Beautifully and fearfully made

On Thursday, women trainee clerks of Surat Municipal Hospital were, reportedly, made to strip and stand naked for a long period while women doctors conducted medical tests to determine their fitness. The tests included the invasive finger test also. The women trainee clerks were made to stand in a room in groups of 10 where the door was not shut properly and only a curtain barred the view from outside, Time of India newspaper reported on Friday.

This happened in Gujarat just a week after 68 girls in Shree Sahajanand Girls Institute in Bhuj, Kutch were forced to strip to prove their weren’t menstruating. This college run by the powerful Swaminarayan sect has strict rules to segregate menstruating girls and women from others during the course of their periods. They are forced to move to another room in the basement till their periods end. This system is accepted by the girls and their parents and most girls during TV interviews said that they didn’t have any problem with these rules. Investigations into the incident in Bhuj are ongoing.

But, even if the girls and their parents accept such misogynistic rules, it doesn’t make it right. The principal of the institute Rita Rangia in an interview said that when they questioned the girls they found that some of the girls had broken the rules and so saying she justified the segregation rules for menstruating girls in the institute.

Demeaning women

We are living in the year 2020. Isn’t it time we start questioning such archaic practices which are routinely followed in our homes citing religious norms and also to maintain ‘hygiene’?

Since the time I got my periods when I was in class VIII, I learnt that there was a big difference in the way families behaved with menstruating girls and women. While in my family nothing changed in routine life except that we took it a bit easy due to painful cramps during our monthly periods, there were lots of changes in the routine of many of my friends.

I found that girls in my class were not allowed to do puja, enter the kitchen, cook food or even serve food for themselves or to others while menstruating. They also could not touch the water pot even to get a glass of water for themselves. They used separate utensils to eat and were expected to sleep separately. This whole scenario was foreign to me. I found it extremely repulsive that my friends were being treated so harshly during their monthly menstruations. In their homes, even their brothers, cousins and other men would know they are having their periods and would tell them to stay far, calling them names. “Gandi, door rahe”, (Stay away, you dirty person) they were told. I thought this both demeaning and also unfair. I asked them to protest but they would say, “Hamare waha aisa hi hota hai. Yehi revaz hai” (This is what happens in our place. This is the custom here).

Shockingly, these practices continue in most homes in various degrees even today. Yet, most women accept it and don’t question it.

Many girls and women even told me the benefits of such practices. They say that it is a good practice as a woman gets a chance to rest and take it easy during her periods, otherwise she will have to work which can be difficult. But one should note that all over the world women continue to work and function normally during their menstruations and there is no real need to quarantine them for the duration of their periods. Women during these days are made to feel unclean. They cannot go to temples and are also barred from socio-religious festivals like dancing the garba during the Navratri, etc.

Most of us in India are aware of these practices but women haven’t spoken against this in a mass protest. Even most women groups have not taken it up in a serious way to eradicate this practice. In few progressive homes, these regressive practices don’t exist but there hasn’t been a mass movement to stop it like other regressive practices like Child Marriage, Sati etc, which have been stopped.

By belittling women every month you inherently demean her regularly which the society accepts as normal and which she also accepts as normal. That’s why when a woman is scolded or shouted at in public by any male family member it doesn’t even attract any undue attention. I have seen sons scolding their mothers in public over trivial things, calling them names and treating them as lesser humans. Sisters regularly get scolded publically by brothers and this is looked upon with a sense of approval. After all the brother is showing concern for his sister that is why he is scolding her for her own good. , When it comes to how men treat their wives in public, the lesser said the better it will be.

Rejecting patriarchy

In a long line of practices which are patriarchal in nature and which routinely demean women, considering a woman impure during her menstrual cycle is just one of the many things we take in our stride. We let society treat us as unclean when it’s known to all that a menstruating woman is normal. It means she is healthy and fit.

Similarly, treating women with disdain is just another form of patriarchy where women are considered lesser humans like in the case of women trainee clerks in Surat where they were made to stand naked in an unsecure room without a care for their discomfort. These incidents need to be stopped as they continue to demean a woman and treat her as if she has no agency in matters of her own body.

One can’t talk of empowering women and not question such incidents and practices which continue to treat women as lesser humans. Equality has to be at all levels, including in our homes because women are beautifully and fearfully made in the image and likeness of God just as a man is also made in God’s image and likeness.