Talking Uncomfortable: Issues Affiliated with Menstruation

Every woman gets her period, so as normal it should be to talk about memorial problems, it really isn’t. We have been successful as a society to spread awareness and knowledge about the same, yet deep down women haven’t yet been comfortable in sharing their reproductive health problems.

We treat our reproductive organs like shame, like they don’t deserve care and nourishment like other body organs, whereas in contrast owing to their delicacy and tenderness they deserve more attention from our side. With age the effects on these organs are seen first, and generally as we lead life, stress and worry play a key role.

Periods just become another synonym for ‘moodiness’ and we fail to see it as a problem. So why don’t we talk about it openly? Reports show that around 43% schools don’t talk about women related problems and seeing our country population 43% is a huge deal.

Nevertheless, men do have better understanding now but there’s always a scope for improvement. On asking my housemaid why she doesn’t talk to her husband about her health, she said she was raised in such a way to keep her problems to herself and not share it with her husband as it was her duty to give him no burden from her side.

Similar feedback was given by 2-3 other rural women who I asked. Now, in these changing times, our old outlook to deal with the latest problems must also undoubtedly change.

So, what we can do is, advise rural women not to raise their daughters like this. 2/3 women who I interviewed agreed with me the rest didn’t and preferred to continue not sharing problems with men. That’s okay but we must take small steps for eradicating women’s shame about reproductive health.