About time menstruation stopped being a dirty word

The flash mob outside Bandra West railway station. Pic/Aditi Haralkar

A flash mob brought the conversation about menstruation to a public place on Menstrual Hygiene Day which falls on May 28. This paper cited how a group of dancers caught the attention and eyeballs of commuters outside Bandra station. They danced to a rap song raising awareness about menstruation.

An adjunct report in the same paper highlighted challenges faced by teenage girls, many from underserved communities about changing sanitary napkins and disposing of them correctly during their period. Overall, the reports were about bringing conversations about menstruation in the open, beginning with a unit as small as the family, facilitating health and hygienic facilities for girls and seeing that menstruation is not an obstacle for them to achieving academic and life goals.

Make sanitary napkins more affordable and accessible across. Enough privacy must be given to girls on these days. This can only happen when this topic becomes part of the conversation on public health and hygiene.

While a few movies have brought this to light, there are also some advertisements that try to normalise the conversation, so many participants in the flash mob dance itself stated that this is a long journey and much more needs to be done here.

It is also witnessed that at times, the gravity of this issue is not truly factored in or realised fully. That is why sparking conversations is a starting point towards resolution which means accessibility to menstrual health products, safe practices to avoid infection and hygienic disposal. It is time we stopped hiding behind some kind of shameful silence and even banish stigma and myths. The real shame is isolating menstruating women, making them live in dangerous menstruation huts and generally treating them like some kind of untouchables. That is where the real problem lies and needs rectification.