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.
