusable cloth pads for last 4 years now. She says it is more comfortable compared to whisper, doesn't start smelling in two hours and no itchiness and rashes. But i don't agree with Aparna's approach of using just cloth. reusable cloth pads that have wings and a leak proof layer allows my athlete to use them to school to training.
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    • 1y
  • Aparna Krishnan
    Cloth is zero cost. A very important factor. It can be opened and dried in a single layer. Far more hygenic. It has served me and other women a lifetime. Many working in fields. There are no issues at all.





Moment of self-reflection: If you watched "Period. End of Sentence" win last night at the Oscars, and you thought to yourself, "Good! Finally India is modernizing and the women are freed from their oppressive ways! This confirms my preconceived notions that India is a bad place for women. Remember Sabarimala and that huge wall of women?" or something along those lines...and then you found yourself getting emotional at the thought of 500 million women finally being able to use menstrual pads and go to school:
1. You are swimming in misinformation. I'm here to tell you that you suffer from stereotype-itis. (Stereotyping - when you take a small (maybe true) thing and falsely represent it as the entire truth.) Spoiler alert: India has 1.2 billion people. The story of one village cannot be generalized.
2. You need to educate yourself (and not from a white Western lens) about India and colonization and indigenous traditions.
3. You need to develop a much more critical lens (and healthy skepticism) about Western documentarians going into the Global South and HOW they portray things.
4. Scroll down my wall and read Rekha's post that I shared earlier today.
Not at all detracting from the project depicted in the film, I could not stand to watch those two Western women on that stage, behaving like they won the Nobel peace prize for helping to liberate all Indian women from their tribal, barbaric backwardness. I don't care if the director is a "WOC" - identity does not equal positionality.




I - "They are selling costly reuseable cloth sanitary napkins, when ordinary women simply use old cotton cloth, used, washed, dried and reused."
Friend - "But there is such a block in city minds against using cloth. It is showed as unhygenic. Dont you see the TV ads."
I - "You know I dont have a TV. But this expensive cloth napkin is also cloth, and thereby 'unhygenic' !"
Friend - "But they pay a lot for it you see, the urban women !! That makes it aspirational !!"
The development wallahs I wish would leave the villages alone. If they wish, they can go villages to learn what being sane and sustainable really means. They can offer little, seeing the mess they have made of their own cities !

Comments

  • Jagga Lalgudy
    I want to invite clarity on my thoughts as below - We are better off using only "Made in India" . Essentially, when we use anything foreign, though it might make life look easier, we are destroying India and Indians directly. Every non-Indian product price is marked up and padded up to include financial support not only to the person earned(salary), and includes taxes that support atleast 3 more non-Indian family to live on benefits and more importantly taxes to fund Porikisthan and every other breaking India forces, every single thing is being financed by foreign goods that we buy!! So, it is time to develop and use only Indian made alternatives for facebook, twitter, HLL, WPP, Castrol, Vodafone ....Till such time we are using these foreign products and services, no Indian can be called patriotic or nationalist. In addition to destroying our culture and native Industry like how native Americans have been destroyed, are we destroying our own country. When mill veshti replaced hand woven one, the one suited for Indian conditions, environment and rituals - I think we lost it.




Why is it that upper class women lecture on sustainable menstruation options, and do funded projects on the same. 'Promoting' it.
And not the women of this land, village after village. Who use simple cotton cloth. Wash, dry, reuse. And have always done it. Without thunder or lightening. Or any self importance
  • Reusing cloth during menses causes death of 28-yr-old woman
    PUNEMIRROR.INDIATIMES.COM
    Reusing cloth during menses causes death of 28-yr-old woman
    Reusing cloth during menses causes death of 28-yr-old woman
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    • 2y
    • Pankajalakshmi Ram
      The article is flawed in many ways.
      Toxic Shock Syndrome, can affect cup, tampon, pad users also. Every manufacturer of pad cup or tampon puts this disclaimer.
      Claiming study that 24 percent school girls miss school during their periods is just western BS study. It's not the use of cloth but the practise and awareness of avoiding metalhooks and clasps in them that is important. Even so called expensive cloth pads have metal buttons to make it stay in place.
      Funny how the doctor recommends menstrual cup.
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    • Pankajalakshmi Ram
      I can also quote a study about menstrual cups
      In recent years, menstrual cups—flexible cupsthat are inserted into the vagina during a period to collect menstrual blood—have been touted as a safer alternative to tampons. Now, a new study published in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology suggests that menstrual cups may also raise the risk of TSS.
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    • Pankajalakshmi Ram
      Also I encourage girls to take time off during periods.
      Why, in the olden days ladies used to do heavy work the rest of the days and get the much needed break from heavy physical work on these days. The body needs it's downtime. But nowadays in the name of modernity we run 24 /7 and end up spoiling our health before middle age. I wish we went back to the olden system
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    Yes, random articles, unsubstantiated. Unclear totally on why she died m Village after village, generation after generation has survived cloth healthily.
    We know well who benefits with such propaganda. Corporate India ! Procter and gamble ! Etc.
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    • 2y
    • Chitra Sharan
      Generations of each of our families themselves survived on reusable cloth. Like I said earlier it has become a necessity for women who work long hours, wih heavy bleeding and no access to washroom to wash and dry.
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      • Edited
    • Aparna Krishnan
      Expensive cloth pads are being promoted, and gleefully brought.
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      • 2y
  • DrKaustav Sengupta
    conspiracy theory. this even happened on "tooth paste". West pushed "branded" toothpastes and stated that the "Neem" wood/ charcoal is not a "good practice" and then they started selling toothpastes with "neem" and "charcoal"!
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    Surprising that so called well educated fall for this.
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  • Veena Maruthoor
    It is not even education Aparna. We in town's are stuck. No healthy surroundings to wash and dry our menstrual clothes, for that not even underclothes. So we have to think of pads, which we thought at one time was easy. Once it blocked our sewers, then we started of real disposal issues... that is how we reached where we are now. And we don't see any option of cities becoming villages in the near future. Rather villages might turn to be cities unless you be very careful
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  • Aparna Krishnan
    Cities are cancers, yes. A pit of no return.
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