Menstrual Health

Period. End of Sentence.

I wrote this post several months ago, but am publishing it now:

If there’s one thing that gets people excited about movies, it’s menstruation, am I right?? Okay, maybe that’s wishful thinking, but I DO hope that after reading this post, I have motivated you to watch “Period. End of Sentence,” streaming now on Netflix. This short film won an Academy award in 2018, among other accolades, including an award at the Cleveland Film Fest. I’m very proud to say that my grandfather is the person who first told me about the movie, and I finally watched it, knowing it would be perfect for this month!

The film, directed by Rayka Zehtabchi, follows a local group of women in Hapur, India, as they learn how to operate a machine that makes low-cost and biodegradable sanitary pads which they sell to women at a low cost. This helps to improve hygiene and health as well as begins to shed the strong taboos and stigma in India surrounding menstruation. I knew of this phenomenon from the book “Periods Gone Public,” (which I discuss HERE) when author Jennifer Weiss-Wolf goes into extensive detail. Arunachalam Murugananthan, now a high-profile name in this work, is the creator of “the world’s foremost micro enterprise model: a manufacturing device and process for producing low-cost, locally made pads.” (Pg. 33). Period. End of Sentence shows Murugananthan demonstrating the use of his machine to the women in Hapur, who are then off and running. They start producing, using, and selling their sanitary pads. It’s cool to see a visual representation of what I read about.

Here are some other observations and what I learned from the film:

  • I knew that menstruation was stigmatized in parts of India, but I wasn’t sure just HOW taboo of a subject it was until I watched the movie. Men had no idea about the function of the menstrual cycle, what it was, or how often it occurred. They feigned ignorance at the mention of the word as well. Women and girls were embarrassed, bashful, and giggly when first asked about menstrual-related questions.
  • Many women didn’t know what sanitary pads were, or had never been able to afford them, before they started making and selling them. One of the women in the film says that “when there is a patriarchy, it takes a long time to talk about feminism, even among women,” and it also takes a long time for people to be able to talk about periods in both public and private spaces.
  • Women market and distribute their own pads. The women in Hapur decided to call their pads “fly,” because “we’ve worked very hard for women so we want them to rise and fly”
  • The process of marketing and selling pads is very community and grassroots based. Makers of the sanitary pads travel to different villages to demonstrate how to wear them and do absorbency tests. It was initially hard to sell pads to markets because they are so male-dominated, so the women began by selling door-to-door. Even then, sellers were greeted with a lot of laughter and embarrassment, but then women started to buy them, sometimes because buying pads from the store is seen as too embarrassing.
  • This is a first job for many of the women that are now making and distributing pads, and they are feeling financial freedom for the first time.

We know that stigma can lead to serious, harmful consequences. In “Periods Gone Public,” Weiss-Wolf writes that of 355 million people who menstruate in India, only 12 percent use any sanitary products at all (pg. 29), and goes on to say this:

“Entrenched stigma marginalizes menstruation and exacerbates the conditions of poverty, not only undermining the health and endangering the safety and lives of women and girls, but also curtailing their opportunities. This is, effectively, a denial of their equal chance to obtain an education, to acquire the tools to escape poverty and contribute to the economy, and to participate fully and productively in civic life.” (Pg. 31)

I really like that this film depicts a localized solution to the problem. Those of us who are not from India can’t fully understand the cultural stigmas and understandings around health. As Weiss-Wolf puts it, “in the case of menstruation, simple and local is very often a right-sized and optimal approach.” (Pg. 32) I think the best path for us to take is to support, advocate for, and cheer on the work that locals are doing in their own community, and do the same in ours. This leads me to my next blog post- I will be going into more depth surrounding menstruation in homeless shelters and prisons in the US. I do hope that you take the time to watch this film and learn more about this issue and innovative solutions.

For more, check out:
www.thepadproject.org

Sources:
“Period. End of Sentence”
Periods Gone Public by Jennifer Weiss-Wolf

“Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity”

Note: I wrote this toward the end of 2019, but have not posted it before:

I am pretty pumped fired up about the topic of menstrual equity. I have been collecting pads, tampons, and other period products since the beginning of November, and have gotten awesome response from friends and family. I love you all! The book that I chose to read is called “Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity,” by lawyer and menstrual activist Jennifer Weiss-Wolf. This book includes a pretty comprehensive examination of period poverty, or lack of adequate access to menstrual products. While reading the book I felt simultaneously enraged and hopeful, which is how I often feel reading about issues of inequality and potential solutions.

Menstruation is a great example of a topic that is so enmeshed in stigma that it seems revolutionary to even talk about. As Weiss-Wolf puts it on page 11, periods have been stigmatized for as long as patriarchy has been around. You cannot separate period stigma from patriarchy, and you cannot separate stigma from access to care. In the beginning chapters, Weiss-Wolf shares the history and epistemology of menstrual-related words and products. She shares damning passages from religious texts and contends that claims of weakness/impurity are exactly how menstruation has been leveraged as a means to exclude women from full civic participation- in the church as well as in society at large (pg. 7). Just think of the ridiculous claims people make as to why women would be too emotional in an high stakes role (meanwhile, our current so-called president is throwing tantrums on the daily but OKKKKKK).

Honestly I could write a long research paper about the topics in this book but I want you to read it for yourself and share it with all of your friends. I tend to get carried away writing so I will try to keep it short…or at least not too long. Weiss-Wolf takes us on a global journey, where rates of access to products are abysmal in some places. Let’s look at this quote from pg. 29:
“Around the globe on any given day, more than 8 hundred million people are menstruating. At least 5 hundred million lack adequate resources for managing their periods.”
This leads to people with periods missing out of education, being exiled from society, prone to disease or infection, and sometimes being forced to have transactional sex for products. This is a topic in itself, but Weiss-Wolf highlights some very cool innovations to try to curb these products. It’s important that there are localized solutions, because every community has its own unique cultural practices and barriers. One great example of this is in Coimbatore India, where a local husband and entrepreneur invented a simple machine to produce inexpensive and disposable pads. This has allowed many people access to menstrual products, as well as creating jobs in the area. Weiss-Wolf includes a couple other really cool innovations in different parts of the world, localized to fill a specific need for a universal problem.

Being a lawyer and policy maker, Weiss-Wolf creates a good balance between innovation/giving and creating systemic change by advocating for policy changes. In our country, almost every state has a tax on tampons, because they are not considered to be necessities in most tax codes. After reading the book, three areas on the national level that are in need of the most change are the following: access to products for the homeless, access to products for those in prison, and access for people who are transgender or gender nonconforming. Again, Weiss-Wolf shares ways to get products to people in need, as well as policy changes we can advocate for which guarantees access to all. The capital-T Truth is that no effort that individuals make will ever be enough- we have to change the system. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do all we can to give what we can to those in need.

Because of my background in women’s studies and women’s health, I feel I am a little more aware of issues of menstrual equity than the average citizen. But WOW there were so many eye-opening passages in this book. There are accounts and data about the experience of menstruating while homeless and while in prison. While I’ve thought about these issues before, I had never actually thought about the specifics. Like- what if you don’t have a tampon or pad? What if you don’t have access to privacy of any kind? The number of pads that people in prison receive on a monthly basis is abysmal. The most marginalized in our communities are not having their basic needs met, and this has dire consequences. Wow I could say SO much more about this. About just the stigma, the lack of public education related to menstruation and how that bleeds (get it?) into all policies related to women’s bodies (and people with vaginas). I could write a whole book looking specifically at homeless people with periods, or periods in prison, or having a period while trans in a country with LAWS ON THE BOOKS specifying archaic bathroom guidelines. I could write about menstrual access and education on a global level. But I am going to stop here for now and I sincerely hope that you check out this book for all the important information in it. I will be back to talk more about this soon, share about my donation drive (and hopefully inspire you to do one in your community!), and to give you information about policies that we can help to change.