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Recently, I have been coming across news articles that discuss (with much figurative hand-wringing), the casual use of emergency contraceptives and abortion pills by young women. No doubt, serious health effects can arise due to the improper use of such pills for regular contraception – they are to be used very sparingly.
Many of the articles however mistakenly cite easy access to the pills as the reason for their too-frequent usage. Over the counter availability at the neighbourhood pharmacy may indeed help women buy them more easily, but that is not the fundamental reason for their misuse.
The fundamental reason is the abysmal quality of sex education in India. Most schools in India shy away from including a separate sex education module, even for older students from class 9-12 who are likely to be getting a good deal of information anyway (some of it wrong) from many sources. Forget a separate module on sex education – I remember my biology teacher breezing through the chapter on the human reproductive system, and actively discouraging questions. When this was the situation in a middle-class, urban school, can you imagine the level of sex education given out at poorer or rural schools with fewer resources?
No wonder, many women (and men) have a poor understanding of how fertilization actually occurs, what happens to the ovum at different stages and the impact of casual pill-popping on a woman’s body. Men may also feel little need to take responsibility since they do not bear the consequences of an unplanned pregnancy.
Nor can single women in India quite easily get the advice they need from gynaecologists. I first visited a gynaec when I was around 22 years old and single – and not for anything related to sex or reproduction. In the doctor’s waiting room, the nurse asked me loudly, “Single or Married?” and then gave me a long look when I said single. I slunk back to my seat, embarassed at the roomful of people looking at me.
Mind, I was living by myself, away from home, in a big city – and did not have to worry about whether I would meet someone I knew at the hospital or take anyone’s permission to see the doctor. How many young Indian women living at home or in small towns will feel comfortable visiting a gynaec?
The answer to getting people to use contraception in a more responsible manner is to give both young boys and girls proper sex education that includes information on respecting their bodies and of the nuts and bolts of sex, conception and contraception.
Schools hide this information fearing that “children will be spoilt” but the reality is that young people will continue to experiment regardless of what schools tell them. If easy access to pills is curtailed, people will find other ways to get them. More information is the answer, not less.
Founder & Chief Editor of Women's Web, Aparna believes in the power of ideas and conversations to create change. She has been writing since she was ten. In another life, she used to be read more...
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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